Arriving at the base of the first beacon, everyone looked like they were a step away from the grave.
The thing wasn't even impressive up close, just a towering slab of pale stone hammered into the sand like a nail, its surface scorched and pitted as if the desert itself had tried to chew on it and failed. But it cast a shadow, a real one, and that shadow might as well have been a palace.
The moment the group reached it, their bodies folded. Knees hit sand. Hands braced. Some people didn't even sit properly; they just collapsed wherever the shade touched them, as if the heat had been holding them upright out of spite and finally got bored.
Besides Kael, who seemed to have had better days, yes, but today was still not the worst he had experienced.
