Spin the Dawn(50)

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It felt like forever before Edan called for a break. “We won’t take as many after today,” he warned me.

“I’m not…tired,” I said between breaths. “We can…keep…going.”

Edan cast me a knowing look. “Five minutes. Sit up straight and catch your breath.”

I rolled my neck back and stretched my legs, already sore from only an hour of riding. To my dismay, we were barely out of Niyan! I could still see the faint outline of the Summer Palace in the distance, tiny as a butterfly, its sloping golden roofs and scarlet gates bright specks before the expansive city. I gulped. “How many days until the Samarand Passage?”

“Three,” Edan replied. “But at the pace we’re going now, maybe seven.”

I winced.

“We’ll trade the horses for camels once we get there. The Halakmarat Desert begins on the cusp of A’landi’s borders; we’ll have to go some way into the desert if we hope to find a golden wheel spider.” He fished in a pocket for his map. “Deeper still to reach the Temple of the Sun.”

I stared at the map in disbelief. “Two months won’t be enough time to make this journey.”

“Trust me,” Edan said, rolling up the map. “It will be a little tight, but I’ve allowed for one or two…shortcuts.” He noted my skepticism. “Magical ones. You’ll see.”

I inhaled, basking in the cool breeze from the Jingan River. “I hope so.”

The Great Spice Road began wide. The farther we traveled, the narrower it became, but Edan was constantly ten paces ahead of me, so riding side by side was never an issue. We’d left early enough that traffic consisted of only a few local merchants pushing wheelbarrows, and it would only get lighter, since we were taking the southern fork of the Road through the Halakmarat Desert, which was less traveled and less patrolled.

Once I stopped worrying if I’d fall off Pumpkin every other minute, I ambitiously took out my needlework to work on a pattern for Lady Sarnai’s first dress. A futile endeavor. It was impossible to keep a steady hand while on horseback.

Frustrated, I gave up on sewing and watched the land around me change.

As we traveled deeper inland, the sun burned my back, gnats bit my fingers so many times they itched like mad, and the cool breeze from the river disappeared. I should have been miserable, but the landscape left me breathless. Rocks as red as the setting sun, lizards that dashed through the soft peaked dunes, their eyes bulging whenever they stopped to stare at me, and trees that grew shorter and shorter, until their roots lay supine over the coarse earth.

We stopped to make camp before sunset, and I was so exhausted I fell asleep soon after pitching my tent.

When I woke, night was fading, the first glimmers of the sun peeking over the horizon and shining through the folds of my tent. I rolled to my side and reached into my satchel for my brush and a piece of parchment.

    Dear Baba and Maia,

I think more and more of Finlei and Sendo these days now that I am traveling the Road. Last night, I slept under the stars for the first time since they went after the war. I woke once or twice in the middle of the night, sure Finlei had wrapped a blanket over my shoulders and Sendo was there at my side to comfort me with a story—the way he used to when I had a bad dream. But there was just sand, and the ghostly silence of this empty land.



I lifted my brush, not wanting to continue the letter on such a melancholy note. On the bottom of the page, I drew a picture of my horse and the sand dunes and lizards. Best not to mention Edan, who’d vanished into his tent just after dinner and still hadn’t awoken.

    We won’t have water for days in the desert. Imagine! Me in the desert, after growing up by Port Kamalan’s sea. I miss you so much, Baba. And Maia—thirty-eight steps.



I folded my letter in half. Blowing sand settled into the crease as I tucked the letter into my satchel. I’d been in the desert long enough to know it was useless trying to sweep it clean.

I crawled out of my tent then and laid my head back against the sand, watching the stars fade. Remembering that Finlei and Sendo were dead made me homesick for Port Kamalan, and here, wandering in the vast world, I somehow felt closer to Baba and Keton than I ever had in the palace. Strangely, even though I was bound to return to finish Lady Sarnai’s dresses, I’d never felt so free.

Two months of this lay ahead. I started counting the days, unsure of what was to come.



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The Samarand Passage rested on the fringe of the Halakmarat Desert, marked by two jutting rocks. It appeared to be nothing but a large expanse of sand, naked trees, and dying grass—but within was a small trading town. There we exchanged our horses for camels. I wasn’t sad to see Pumpkin go—four days in his company had left my thighs and knees blue with bruises. Now it really hurt to walk.

Seeing the Halakmarat Desert on the horizon—how large the sun was here—made my stomach flutter with excitement. This was the farthest west in A’landi I had ever been! Already I’d seen more of the world than I’d ever dreamed I would.

“Come,” Edan said, “we have a few stops to make.”

Edan pulled up his hood, and I did the same. The winds here were strong, carrying sand from the desert, and the arid air chafed my skin.