“You’ll warm soon enough,” Cion said, falling into step beside me.

I moved a few inches away. Anytime Rodric came that close, it was usually because he had some unpleasant surprise waiting. I didn’t trust Cion enough not to do the same or worse.

If Cion noticed my subtle movement away, he didn’t let on. He strode confidently over the hills such that even Tamlin would have been forced to admit the desert belonged to Cion. Where I had to trudge through the sand, it seemed to part for him.

I shook my head. There was no way that rumor was actually true. He was just more used to it than I was.

Still, I couldn’t help but eye him. Wind caught the ends of his loose, long hair. Dirt stained his skin. The last signs of youth had left his face and had been replaced by a hard jawline. His dark eyes hid what he was thinking. The corners of his mouth tugged upward, suggesting he laughed easily. I doubted I’d ever find out.

“Watch out for that yellow-spotted sand snake hole,” Cion said as he pointed to what looked like regular sand to me.

“That’s a yellow-spotted sand snake hole?” I asked, stopping to look.

“You can tell by the small depression in the sand,” he replied. “And if you want to get bitten, keep standing there.”

I jumped away from the hole, realizing for the first time how quickly I could’ve been killed out here on my own. My books and training had not prepared me for this. The drought had kept us all within the city walls—within close distance of the wells—for far too long. We’d lost our knowledge of the desert and its dangers.

“Keep an eye out for spiral cacti too,” he added, and kept walking.

I wanted to ask what a spiral cactus was, but I didn’t want to sound stupid.

But I couldn’t think of a single topic as we walked that would keep the conversation going, that would make us feel more like allies. Every subject we had in common would either be painful for me or painful for him.

Eventually I settled on the only safe topic I could think of. Training. “I thought we were going to train,” I said, “not go see the desert sights.”

“First we will condition. Your best bet is to tire Rodric out. He’s stronger with a blade, but you’ll be faster.”

I couldn’t argue with his logic, so either he was a good liar or he was actually going to train me.

“Who taught you?” I asked.

“Cintric. He was a wandering nomad. He knew every hideout, every danger, every route through the desert.”

“That’s how you get your caravans through?”

He turned toward me, an eyebrow raised. “If you’re trying to figure out our routes, I’ll never tell you.”

“I wasn’t,” I backtracked. “I’ve just always been curious how you found a route that is as safe as the royal caravan route.”