Close to the Covert Rains **Book One**

Epilogue

The first thing Verspri did after opening his eyes was look up. The stillness quivered, like an electric wire inches from his touch. The moon hung a bare sliver, and a field of stars blanketed the cloudless sky above.

His gaze dropped. He sat cross-legged on a brown sandstone rock, and a faint breeze stirred small grains of sand around him. He shivered slightly, holding his knees closer to his chest. Not that it helped much. His damp clothes hardly retained any heat. He turned his gaze to a nearby fire, where everyone else was huddled from the creeping cold. But not just the cold of the night; no, the cold of knowing they were entirely alone, nineteen former students and one gravely injured teacher stranded in the desert, with barely any supplies.

Chanel hadn't made it. Her last act had been pushing Ryn, flickering on the edge of consciousness, through the portal. Then the portal winked out.

A single tear crashed to the rock below. She was dead because of him. Dead because he'd set a fire that'd raged wildly out of control.

Footsteps came up behind him, tapping the rock. He turned, opening his mouth to tell Ana, or maybe Mrs. Aterak, he didn't want to join them around the fire. But no one was there.

"We can win this fight, Verspri."

Verspri squinted. Did the stars and blank desert glimmer brighter, there, in the outline of a person?

"Kami?"