The Blue Desert

Chapter Fourteen

Anan wasn't sure if it was morning or still night. The tent was barely lit, but she couldn't sleep any longer. The man had said that they would help her, but she was not sure how much she trusted them. How could that man, Silius, have been to Tria? No one left Vasda. And yet here were a people that she had never heard of.

Kevresh would know what to do. He would be happy to know of a people not subject to the king's rule. But if he were alive, they would not have met these desert dwellers. Oh, if only he were alive. Anan sighed and broke off her pacing.

Sinking to her knees, she tried to think. If she continued to think about her brother so often, she would never be able to concentrate on anything else. When she arrived in Tria, she could truly mourn, but for the moment she must not think about it. In Tria she could mourn with her mother's family.

The sound of the tent flap opening made Anan turn. Silius entered with his eyes downcast. In his hands was a bowl of the same food she had eaten the morning before. He handed it to her as he crouched down in front of her.

"It is dawn," he said quietly. His words were muffled by his face covering, and he seemed to realize it as well because he reached up and unlatched it.

Anan blinked as he studied her, as if he expected some reaction from her. His face was pale like his father's, but the skin around his eyes was tanned, creating a sudden contrast that was almost comical. Except his face was serious.

When she didn't respond, he spoke again. "The body of your brother has laid for a respectable time, but now it is time for him to be buried. We will do so, and then we will set out."

There was silence as Anan tried not to think hard about what he was saying, and Silius watched her. "You must eat," he said at last.

"I'm not hungry."

He gave a nod and stood. "Then we should go."

Anan set the bowl aside and grabbed her brother's bag and her own before following Silius out of the tent. He led her to the outskirts of the camp, in a direction she had never been. There was a crowd of people standing near a pile of sand and a pile of rocks. The people watched them approach in a silence that made Anan feel uncomfortable. They were all there because her brother had died. They did not know her or Kevresh, but they were there to watch him be buried.

Silius did not stop until they were at the foot of a hole in the sand, and then Anan realized that Kevresh lay in it, his body wrapped in cloth. At the head of the grave, a small fire was flickering beside the rock pile.

Silius gave a nod and men stepped forward with shovels. Anan watched as they dumped the sand over her brother's body, and he slowly disappeared beneath it. She gripped his bag tightly to keep herself from crying; it was the only thing she had that had been his. Except Vayta, but she did not know where he was.

"You are his only relative," Silius said softly. "You must place the rocks to mark his grave."

Anan walked forward with unsteady steps and sank to her knees beside the rock pile. Slowly, she began to transfer them onto the sand that was covering her brother's body, but she tried not to think of it that way. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Silius talking with his father, their hands moving quickly, and then Silius's voice joined the argument, but she couldn't hear what he was saying.

When she had finished her task, Anan stood back up on her shaky legs and waited to be told what to do next. After a few moments, as Anan noticed the flames sputtering out, the people gathered behind her began to disperse until she was the only one standing there. Turning, she saw the man with the pale face approaching her, but his son was not in sight.