Sonder found the heat, dryness, and sand easier to manage now.
She had grown used to it in Gloam, and now that she was out of it, heading west toward fairer lands, her pace was faster than when she had first come from the Tower of the Yellow Mage.
Little by little, the dunes gave way to stretches of cracked clay and thorny scrub.
She hoped that back in Gloam, Lacuna was being treated well by Thiliel and the others of House Nesh.
Aside from a few troubled thoughts, Sonder's journey was a quiet one.
The days and nights grew cooler as the dunes faded behind her, but she felt it only slightly.
Sometimes, when she felt like it, she checked the food Thiliel had given her.
They were a sort of jelly, each a different color, yellow, red, and dark blue, kept in small jars.
The yellow one was very sweet and thick, like honey but not quite.
The red was salty yet savory.
The blue one reminded Sonder of berries, though she didn't know what it truly was.
She didn't think Gloam had anywhere berries could grow, so that flavor, and the other two, remained a mystery.
She had thought she would miss the city, but she didn't.
And she liked having less sand in her hair.
What she noticed instead was the strange stillness that followed her.
After the first few days, she began to feel something.
A faint tug, deep in her chest, like another heartbeat, heavier than her own.
She ignored it at first, thinking it was stress or worry.
But as she moved westward, it grew stronger.
Sometimes it pulled her a step or two off the main road. Other times, she thought she could hear a hum that vanished as soon as she noticed it.
And thoughts she couldn't remember having pressed against her mind.
One evening, after she settled down for the night beside a cluster of low rocks, she took out the shard and held it in her palm.
It was darker than the night around her. It gave off nothing.
"Is it you?" she murmured.
The shard gave no answer.
Sonder wrapped it carefully in cloth and tucked it back inside her robe.
And for the first time in a long while, she tried to sleep.
But sleep did not come easily.
Partly because of her undead nature, and always trying to keep her mind occupied so she wouldn't lose track of time, and another part because of her worry for Vell, and her wariness of the shard.
Sometimes, it all felt like too much.