The wind rose at midday. It drove sheets of fine, powdery bitter salt across the camp like a blizzard of warm snow. The white dust seeped through every seam in the canvas. It settled over the wooden stools, the woolen blankets, and the pages of Tomas’s open notebook with a dry, whispering hiss.
Inside Kaelen Brant’s marquee, the air was dim, lit only by a single iron lamp burning bitter sheep fat. The flame sputtered and smoked, its wick crusted with salt dust that smelled of rancid fat and scorched wool.
Kaelen knelt on an old oxhide spread across the hard earth floor. He reached beneath his sleeping bench, pulled out a flat cedar box bound with blackened iron straps. Then he placed it on the rough pine plank between them. The wood of the box was dark with age, its grain deeply checked and weathered by fifteen years of desert drought. But the iron lock was well-kept, wiped with a trace of clean stone grease to keep the tumblers from seizing.
Kaelen produced a small brass key from a thong around his neck. He pushed in it into the keyhole, turned it with a firm, deliberate click. Then he lifted the heavy lid.
