Chapter 33
Night fell over the desert as Bulgur led them to a desert outpost. The grains’ camp was small and easy to miss. If it hadn’t been for a fire in the middle of the camp, and the grains scattered around, moving and talking to each other, it would have been easy to keep walking past this place, mistaking it for an irregularity in the sand.
Several grains around the fire saw Bulgur and nodded to him. The fire crackled and threw ashes into the air. A column of smoke took them and carried them up into the sky.
Brocc took in the dark smell of the smoke and stared up at the night so full of stars. The sky arched overhead, a canvas of stars, planets and interstellar dust stretched over the lid of the desert.
It was cold. They had had to worry about the heat during the day, the constan
