The cold woke him first. Not the soft warmth of dawn easing into camp, but the biting chill that clung to the dunes before sunrise, sharp enough to creep through cloth and skin.
Isan pushed himself upright, pulling his scarf higher over his mouth. The horizon still wore the deep indigo of night, its edge lined with the first thin cut of silver-gold light.
Shira was already moving, pacing slow, deliberate circles around the sandstone outcrop, his breath steaming faintly in the frigid air.
Daiana crouched by the remains of their fire, coaxing the embers back to life with a practiced patience, each exhale sending sparks chasing up into the dim sky.
She handed Isan a small tin cup of steaming water, the faint, bitter scent of desert root curling from it.
"We can't last on ration bars alone.", she murmured, her voice still husky with sleep. "And our water won't last till tomorrow."
Isan nodded, the heat from the cup seeping into his fingers. "We find it before the sun's high, or we'll lose more than we gain."
The desert was always hungry. It drank their sweat, their strength, their caution, and demanded it in payment in vigilance.
By the time the light turned from silver to gold, they were moving. They skirted the lowlands between ridges where the sand was firmer underfoot, the wind having carved shallow basins and narrow gullies. Isan's eyes swept for signs, darker sand where moisture slept beneath the surface, or the faint spiderweb of animal tracks that meant shelter nearby.
It was Daiana who found it: a hairline crack in the rock, so narrow it could have been missed if she'd blinked. A thin sheen of dampness clung to the stone. They dug in turns, fingers and small tools clawing away sand and grit until the trickle became a thin, steady thread of water.
The smell was faintly sour and cold. Daiana dropped a purifying seal into the pit, watching the paper glow faintly before fading to ash.
They filled every container they carried, then marked the spot with a small cairn of stones. In the desert, even the smallest source was worth remembering.
The hunt proved harder. Small creatures flickered ahead of their shadows - jerboas darting in quick arcs, lizards vanishing beneath the sand, the occasional flash of a hare's white tail.
Shira's ridiculous speed, without weights, proved its worth when he pinned one hare clean under his hands. By midday, they'd taken two hares and a thick-bodied desert lizard, enough for a real meal.
They soon found shade beneath the lee of a sandstone bluff. The fire was quick and low, the meat roasted until the smell of smoke masked the desert's dry tang. The hare was stringy, the lizard oily, but after the constant drag of ration bars, it was enough to steady them.
That rhythm carried through the afternoon: travel, pause, search, move again. By the time they made camp that night, another sheltered hollow in the shadow of a ridge, they'd added three more hares to their packs and replenished their water.
Shira still talked about the hare he'd caught, hands sketching the motion in the firelight. Daiana sat cross-legged beside him, unrolling a strip of parchment to record their route, each mark a quiet record of water, shelter, and the safest passes between dunes.
Isan listened without speaking, his eyes drawn to the black horizon. Above it, the stars spilled thick as sand, and the air felt like it held its breath. Two days down. Eight to go.
Not everyone was so fortunate.
That same afternoon, far to the south, Temari's team fought a losing battle with the wind. The sky had been sour bronze since midday, the air growing restless with each hour, until the storm came without warning, rolling over the ridges like a living wall.
It hit with a howl, sand striking exposed skin like a thousand needlepoints. The world shrank to a whirl of grit and shadow, the ground vanishing under their feet. Temari hunched low, scarf pulled so tight it pressed against her teeth, trying to keep her teammates in sight.
When the wind finally weakened, the silence felt wrong. Juro, the wind-blade trainee, was gone. Along with most of food packs and two of their water gourds.
Temari stared at the empty stretch of sand where he should have been, her eyes narrowing until they burned. She said nothing. Instead, she tightened her grip on her remaining teammate's shoulder."We keep moving.", she said.
But that night, with the cold seeping into their bones, her thoughts replayed it, not the theft, but the ease with which Juro had chosen himself over them with no hesitation and no shame.
The third day dawned with no mercy.
Even before sunrise, the air was heavy and close, clinging to the skin with the weight of midday heat. There was none of the fragile coolness that usually lingered in early hours. Each breath felt drier than the last, carrying the faint scent of sun-baked stone and the fine dust stirred by their own movements.
The wind, which had prowled around their camp all night, now lay still, a silence that somehow felt less comforting than its howl. Overhead, the sky was a clean, unbroken blue, with no hint of clouds to promise relief.
They were skirting the base of a ridge, keeping to the fractured rock for shade, when Daiana froze."Movement. Ahead.", she murmured, pointing toward a wavering shape in the shimmering heat.
Two figures resolved out of the mirage, stumbling, uneven in their stride. As they drew closer, the heat haze peeled away, and the details came clear.
Temari.
Her scarf hung loose, the ends fluttering weakly against her chest. Her skin was pale beneath the dust and sweat, and her face bore streaks of salt where perspiration had dried in the sun. Every step looked like it was measured against the risk of falling.
Her teammate was worse off, one arm limp at his side, his steps dragging, each movement a battle. Their canteens swung empty, light enough to clink hollowly with each step.
They didn't see Isan's group until Shira raised a hand in greeting. Temari's head snapped toward them. She stopped, swaying on her feet, then squared her shoulders as if willing herself to stand straighter.
"You're late to the party.", she rasped, voice hoarse with thirst.
Shira didn't bother with banter. "You're lucky we came at all.", He unslung his gourd and held it out.
Temari hesitated, not from distrust but from pride, before taking it. Her first swallow was sharp and desperate, the second slower, the third controlled. Her teammate drank without pause until Daiana's steady hand slowed the gourd in his grip.
"You'll need shade soon.", Daiana said, studying them both with a healer's eye.
Temari didn't argue.
They found a shallow curve in the ridge wall and stretched the tarp across it. The air beneath was barely cooler, but it was enough. They shared water in careful turns and rationed small bites of food. No one mentioned the missing teammate. Temari didn't offer the story, and the silence itself was answer enough.
When the shadows began to stretch and the heat eased, they packed up. At the fork in the dunes, Temari met Isan's gaze for a heartbeat, something in her eyes softened, the competitive edge blunted by a quieter respect. She didn't speak it aloud, and Isan was already scanning the sand ahead.
They turned, each group vanishing into the vastness, the wind erasing their tracks almost as soon as they were made.