High above the sleeping expedition on the windswept eastern ridge, two cloaked figures stood silhouetted against the indigo desert sky.
The midnight wind howled through the narrow rock crevices of the upper bluff, whipping the hem of Cessy's dark mantle against the jagged basalt stones.
Down below in the shadowed canyon basin, the embers of the imperial expedition's campfires glowed like dying fireflies against the vast, desolate red gravel.
Beside her, Lucan leaned heavily against a weather-beaten monolith of black volcanic rock, his arms folded across his chest as a silver signet ring pulsed with faint crimson resonance.
"Your little biological experiment in the canyon was an unmitigated disaster, Cessy—a complete failure," Lucan muttered, his rasping voice barely carrying over the whistling gale.
