Blackfeather Woods amulet

The desert. Yes, you look it. His mouth took on a ragged and impish edge. There was a liminal smile that passed briefly over his face like a comet on an orbit incremented in centuries.

The long Egyptian face was dappled by saturated shadow. The golden genetics visible even in the half-light. He spat dryly. Pah, throne.

He turned his whittled face away, a muscle working in his jaw. Er khuniy zhargal ezgui kheer. Happiness is in empty mountains. The language still came easy to him; he wondered when it, if ever, would congeal.

I do not want happiness. I want more than that. The sun dipped further, now bisected by a cruel horizon. A sharp red flare danced where its disc met the Earth, lighting twin spots of flame in the hunter's sloe eyes.