Final stop

Gra'akast

And there it was, in the distance, the Holy City of the Twin Gods and the capital of the Ozainae realm. The heart of the Great Desert of Skulls.

Alexis looks on with fascination as the merchants drop to their knees in thanks to their gods with jubilant cries, as the largest oasis she could have imagined existed, spreads in front of their caravan.

It is an ancient walled city at the shores of the pristine waters, fed by a river that she knows starts its life in glacial peaks of Fang. The contrast between the two neighbouring races could not be more acute.

~Close. So very close...~ the whispers come to her as sudden as a summer's breeze. She feels the head of the hammer hidden in the folds of her outfit grow heavy. As always when these thoughts take her, she casts her mind back to Tarmen and his fate.

So many times she wanted to turn back and seek her doomed companion, return to the Tarafit Sept, but the pull is relentless, as if having a will of its own. Relentlessly driving her forward. Towards the other half.

One of the merchants is talking but Alexis is hardly listening. To the west of the city she spots, a strange looking structure. A pillar of stone, like a finger from a buried fod, stretching, pointing into the skies.

~Obelisk...~ the word comes to her mind although she has never seen the likes of it. So absurdly tall that one would think that it would break under its own weight.

She realises the merchants are telling her she most be cautious in the city. To cover herself. To hide who she is. Where she is from. After a while still in a dream like state looking at the structure, they say their goodbyes wishing her luck and drive their animals and goods into the city's gate, while Alexis ponders her next move...