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time that happened, one of those actions had remained with him, even to that day, in the shape of a nose ring. It had been a small token given to him by a man whose life had been taken, and with his death, the once purely aesthetic symbol had become something far more important.
    He felt lightheaded when he finally got up, and had to lean against Nandi’s plates of armor to maintain his balance. His head hurt and it was full of regret, but something made him feel clean . Was it the rain?
    Maybe it was the view.
    Ezra grabbed the insulation blanket normally used to line the inside of a Creux’s Apse and, rolled, tossed it inside Nandi’s Apse. He could almost hear the Minotaur’s whisper coming from inside. Could it really just be the energy in its core?
    Ignoring the thoughts that made him feel even more alone, Ezra walked up the hill, trying to drink the rain that fell on the oasis almost like dust—in miniature particles. He climbed backward so he wouldn’t miss the view: there was something beautiful in the contrast before his eyes.
    To his left there was the giant green patch, covered in trees, a large body of water narrowing into a river that disappeared into the mountain. The whole thing was bathed in the light of a few golden rays that managed to pierce the thick, gray clouds.
    And to his right, only dead lands: cracked earth and the stench of death—reminders left by the creatures that caused the devastation. Those strange spires and stone arches, maybe carved by some kind of erosion he couldn’t really understand, further separated what he was seeing from the idea he had of what the planet used to be. Five hundred years of alien occupation had made a whole other world out of it.
    He sat down on the wet grass and looked at the landscape. In this solitude, nothing really made sense. Ezra could barely understand the chain of events that had placed a largely unremarkable person like himself there, where no human had set foot in centuries.
    Ezra clenched his jaw and began to cry, and he wasn’t even sure why. It wasn’t out of pain, and it certainly wasn’t out of joy; it was like his body just needed to cleanse itself of certain bad energies, and seeing the world literally torn in two before him, unsure of which of these two palettes of color he would see cover the world in the end—if he even saw the end at all—worked them all out.
    It was liberating and he felt no shame in it, until he discovered that he was not alone.
    “Mind if I join you?” said Garros, who was standing behind him. “I feel like we should probably talk.”
    Ezra wiped his eyes and didn’t say anything. Garros sat down a few feet down the hill, so they would see eye to eye.
    “I was just over there, enjoying the view. Something about it caught my eye—like, how strange it feels to see so much green at once. None of the others were big like this one, were they? I wonder what’s up with them.”
    “What do you mean?” asked Ezra.
    “I mean why do they exist, you know? By all accounts it doesn’t make any sense. The virus, the Laani, all these alien things respect these spots. Erin and I saw one a few days ago, just standing outside the oasis, afraid to come any closer even if it looked like it wanted to. And even underground, did you notice? The sudden turns the Tunnelers made—they were avoiding this area even on a subterranean level. And there are so many; there’s another one over there, and way over there.” He pointed toward the distance. “Guess we didn’t have a good vantage point of the land before. I’ll check Erin’s route; maybe we can see a trace of Kerek from here, if we climb a bit more. I don’t think it’s that far away now.”
    “I hope so,” Ezra said. “I’m tired of all this.”
    “Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, me too.”
    Having nothing to say, the wind spoke for Ezra. He only looked down at Garros.
    “How’s your face?” the man asked. Ezra noticed a red patch on the side of Garros’ jaw.