Still. The Qazāli rebels drew Touraine’s eyes like a lodestone, and they squinted and scowled right back. The woman she had noticed, the old camel man, and three others. Five Qazāli prisoners, standing in loose dark trousers, stripped of the hoods and vests so many Qazāli wore, and chained together. Their curly hair clumped with dried sweat. The brown skin of their bare chests reddened and peeled. Brown skin, like hers, like most of the Sands’.

