It’s around noon, shortly after their second break, when a blaze of light briefly consumes the skies behind them, casting shadows even in the daylight. They turn to look just as the blaze condenses to a pillar of pure-white light shooting up into the heavens from a point just over the horizon. Niko knows of nothing that could explain that pillar of light, but Inaya, Kirabo, and Aksil watch it with the quiet fatalism of people who’ve just found out that something they dreaded has happened.
