Rikan's voice was steady, patient, but sharp in its precision just like his sword strikes whenever we sparred.
"No, Micah. This mark here doesn't mean sand. It means endless sand. The difference in that tiny mark changes the meaning of an entire sentence."
I frowned at the page in front of me, the Blistering Sands script twisting like snakes across parchment reminded me of the Arabic script.
The wet ink shimmered faintly, as though mocking my struggles.
I muttered, "Why not just write a lot of sand instead?"
Rikan gave me a rare, almost amused look. "Because our ancestors liked to make things complicated."
"Your ancestors sound like assholes," I grumbled, drawing a line with my finger over the curved characters.
"You've learned to stab people with frightening efficiency," he countered smoothly, "but one curve on a page unsettles you?"
That got a laugh out of Jao, who was lounging on a rock nearby, sharpening his dagger instead of actually contributing.
