His slave brand wasn't gone. Red stared at the flesh that was slowly leeching life from his breath. It was partially fixed and would buy him time until they left the desert. The slaver's curse on the marking had gone off, but she'd managed to stop it from spreading.

Merin was the gift his God had sent him to fulfill his destiny. The first smile in countless years spread across the dour man's face. His cheeks ached from disuse as a robust roar of pleasure, joy, and rage burst from his chest in a cacophony of emotion.

"I'm going to kill them all." The man said with a sharp pointy smile. He was finally able to take revenge for his blood.

Red had never given up hope but was losing faith each day he toiled. His labor had paid off, and his prayers were answered. The empire that tore the world asunder would be ripped to pieces with his own palms.

"Yes," Merin said with a half smile to her silent partner.

The two were finally making a bit of progress in communication with each other. The language that Red was teaching her sounded bewitching. Each syllable flowed into the next. Her tongue was butchering it, but she was trying to learn.

What was even more remarkable was the small half-smile that graced Red's lips as he listened to her. The stoic man never smiled or even blinked when he faced danger. Her butchering the language he was teaching her shouldn't be enough to make him cock a half grin, but it was.

The two were resting during the hottest hours of the sun's blaze. They'd managed to find a rocky overtop that provided a couple feet of shade. Sometimes, finding places like this to rest during the journey made the trip worth it, Merin thought. She also enjoyed learning a way to communicate with Red.

He preferred to be called Red, not Aram. She was embarrassed when she found that out. One day, when he fully smiled, she'd ask him if his real name was what she thought it was.

For now, Merin enjoyed the peace that grew between them. They hadn't known each other for long, but a small bud of trust was growing. At least, she thought so. Red no longer slept with his shovel tightly grasped while sitting up. She now saw the man sprawled out with the shovel beside him instead.

It was a few baby steps of something that she could work with. She figured it was due to her stopping the rot of his arm from spreading. It wasn't completely cleared, she could still see the angry red brand, but it wasn't infected any longer. She'd give it another go when they were out of this cursed desert. She'd need complete access to her magic to obliterate the marking.

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Red was sharpening his shovel as he watched her go over the sounds for the word sun. It should be simple to convey, but this language was more complex than the handful she knew.

Time passed in this manner until it was finally time for them to start walking again.

"Let's go," Red said.

It wasn't fair that he was learning her native language quicker than she was learning whatever it was he spoke, Merin thought sour. He was brilliant and proved himself right whenever he told her something. It was a bitter pill for the ancient woman to swallow. She'd been the pinnacle of wisdom people traveled to speak to for hundreds of years. Now, she was no better than a piece of luggage and at the mercy of a taciturn man.

Merin feared complaining because Red was adept at picking up her words and deciphering them. So she thinned her lips and stood up quickly to follow after him.

This was clearly her penance for enjoying the length of her damned life.

They were finally almost out of the desert, but Red couldn't relax. Things hadn't gone smoothly, but by all accounts, they made it through with minimal trouble.

The slavers he expected to pop out of the sand had yet to appear. Not even a whisker of Shulga the rat was spotted.

The cursed beings were few and far. Red knew of only a handful, but they had seen only half of that number. As long as he didn't let Merin go further than five feet from him, trouble eluded the two.

Something about her seemed to set off a chain reaction whenever she escaped his eyes. He couldn't let her out of sight for a moment. Time had proven that.

Red looked at Merin, who he now viewed as his good luck charm. The woman was digging in the sand because she'd heard a noise. Could things have gone so smoothly because she was here?

His blood and ties to this land only granted him so much agency over the cursed creatures. That wasn't even considering that their food stores didn't disappear like they should have.

Merin stumbled into food safe for consumption too many times to count. It'd gotten to the point where he suspected she had a way of creating food.

If she did, she was hiding that from him. Merin was more competent than she acted. It was enough for him to reassess his initial conjecture about her.

His inner praise of her was almost wiped clean at the strange wriggling creature she held. It was a pangolin who'd been clearly trying to sleep. The gaunt armored creature cried in protest before rolling into a ball.

Sadly for it, Merin just kept it in her arms and proudly showed it to Red.

"Cute!" She said in broken Habrinon.

An uncontrollable smile grew on Red's lips, as always when she butchered Habrinon.

"It will taste good with the herbs you found this morning," Red said. He could imagine the meat and how it would work with said herbs. The thought made him hungry.

"We can't eat!" Merin said in broken Habrinon, squeezing the poor creature to her bosom before trotting off.

It was cute that she thought that that could save the thing, Red thought. He would let her keep the creature for now, but the moment they were low on food, it would be the first to go.