The Sea of Silences was a misnomer. It was not silent at all. The wind hissed over the endless dunes, a constant, dry whisper that seeped into the mind. For Kael and his sister Lyra, it was the last leg of a desperate pilgrimage to the fabled Sun-Spire, seeking a cure for the wasting sickness that had gripped their village.Their water was gone, their skin cracked under the twin suns. Hope was a distant memory when the first mirage appeared. It wasn't an oasis. It was their father, who had vanished in this same desert years ago."Turn back," the shimmering