Nyx had figured Bomani would just be some kind of rock and mudbrick construction. Maybe a collection of hovels arranged inside a stone circle. It’s not like she expected anything like civilization this far north, not behind a bloody-minded desert wall in the middle of some flesh-eating sea of sand. This place was nobody’s friend, least of all any collection of people. As they came to the edge of the forest of formations and gazed out to the rising dawn, she went still. There was a massive black conurbation blotting out a portion of the horizon. She peered at it. It was no derelict. This was… something else. Something constructed here? Not fallen… placed or grown. Nyx tried not to stare at it. It made her skin crawl. “That’s the place,” Safiyah said. “What is it?” “It is Bomani,” Safiyah said. “No, really,” Nyx said. “What the fuck is that? All right, what was that thing?
