The sun was finally starting to set. For having descended across the azure sky so quickly, the golden disc seemed almost reluctant to relinquish itself fully to the horizon.

Muna shaded her eyes as she gazed out across the desert city of Nigeb. There were sand coloured houses with flat mud roofs baked to a cracked hardness under the unforgiving light of this part of the land.

There were trees here, as one might have expected of a city this self-conscious of its own wealth and prosperity. The palms swayed in the gentle evening breeze, the fronds of their foliage sweeping sheathes of dust from the surrounding walls of tightly packed buildings.

There was a noise to the nightlife of this city, one that sounded like rattling coins and excited cries. The bells attached to the ankles of dancers rang out through the air. That night was a sacred one, reserved specifically for feasting and celebration. That evening, young boys and girls would dress up either as Munaika -the goddess of mercy, or Rakli - the god of punishment.

That particular day Muna found it fittingly amusing that she was named after the former deity.

Muna leaned out of her window in the darker part of town and tried to spot anyone in costume. Those representing Munaika would be painted white with red stripes, any potential Raklis would be green and gold.

"Come away from the window," Hani whispered from inside the room of the inn where they had managed to haggle an affordable price for a few nights.

"You should come and see," Muna breathed softly, "it's quite a festival out there."

"I'm not interested," Hani replied bluntly, causing Muna to smile. They may have been twins but Muna’s brother had always seemed so much younger than her. Muna was sure that she must have clawed her way out of her unfortunate and forgotten mother's womb before he had.

"I don't understand what there is to celebrate about public executions," Hani sniffed, causing Muna to turn round. Her back was to the city as she leaned on the sill and observed her brother as he played a solitary card game.

Hani's hair was almost black and iridescent, gentle curls trailed down his neck. His body was slender, perhaps even more so than Muna's, and his skin, like hers, was dark and golden. Hani frowned quizzically at Muna staring at him and she offered a wry smile back.

"The Trials are not executions," Muna commented.

"Of course they are," Hani snorted. "The Trials are when the council round up a load of criminals and stick them in a ring with twenty sorcerers in a fight to the death!"

Muna took a deep breath. She had only witnessed one occasion of city Trials before and it hadn't been pleasant. Much less a fair fight or anything vaguely resembling or pertaining to the concept of 'justice'.

Trials were really, exactly as Hani had said - public executions. It was a way for the cities to make a spectacle of wrongdoers and also to rake in money from the crowds such events would inevitably attract.

Muna and Hani had travelled through many towns in their twenty-one years and all of them had been the same - power-hungry, money-hungry and more often than not, genuinely hungry - or at least the poor were.

The land of Nagimiotani was a vast and magic filled world. Every citizen of the land possessed a degree of magical ability, although sorcerers were the ones who actually studied the supernatural arts and dedicated their lives to it. Powers could range from the simplest, most modest abilities, to the stuff of legends. Although, the latter was often just that.

Sorcerers were hired to perform Trials at least three times a year where they were asked to stand in a large sandy ring, a coliseum of sorts. Into that prepped and awaiting amphitheatre, would be released one of the criminals standing for trial.

The criminal could potentially be able to bend metal with their mind, or perhaps they could grow the sweetest smelling roses on command. Regardless of their level of power, the outcome was a predictable inevitability. No one stood a chance against twenty trained sorcerers.

"I suppose they are just executions," Muna mused, turning her thoughts over in her mind as some boys let off firecrackers in the street below.

"Have you seen this book?" Hani asked, pulling over a thick and dusty tome that Muna recognized from having sat on the room's singular bookshelf when they had first entered.

"What is it?" Muna frowned, drawing closer to her brother and settling down in the stained and weathered chaise-long opposite him.

"It's a history book," Hani smiled grimly, "detailing the different types of magical families and lineages - explaining how we are all born from white magic and the prism of our souls casts us in colours of varying abilities."

"Does it say anything about dark magic?" Muna asked with a wry smile.

Hani pulled a face at her as he dragged the book onto his lap and cracked it open. "I highly doubt it," he sighed, "the topic was banned in most literature for several centuries....oh, no - there's a page on it at the back!"

Muna sat forward with interest, listening intently as her brother began to read, a crease appearing on his otherwise smooth and unblemished forehead.

"Over time there have occasionally been those born purely from dark magic. Such anomalies in the cosmos carry with them curses and if discovered for their true nature, will often be destroyed first by the communities in which they reside..."

Hani paused to flick his large brown eyes up at Muna, "You want to hear more?"

"I want to hear all of it!" Muna laughed lightly. "You know how passionate I am about history."

Hani rolled his eyes as he traced his finger back across the page.

"Dark Magic can never be used for the purposes of good, as it is in itself, inherently deceitful and a profound insult to the natural order of things. Those born from dark magic may possess frightening and unnatural powers, yet they will rarely live beyond the age of eighteen, even if not discovered first by those born from white magic."

"And yet there are no official laws to discriminate against, or incarcerate anyone, born from dark magic," Muna trilled with a bored flick of her hand. "This is exactly the same as what was written in that stupid book I read back in Kadisk three months ago!"

"Well I guess there's not much information on the subject," Hani shrugged before looking at her curiously. "What's up with you tonight anyway? You seem..."

"What?" Muna curled her lips in amusement as Hani's eyes narrowed further, studying her with suspicion that could only come from a sibling who knew her every tell so well.

"More alert than usual perhaps," Hani finished, closing the book and placing it on the terracotta floor to nudge away with his foot before turning his attention back to his cards. "Where were you all afternoon? You said you were only going out to buy fruit."

"I visited the city prisons," Muna replied, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "I wanted to see the prisoners that are being sent to Trial tomorrow."

"I knew it," Hani growled, sweeping his cards up from the coffee table and glaring at Muna as he deftly reshuffled them. "We're in Nigeb specifically for the Trials aren't we? Why Muna? What the hell here could possibly interest you?"

"I heard about a certain prisoner," Muna replied tightly, "one of the men. He is of interest to me."

Hani screwed up his face with more confusion before obviously realising his sister wasn't going to divulge any more information. Hani threw the cards back down on the table, "Well I'm going to bed then, you just sit there and hatch your strange and inexplicable plans."

Muna smiled softly after him as Hani paced over to his own bed and pulled off the covers. It was a swelteringly hot night, far too warm for blankets. Despite the coldness of the desert outside, the city was aflame with anticipation of the upcoming bloodshed.