The desert wind carried a taste of ash and rust. I'd been following it for six days—ever since the mercenary in Dareth whispered of a temple buried beneath the dunes, a temple that still breathed.
They said it belonged to a god who refused to die.
I wasn't sure I believed in gods anymore. But I believed in power.
By the time the storm died, I stood before a half-buried archway, the stone carved with symbols I couldn't read. The sand had swallowed half the entrance; the rest gaped like a broken mouth. My hands trembled—not from fear, but from hunger. Everything I'd ever lost pulsed in my chest. The exile, the blood, the blade I'd turned on my own commander.
If the stories were true, the fragment could erase all of it.
I lit a torch and stepped inside.
The air changed—thick, metallic, humming like a distant heart. The walls were covered in murals of people kneeling before a figure made of light. In the flicker of the flame, their faces looked almost alive, lips twisted in silent pleas.
Each step echoed too loudly.
At the base of a cracked statue, I found the altar. A small stone tablet lay there, its surface black as obsidian, veins of faint gold running through it. It looked ordinary, but the air around it pulsed, slow and steady.
I reached for it.
The moment my fingers brushed the stone, a shiver tore through me. Not pain—something deeper, sharper. Like memory, like desire. I saw flashes: a city of marble towers, burning skies, a figure watching me through the flames.
Then silence.
My knees hit the floor.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
A voice—soft, cold, and close—answered inside my head.
The first who dared to remember.
I jerked back, torchlight throwing wild shadows across the walls. The voice wasn't echo; it was inside me, layered like two tones striking the same note.
"What do you want?" I managed.
You sought power.
The stone pulsed once. Now you carry it.
Heat spread up my arm, crawling beneath the skin like molten thread. My veins glowed faintly gold, then faded. The torch hissed and went out. In the dark, I saw everything—the corridors beyond, the mural faces turning, eyes tracking me.
I ran.
Outside, the night was windless. The stars looked sharper, closer. My breath fogged in the desert air though it wasn't cold. The fragment hung from my hand, light bleeding through my fingers.
I wanted to drop it. I couldn't.
Every bargain demands a memory, the voice said. What will you offer?
I tried to throw it into the sand, but my arm froze mid-motion. A rush of images flooded me—my mother's face, the man I betrayed, the night I was exiled. One by one, the memories flickered like candles in the wind.
"No," I whispered. "Not that."
Then another.
The pain hit like a blade drawn through my mind. Something vanished—small, nameless. When I tried to remember my first teacher's voice, there was only silence.
And beneath that silence, something else moved.
By dawn I was miles from the temple. The fragment hung at my neck now, its light dim, heartbeat steady. I didn't remember tying it there.
A caravan road wound ahead, empty except for vultures circling far above. My hand still glowed faintly in the sunlight.
I told myself I'd find someone to remove it. Maybe the old priest in Kael. Maybe the scholars who still dared to speak the Immortal's name.
But when I closed my eyes, I saw the figure again—tall, faceless, watching me through smoke.
And I heard it whisper:
Six remain.
I stopped walking. The wind fell silent again, just like at the temple. The sand at my feet rippled outward, as if something beneath was breathing.
A second heartbeat answered mine from below.
I drew my blade.
The desert moved.