The desert was dying.
It began quietly, like the fading breath of something vast. The sand was no longer gold but gray and heavy, clinging to his boots like dust soaked in oil. When he looked down, it seemed to move on its own, pulsing faintly, as if the ground itself was alive but suffocating.
There was no wind.
No sound.
Only silence, thick and patient, pressing against his chest.
Orien walked without knowing why. The sun hung motionless above him, pale and sickly, its light stripped of warmth. The world had turned flat, drained of color.
Each step carried him deeper into a wasteland that no longer belonged to men.
His body ached. His throat was dry. Yet something beneath his ribs pushed him forward, a pulse of heat that answered to the mark carved into his heart. The mark of the Hunt. It throbbed softly, guiding him, whispering through every nerve that there was still something ahead worth finding.
He did not know whether to believe it.
After some time, the stillness broke. The air began to tremble, vibrating with a low hum that Orien could feel in his bones. He stopped, his eyes narrowing against the dim horizon.
At first, he thought it was smoke.
Then he realized it was alive.
The sky was filled with wings.
A storm of creatures moved as one, dark and fluid, blotting out the sun. They shrieked as they flew, a chorus of hollow cries that echoed over the empty desert. Their wings caught the light in flashes of violet and black, like shards of night twisting together.
Orien stared, breathless. There was terror in the sight, but beauty too. The beauty of something that should not exist.
"Where are you going?" he whispered to no one.
He began to follow.
He didn't decide to move. His body simply obeyed the pull inside him, as though the mark beneath his skin longed to chase what his eyes could not understand.
Time lost meaning again. The dunes grew steeper, then gave way to stone. The sand turned brittle underfoot. The color of the sky shifted to a pale silver, and every breath stung like frost.
Then the horizon split apart.
A white light erupted from the distance. It consumed everything, swallowing shadow and air alike. The ground turned to glass beneath his feet.
He raised a hand to shield his eyes.
In that frozen instant, he saw her.
A figure suspended in the air, framed by the light. Her hair was gold. Her armor shone like polished ice. She moved with impossible grace, and in her hand spun a lance of frost that left trails of frozen air wherever it passed.
Every motion of her weapon carved circles of death through the swarm above. The monsters broke apart, falling as glittering dust.
It was too much. Too beautiful. Too alien.
"So that's what real power looks like," Orien breathed.
Then his body stiffened.
The Hunter's Sense flared to life inside his mind.
Danger. Close.
He spun.
A silver blade cut through the air where his head had been an instant before. Strands of his hair floated down into the sand.
He turned sharply, ready to strike, but what he saw made him stop.
A woman stood a few paces away.
Her hair was long and black, rippling like liquid shadow in the pale light. Her skin was the color of jade, smooth and faintly luminous, as though the moon itself had touched her. Her eyes were deep violet, calm and cold, yet filled with something alive.
She held a slender sword. The edge still hummed from the swing that had nearly killed him.
They stood there for a moment, unmoving. The desert around them was perfectly still.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet but sharp, like water cutting through glass.
"You're not a monster."
Orien exhaled slowly. "Good to know. Maybe next time you can check without trying to decapitate me."
The faintest trace of a smile crossed her face before fading again.
"You came from the south."
"I came from what's left of it," he said. "I'm looking for a city. Somewhere people still breathe."
She studied him for a long time. Her gaze lingered on the scars, the exhaustion, the faint golden light still pulsing beneath his skin.
"There is a city," she said at last. "Far east. The Capital."
He hesitated. "And you're offering to take me there?"
"I'm offering you a chance to reach it alive."
She turned and began to walk.
He followed.
They moved together through the wasteland. The silence between them was strange, not hostile but heavy, filled with things neither of them wanted to name. The air grew colder. The ground hardened beneath their boots. In the distance, a shape waited, half-buried in ash and dust.
It was not a building. It was a machine.
Metal and shadow fused together, shaped like a crouching beast. The surface was scarred, pitted, yet faintly alive. When the woman placed her hand on it, the vehicle shuddered and exhaled a deep mechanical growl.
"Get in," she said.
Orien stepped closer, the heat of the engine brushing against his legs. "Is it safe?"
"No," she answered. "But safer than walking."
He climbed inside.
The air was thick with the scent of oil and smoke. Two others were already there. The driver, his face hidden beneath a black scarf, stared straight ahead without a word. Beside him, another man slept, his bare chest covered in old scars that caught the dim light like lines of silver.
The woman entered last, sitting across from Orien. The door closed, sealing the silence in.
The engine roared. The machine surged forward, the wheels grinding through layers of ash.
Outside the window, the desert blurred into endless gray.
Orien leaned back, exhaustion clawing at the edges of his mind. For the first time in days, he was not walking.
He turned his head toward her.
"So," he said quietly, "what do I call you?"
She kept her eyes on the horizon.
"Cassandra."
He nodded slowly. "Thanks for the ride."
Her answer came almost as a whisper. "Don't thank me yet."
The vehicle roared on, swallowing the silence of the desert.
For the first time in a long while, Orien was not alone.
***
The machine roared softly as it carved a path through the dead sands.
From his seat by the window, Orien watched the last fragments of the storm fade into the horizon.
Above the dying dunes, the woman of light was still there — the one with the silver armor and the golden hair.
Her lance shimmered like frozen sunlight. Each movement erased swaths of the sky, slicing through the dark swarm that filled it. Thousands of black-winged creatures fell in showers of frost and ash.
Even from this distance, the sheer power of it made Orien's skin crawl.
He spoke without realizing it.
"Who is she?"
Across from him, Cassandra lifted her gaze from her gloved hands. Her violet eyes followed his through the window.
Her expression didn't change when she answered.
"A Hero."
The word struck something deep inside him.
"A Hero?" he repeated. "You mean… above the Transcendents?"
She nodded once.
"There are seven of them. The Seven Heroes of the Capital. They stand above all others — the highest rank recognized by the Council of Soléara. Each one is said to hold the strength of an army. Some say they're not even human anymore."
Orien didn't know what to say.
The words felt too heavy, too unreal.
He'd grown up among sand and bones, in the hollow ribs of a dead leviathan.
And now, in the same world, there existed beings who could tear the sky apart.
"She's one of them?"
Cassandra nodded again.
"Lady Lysandra. The Spear of Frost."
He whispered the name quietly, almost reverently. It didn't sound like something belonging to a person. More like the title of a myth.
For a while, no one spoke.
The hum of the engine filled the silence, steady and comforting in its monotony.
Outside, the last glimmers of twilight bled across the plain, painting everything in fading shades of violet and gray.
At last, Orien turned from the window.
"And what about you?"
Cassandra looked at him, her eyes unreadable.
"What about me?"
"You're… one of them too, aren't you?"
Her lips curved faintly.
"Something like that."
"That's not really an answer," he said, squinting.
"It's the only one you'll get."
He sighed, leaning back. "You're worse than the Voice of Wisdom."
She tilted her head slightly. "You talk too much."
"Yeah, I get that a lot."
---
Time slipped by. The vehicle rumbled through the changing landscape — from dead dunes to fractured rock, from ash to soil that seemed to breathe. Ruins passed by the window: towers half-buried, skeletons of machines long rusted and forgotten.
Orien couldn't look away.
He pressed his palm against the glass, eyes wide, as though afraid the vision would disappear.
"So this… this is the world outside," he murmured. "I thought there was nothing beyond the sands."
A voice spoke from the front seat. Deep, rough, patient.
"You're from the Bastion, kid?"
Orien blinked. He hadn't realized the driver could hear him over the hum of the engine.
"Yeah," he said. "The Bastion of Bones. Or what's left of it."
The man turned his head slightly. Beneath the dark scarf covering most of his face, Orien glimpsed a pair of tired brown eyes.
"Then you're either blessed… or cursed. Hard to tell the difference these days."
"And you are?"
"Seth," the man said simply.
"Initiate. Like you, I suppose. But I don't hunt monsters. I build things. Fix things. Keep us moving."
"You're an Initiate and you… work with machines?"
Seth gave a soft chuckle. "Someone has to. Power doesn't matter much if your wheels fall apart halfway to civilization."
Orien smiled faintly. "You seem calmer than most awakened people I've met."
"Calm?" Seth laughed again, low and brief. "Wait until you see the Capital. You'll change your mind."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was the kind that belonged to travelers — quiet, shared, and alive.
Orien leaned his head against the cool glass. The vibration of the engine hummed through his bones.
A sharp smell reached his nose. Bitter. Acrid.
Cassandra shifted beside him, her expression subtly tightening.
"Did you roll in a monster carcass, or is that your natural scent?"
He opened one eye.
"I haven't exactly had the chance to bathe since… the end of the world."
Her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, not quite disapproval.
From the back seat came a low growl.
The man who had been sleeping stirred, his face twisting in irritation.
"What in the abyss is that smell?" he muttered, sitting up. His eyes locked on Orien.
"Ah. Of course. It's you. You smell like you fought something and lost."
Orien raised his hands defensively. "Nice to meet you too."
Cassandra crossed her legs, a faint smirk on her lips.
"See? I wasn't the only one who noticed."
Seth's voice drifted from the front, dry and amused.
"Hold on, kid. We'll reach the northern roads soon. Maybe the wind will fix that problem for us."
"Very funny," Orien muttered.
But he was smiling now — a small, weary smile that felt almost foreign on his face.
For the first time in days, maybe weeks, he wasn't walking alone.
The weight in his chest eased, just a little.
He rested his head against the glass, watching the horizon blur by.
The mark of the Hunt pulsed faintly beneath his skin, warm and alive.
The road to Soléara had begun.