The desert would not return to silence.
Even after the fighting stopped, Roku could still hear the infected humans breathing behind him.
Five of them lay scattered throughout the half-buried ruins, unconscious but alive. The dark branching veins that had covered their skin were fading, and the red-black glow beneath them had weakened to little more than an occasional pulse.
Solara moved between them, checking each person carefully.
Roku remained several yards away with both daggers drawn.
The surviving Hellfire Rebel lay unconscious near the canyon wall. Roku had bound his wrists and ankles with strips torn from the man's own coat before searching him.
Nothing.
No orders.
No identification.
No maps.
Only the broken-flame symbol across his armor.
The other Rebel was gone.
Nothing remained except ash blowing across the desert.
Roku looked toward the distant dunes.
Still nobody.
That bothered him more than anything.
Solara pressed two fingers against the infected woman's neck.
"Her pulse is getting stronger."
Roku glanced toward her.
"The infection?"
"Still there."
Solara carefully examined the dark veins.
"But it's weaker."
"Can you remove it?"
"I don't even know what it is."
She sat back on her heels.
"It doesn't feel like normal poison. There's Qi mixed into it, but something about it feels wrong."
"Like what they were using?"
Solara nodded.
"Similar."
Roku looked at the unconscious Hellfire Rebel.
"Then he knows what it is."
"Maybe."
Roku looked at her.
Solara smiled faintly.
"See? I can say maybe too."
"Good. You're learning."
She rolled her eyes.
Roku looked back at the five victims.
One still wore the remains of a Transmorra mission badge. Another wore torn merchant clothing.
They weren't soldiers.
They weren't Hellfire.
They were people who had been turned into weapons.
"We can't leave them."
"I know."
"We can't carry five people either."
"I know that too."
Solara looked toward the unconscious Rebel.
"And we have him."
Roku's expression hardened.
"He comes with us."
"You think he'll talk?"
"The first one did."
"The first one turned into ash before finishing."
Roku looked toward the dunes.
"Then we keep this one alive."
Neither of them said the obvious problem.
They had no idea how.
---
They moved everyone deeper into the ruins before sunrise.
Roku found the remains of an old wagon half buried beneath the sand. One side was cracked and both wheels looked ready to fall apart, but after an hour of reinforcement and several arguments with Solara about whether the thing could actually hold five people, they made it usable.
The infected humans were placed inside.
The Hellfire Rebel stayed against the wall.
Bound.
Separated from them.
Roku checked his restraints twice.
Solara noticed.
"You think he's waking up?"
"Eventually."
"And when he does?"
"We ask questions."
"Before or after you hit him?"
"Depends on his answers."
Solara sighed.
She returned to the wagon.
The infected woman suddenly moved.
Solara froze.
Her fingers twitched.
Then her eyes slowly opened.
Cloudy gray at first.
Gradually clearing.
"Easy," Solara whispered.
The woman jerked backward.
"Don't touch me!"
Solara immediately raised both hands.
"I won't."
The woman looked around wildly.
Her eyes found the others.
Then Roku.
Then the Hellfire Rebel.
Her entire body went rigid.
"No."
Solara followed her gaze.
"He can't hurt you right now."
"You don't know that."
Her voice trembled.
"You don't know what they do."
Roku approached.
"Then tell us."
The woman stared at him.
"We were coming from Transmorra."
"A mission?"
She nodded.
"Escort. It was supposed to be easy."
"What happened?"
"They blocked the road."
She touched the fading veins along her neck.
"They put something inside us."
Solara crouched.
"What?"
"I don't know."
"Poison?"
The woman shook her head.
"Qi."
Roku and Solara exchanged a glance.
The woman's breathing quickened.
"It burned. Then I could feel something inside me."
Solara's expression changed.
"The control?"
The woman nodded.
"I could see everything."
Her hands began trembling.
"I could feel my body moving. I could see myself attacking you."
Solara remembered the single word the woman had managed during the fight.
Help.
"You were conscious the whole time."
Tears gathered in the woman's eyes.
"Yes."
Behind them, one of the other victims groaned.
Then another.
They were waking up.
Solara turned toward them.
That was when Roku heard something behind him.
A quiet laugh.
He spun.
The Hellfire Rebel was awake.
His head remained lowered, but Roku could see the smile on his face.
Roku drew one dagger.
"How long have you been listening?"
The man slowly raised his head.
"Long enough."
Roku approached.
"What did you put inside them?"
The Rebel looked toward the wagon.
"You really thought it was gone?"
Solara froze.
The woman beside her whispered,
"No."
The Hellfire Rebel inhaled.
Something black-red moved beneath his skin.
Roku immediately rushed him.
Too late.
The Rebel's eyes turned completely black.
A pulse erupted from his body.
Not normal Qi.
Not External.
Not Internal.
Not Soul.
Something colder.
Wrong.
Solara felt it and recoiled.
"Abyssal Qi!"
The pulse swept through the ruins.
Every infected human screamed.
The fading veins across their bodies suddenly turned black again.
Red light surged beneath their skin.
Their backs arched.
Solara grabbed the woman.
"Fight it!"
"I can't!"
Her eyes clouded gray.
The red glow returned to her pupils.
All five infected humans turned toward Roku and Solara.
Together.
Roku looked at the Rebel.
"You son of a—"
The first infected man slammed into him.
Roku barely raised his arms before they crashed through the remains of a stone wall.
Solara opened both fans.
"Stop!"
The infected humans rushed her.
She threw up a Soul barrier.
Three bodies struck it simultaneously.
Golden light flashed through the ruins.
Solara slid backward.
The Hellfire Rebel laughed.
Roku shoved the infected man away and started toward him.
The Rebel's restraints fell into the sand.
Burned through.
Black Abyssal Qi crawled around his wrists.
Roku's eyes widened.
The man had been weakening the restraints while they were distracted.
Roku accelerated.
Lightning flashed around his feet.
Two infected humans threw themselves between them.
Roku stopped his dagger inches from one man's throat and twisted aside.
That hesitation was enough.
The Rebel ran.
"Roku!"
"I know!"
Roku knocked one infected attacker aside with the flat of his dagger and tried to pursue.
Another grabbed his cloak.
Roku turned and drove an elbow into the man's chest, but controlled the strike at the last moment.
He couldn't hit them the way he would hit a real enemy.
The Rebel knew that.
That was why he had infected them again.
Solara struggled behind her barrier.
"They're still conscious!"
Roku looked toward her.
"What?"
"I can feel them!"
Fear poured from the infected humans.
Pain.
Panic.
They were still trapped inside.
Still aware.
One infected woman was crying even while her body hammered both fists against Solara's barrier.
Roku looked toward the fleeing Rebel.
He was almost over the nearest dune.
Roku could chase him.
But if he did, Solara would be alone with five infected people she refused to hurt.
The decision lasted less than a second.
Roku turned away from the Rebel.
"Damn it."
He ran back toward Solara.
The Hellfire Rebel disappeared over the dune.
---
Without the Rebel nearby, the infected humans didn't immediately stop.
That was worse.
Whatever Abyssal Qi he had released remained inside them.
Roku and Solara spent several minutes fighting defensively, avoiding lethal strikes while trying to restrain five people who felt no concern for their own bodies.
Eventually their movements slowed.
Then one collapsed.
Another followed.
The red-black veins remained.
Solara caught the infected woman before she hit the ground.
Her eyes briefly cleared.
"Sorry…"
"You don't have anything to apologize for."
The woman went unconscious.
Solara lowered her carefully.
Roku stood nearby, breathing hard.
"He planned that."
"Yes."
"He woke up and waited."
"Yes."
"He used them because he knew we wouldn't kill them."
Solara looked at him.
"And it worked."
Roku hated that answer.
He looked toward the dune where the Rebel had disappeared.
They had lost their prisoner.
Worse, they had learned the infection didn't require constant control.
The Hellfire Rebel could reactivate it and leave.
Roku crouched beside one of the victims.
"Abyssal Qi."
Solara nodded.
"I'm sure."
"You've felt it before?"
"Enough to know that wasn't normal Qi."
Roku looked at the dark veins.
"So Hellfire is putting Abyssal Qi inside humans."
Solara's face tightened.
"We need to tell Keyla."
"And Dyrain."
Roku stood.
"Immediately."
---
They waited until the victims were stable enough to move.
None returned fully to normal this time.
The veins faded slightly, but they remained visible beneath their skin.
Whatever Hellfire had done was still inside them.
Solara stayed close to the wagon as Roku pulled it through the desert.
For a long time neither spoke.
Then Roku broke the silence.
"Did you feel it?"
Solara knew what he meant.
"The attack that killed the first Rebel?"
"Yes."
"I felt the attack."
Roku waited.
"But I didn't feel whoever fired it."
His expression hardened.
"You're sure?"
"I can sense emotions through walls. Through crowds. Sometimes across entire streets."
Solara looked toward the dark horizon.
"But whoever killed him had nothing."
"No intent?"
"Nothing."
Roku didn't like that.
"So either they can hide themselves perfectly…"
"Or there's something else we don't understand."
Roku looked back toward the unconscious infected humans.
Hellfire Rebels using Abyssal Qi.
Humans being infected.
A ritual.
Something called the Caged.
A weakening seal.
And someone powerful enough to kill a man from far beyond their senses.
"We need to report everything."
"To Keyla."
"And Dyrain."
Solara nodded.
Roku continued walking.
For several minutes, only the wagon wheels and desert wind could be heard.
Then Solara spoke.
"They could have killed us."
Roku knew who she meant.
The person who had fired the distant attack.
"They didn't."
"Why?"
Roku stared ahead.
"Maybe they weren't trying to."
Solara gave him a look.
"Now you're making it worse."
"I know."
---
Far behind them, someone stood on a ridge.
A lone figure watched Roku and Solara move across the moonlit desert with five infected humans behind them.
The Hellfire Rebel had already escaped in another direction.
The stranger made no effort to pursue him.
Instead, he crouched and pressed one gloved hand against the sand.
Fading traces of Qi moved through the desert beneath his palm.
Roku's lightning.
Solara's Soul Qi.
The infected humans.
And something else.
Abyssal Qi.
The stranger's expression changed.
"So they're using it openly now."
His fingers pressed deeper into the sand.
There was something familiar in Roku and Solara's movements too.
The restraint.
The control.
The way they protected each other without needing to speak.
He had seen that kind of training before.
One name came to mind.
"Dyrain."
A faint smile appeared.
"So you've been busy."
Then the desert trembled.
The stranger slowly stood.
Far beyond the dunes, a crimson glow pulsed beneath the sand.
Once.
Heavy.
Deep.
Like the heartbeat of something buried beneath the world.
His smile disappeared.
"The seal really is weakening."
For the first time, concern entered his voice.
His attention returned to Roku and Solara.
They knew about the infected now.
They had seen Abyssal Qi used by Hellfire.
They had heard about the Caged.
They knew about the ritual.
More than they were supposed to know.
But he still made no move toward them.
"Not yet."
The wind rose around him.
Sand swept across the ridge.
By the time it cleared, he was gone.
Far below, Roku suddenly looked back.
Solara noticed.
"What?"
Roku stared toward the distant ridge.
Nothing was there.
But that strange feeling had returned.
The feeling that the desert had eyes.
"Nothing."
Solara looked at him.
"You don't believe that."
"No."
Roku faced forward again and kept moving.
Their prisoner was gone.
Their five witnesses were still infected.
But they had learned something far more dangerous than anything Hellfire could have told them willingly.
The missing warriors weren't simply being killed.
Some of them were being turned into weapons.
And Hellfire had found a way to put Abyssal Qi inside them.