The desert was no longer silent.
Ronan stood at the edge of the dune, his hand resting on Ashur's mane. The animal was tense, his ears drawn back, eyes narrowed toward the place where the woman had vanished. Not a trace of her remained - no footprints, no rippling fabric in the wind, not even the scent of perfume or sweat. Nothing. As if she'd been drawn with smoke and erased by breath.
"She said my name," Ronan whispered, mostly to himself.
Ashur growled low in his throat.
Ronan turned his gaze to the sky. The stars above Telara were changing - he didn't know how he knew that, only that it was true. Constellations once constant now blinked like frightened eyes. And in the middle of it all, the faintest glimmer pulsed: Zodall, the Oldest Star, like a scar glowing in a wound that never healed.
He'd heard the stories. Everyone had.
The tale of a god who wept at what he created. Who could not destroy his children, so he burned himself into the sky to watch them. They said his light was made from sorrow, and his life was fed by the worst parts of the world - bloodshed, betrayal, cruelty.
Ronan had never believed it.
Until now.
The wind shifted, dry and angry, like it too had something to say. The dunes began to howl.
"We can't stay here," he muttered, adjusting the strap of his satchel. "Let's move, before the heat burns the thought out of us."
Ashur didn't argue. He never did. He simply walked, slow and heavy, his white fur already gathering dust. Side by side, they pushed onward across the sand, toward the shadow of a forgotten cliff that loomed like a broken tooth against the sky.
The canyon's mouth opened without welcome. It was narrow, with jagged walls rising high, like fingers trying to squeeze out the last bit of sunlight. Ronan stepped inside without hesitation. The cool hit him first - then the quiet.
No wind here. No stars. Just the drip of water far off, and the crunch of his boots on gravel.
He'd come here before - once, long ago, before he had names or ghosts. Before he'd seen cities die. Before Ashur. He had come here to bury something.
The memory stung.
There had been a girl. Not Morana - that name still felt like a blade against his tongue. This girl had been someone else.
Lira.
She had lived in a coastal village far from the empire. She smelled like salt and spice and rain. She had smiled too easily, and she had sung like she was remembering a better world. She had believed that kindness could fix broken things.
She had believed in him.
He remembered her eyes the night they killed her. Not with fear. Not with anger.
With apology.
She had whispered, "I'm sorry," as if her death was his burden.
And it was.
It always would be.
He crouched by the canyon wall, brushing dust away from a small pile of stones. A grave no one knew but him. He didn't say anything. Words were cheap here.
Ashur sat beside him, silent, as if he too remembered her.
After a while, Ronan stood. "Let's go. This place has nothing left to give."
He started deeper into the canyon. The walls narrowed. Symbols were carved into the rock - old ones, from a language that had no voice anymore. He touched them with his fingertips, feeling the grooves.
The same symbols had been on the shrine doors. And the mirrors. And in his dreams.
All connected.
The further they walked, the darker it became. And colder.
Too cold.
Ashur stopped, hackles rising.
Ronan reached for the hilt of the blade at his hip. "I feel it too."
A whisper slid down the walls like water. Not a voice. A memory of one.
"Turn back."
It wasn't a warning. It was a plea.
Ronan pressed on. He always did.
They emerged into a wide chamber hidden in the stone. Stalagmites rose like blackened teeth, and in the center of it all stood an altar. Cracked. Ancient. Drenched in the smell of ash.
The air here was thicker.
Ashur growled again, backing up.
Ronan stepped closer.
Symbols circled the altar. More of the same ancient script, though these looked more recent - as if someone had carved them by hand, not time.
And across the altar, burned into the stone, were nine numbers.
0 to 8.
Not ten. Nine.
The number 9 was missing. Erased. As if something had torn it out.
Ronan's brow furrowed.
He reached out - and the moment his hand touched the stone, the chamber flared with light.
Blinding. Violent.
And suddenly, he was elsewhere.
He stood in a hall made of mirrors.
Infinite. Unending. Each mirror held a moment, a memory, a face he did not know but felt he should.
One showed him as a child - afraid, covered in blood.
Another showed him with a crown, laughing on a throne made of iron and regret.
Another showed him dead in a gutter.
Another, older, showed a girl.
Morana.
But younger.
She was smiling. A real smile. Surrounded by books, her hair tied in golden ribbons.
And then another mirror.
A different world. A war-torn field.
She stood there, older now. Drenched in blood. Hands trembling. Her eyes blank.
"Make it stop," she whispered.
The mirror cracked.
Another showed her chained.
Another showed her burning.
And another - her screaming in a dark cathedral, clawing at the sky, her voice raw as she cursed the gods and begged for them to die with her.
Ronan watched in silence.
He didn't pity her. Not yet. But he saw the shape of her pain.
She hadn't started evil.
She had become it.
And maybe she hadn't wanted to.
Then came the final mirror.
No reflection.
Just the number 9.
It glowed softly.
Ronan reached out - and the entire hall shattered.
Glass and light and sound imploded into him, through him, tearing memory from bone.
He screamed.
Ashur's voice pulled him back.
He was back in the chamber.
Bleeding from the nose. On his knees. Ashur licking his face, frantic.
The altar had cracked.
The number 9 now glowed faintly on the stone.
Not carved.
Burned.
He staggered to his feet, gripping Ashur for balance. He looked around.
Something had changed.
A door had opened at the back of the chamber. Narrow. Lit by pale blue fire.
He didn't hesitate.
They entered.
The path led them to a massive underground library - columns of obsidian, shelves of stone, scrolls bound in skin. It smelled of rot and ink and secrets.
This was one of the old ones.
One of the hidden places.
He read the plaque above the entry arch.
The Archive of the Ninefold Flame.
So it was true. The whispers of hidden knowledge, of forbidden history. All of it real.
He stepped forward.
Books whispered. Scrolls shifted. A thousand forgotten voices stirred.
Ashur didn't enter.
He waited by the arch, unmoving.
"I won't be long," Ronan said.
He moved down the rows. Titles blinked in and out of language.
One caught his eye:
The Girl Born Before the End.
He pulled it.
The moment he opened it, he knew it was about Morana.
But not just her. About her origin. Her blood. Her curse.
The text was brutal, filled with terms he didn't know, but the meaning came anyway.
She had been part of an experiment. Not science. Ritual.
Nine children.
Each tied to a number.
Each bound to a concept.
One was Silence.
One was Fire.
One was Hunger.
Morana had been number 9.
She was tied to Ruin.
But not destruction.
Ruin - as in collapse. As in endings that spread. As in rot that smiles.
She hadn't chosen it.
They had made her for it.
And she had survived what the others hadn't.
Ronan closed the book.
His heart felt colder.
This wasn't just a girl with pain.
This was a girl who had been built from it.
He turned to leave - and saw her.
Standing in the archway.
Watching him.
Not a vision.
Not a ghost.
Real.
Morana.
She stepped into the blue firelight.
Her voice was calm.
"You found it," she said.
Ronan drew his blade. "I'm not here to talk."
She smiled. "Then listen."
He hesitated.
She stepped closer.
"I didn't ask to be born like this," she said. "But you're the only one who might understand. Because you weren't made to save the world, were you?"
He said nothing.
"You were made to watch it suffer."
Still, he was silent.
She looked up at the starless ceiling.
"I don't want to destroy it," she whispered. "I just want it to stop screaming."
Ronan's grip tightened.
"I don't forgive you," he said.
"You're not supposed to," she replied.
And then - she vanished.
Ashur howled.
The flames died.
And Ronan was left alone in the dark - holding a truth he hadn't asked for.
To be continued.