The gates of Mahran lay behind him, but longing walked beside Arien, as persistent as the dust that clung to his feet. Each step on the dry path was an effort not to look back, yet the weight of memory was heavier than any baggage. When the village vanished on the horizon, he paused for a moment. The wind on his face no longer brought the smell of bread, nor the whispers of childhood—only the aridity that announced the desert ahead. With one last look behind, he tightened the leather pouch at his belt, feeling the fragment's pulse, and moved on. Silence transformed. It was no longer mourning: it was the call of the unknown. Kael'Zyth stretched before him, promising trials no one else could share.
Crossing that frontier was more than leaving a village behind—it was stepping over a threshold where the past began to dissolve into dust. The moist chill of dawn quickly faded, replaced by the heat rising from the ground, and Arien's known world vanished with every step, swallowed by the gray horizon.
It was thus, almost without noticing, that the first ray of sunlight found Arien already deep within the desert of Kael'Zyth, with heat weighing down on his shoulders like invisible pressure. The sand was not golden, as in old tales, but black and opaque, like the remnants of an ancestral fire that had never cooled. He walked in a straight line, though he knew direction meant little in that dry sea. Even the horizon was uncertain, always trembling with mirages suggesting towers, bones, or wells that vanished as soon as he approached.
With every step, his thoughts returned to Mahran. To what remained. To what was stolen.
There was no noise besides the muffled sound of boots against sand. There was no wind. The air was stagnant, as if time itself had stopped there, imprisoned by some ancient force. Deep in his chest, Arien felt something that hurt more than thirst: the fragment of the Static Flame, hidden in his leather pouch, throbbed like a heart out of sync.
Among the voices insisting on returning, one stood out in Arien's mind: that of old Khron, the hermit of Mahran. Almost a living legend, Khron was equally feared and respected—a man of deep eyes, always on the village margins, more shadow than flesh, keeper of old secrets and stories whispered around campfires. He had been the first to warn Arien about the dangers of the void and the flame, even when no one took the omen of tragedy seriously.
The memory of his words—"It's not the heat that kills, Arien. It's the emptiness it leaves. The static flame consumes what cannot be seen."—echoed so strongly that, for a moment, Arien didn't know if it was just a thought or if Khron was truly there, calling him.
At the time, he hadn't understood. But now, surrounded by a vastness where everything seemed dead and yet about to awaken, he began to grasp it.
Then, after hours of walking, he spotted something between two dunes: a hunched figure, wearing a cloak that shimmered like smoke. Arien approached slowly, fingers tightening around the hilt of his old traveler's blade, feeling the familiar metal warmed by the sun.
— "Who crosses the desert of embers without flame?" said the figure, in a low voice, almost rasped by time.
Arien recognized him instantly. Under the hood, the eyes of hermit Khron shone—the same eyes as when he visited him in Mahran to hear ancient tales. He looked unchanged. No older, no more fragile. Unmoving before time, as if belonging to another reality.
— "I came seeking answers, master," said Arien firmly. "I want to understand what destroyed my village. And why."
Khron did not smile. The expression on his face was resignation, as if he already knew what Arien would say, what he sought, what he carried.
He reached out and touched the boy's shoulder. It was a light touch, but Arien felt as if a silent spark ran down his spine. The sand beneath his feet seemed to tremble.
Khron: —"This is a place where truths do not scream. They whisper. And those who do not listen are devoured by what they thought they understood."
The old man watched Arien for a moment, as if recognizing something in the shadows.
Khron: —"To see the static flame, you must first cross the altar. This desert. Walk for seven hours without stopping. When night falls, look for the red stones. There is a hidden well there. Drink from its water. If you can."
Arien tightened his leather pouch, feeling the fragment pulsing inside, stronger than ever.
Arien: —"And what will I find after that?" he asked.
Khron took a few steps back, turning east.
Khron: —"An echo of what you lost. Maybe a piece of who you are. But remember: the desert gives nothing without a price. It only returns what you are ready to lose."
Without another word, the hermit vanished among the dunes, swallowed by dust and stagnant heat. Arien stood for a few seconds, feeling the weight of silence. Then he looked east, where the sunlight created a wall of heat on the horizon. He began to walk.
Time there distorted. The seven hours felt like days. Hunger came and went. Thirst never left him. And tiredness, though always present, was never enough to stop him. It was as if the desert tested him at every step, but never let him stop.
He saw things among the dunes. Shapes that weren't really there. Or that were, but did not see him. Creatures of sand, shadows crawling beneath the earth, distant eyes among half-buried crystals. At one point, he heard the familiar laughter of his sister and almost ran. But when he reached the source of the sound, he found only his own footprint being erased by the wind.
By dusk, the sky turned crimson, painting the horizon with streaks of light and blood. The day's heat began to wane, but left a feeling of stupor in the air. Arien advanced with heavy steps, his body weary, mind numbed by exhaustion and expectation. Every dune seemed the same as the last, but Khron's guidance echoed like an invisible compass.
The thin wind carried grains of sand that cut his face. Arien paused many times, searching the sky for a sign, but it was the shadows themselves that gradually drew more solid shapes on the ground. The land there was rougher, stones gaining hues from rust to deep red. Only when he reached the more reddish formations did his heart race—the landscape was different, older, as if it guarded a secret.
Between two of those stones, rising like desert sentinels, Arien saw a narrow crevice. The ground around it was covered with fine dust and signs of erosion. He knelt and, with his hands, began to dig anxiously, feeling under his fingers the cold texture of stone. Soon, he revealed the edge of a hidden well, as ancient as the legends Khron had whispered.
The water there was dark and cold, so still it only reflected the night itself onto his tired face. For a moment, Arien hesitated: he didn't know if what he felt was thirst or fear of the unknown, but his body demanded courage. He cupped the water in his hands and drank. The taste was strange, almost mineral, and as he swallowed, a deep chill ran through him, as if a current surged inside.
Then something awakened within him. An image burst into his mind: his family's house, still intact. His sister's laughter. His mother's voice calling him. All for a second. And then, the fire. The fire that did not burn. The flame that devoured without consuming.
Arien staggered back, steadying himself on the edge of the well. He instinctively reached for the leather pouch at his belt, feeling the Static Flame fragment pulse with a new intensity, as if it had awakened with his thirst. The fragment—carried from the village, was part of him, witness to every step in the desert and every memory recovered. It was not just a memory or hallucination. It was a calling. Something had awakened—within him and all around.
On the horizon, tiny lights began to flicker. They were not stars. They were far too close, shimmering like distant beacons or watchful eyes. For an instant, Arien did not know if they were mirages of his exhausted mind or true signs, but something in him recognized those glimmers. It was as if every step so far had led to this exact moment—as if the lights themselves were silent answers to the calling of the fragment and the memories he carried. They were signals. Marks left by something—or someone—that had been watching since the beginning.
At last, with steady knees and a racing heart, Arien stood up. He wiped his lips with his forearm and looked around: the last lights of dusk faded on the horizon while the sky darkened, tinged purple and red. Long shadows stretched over the dunes, and to the east, silhouettes of tall stones rose, marking the boundary between the dying day and the newborn night. The place Khron had indicated now seemed clearer, almost as if in answer to the call that had brought him there—and Arien understood that the well was not an end, but a doorway. That key, hidden under the sand and activated by the silent ritual of thirst, revealed paths once concealed, connecting his journey to the next stage. He felt part of something greater, led not just by the desert but by ancestral forces weaving his memory into the very road ahead.
And then he knew: he was no longer just walking through the desert. He was being led into it.
The fragment in his pouch vibrated as if answering the call of the distant lights. Arien felt his throat dry, but now it was not just physical thirst—it was the anticipation of something greater, of a path opened before him by the desert itself. With the old traveler's blade slung across his back, he adjusted the leather pouch at his belt, making sure the fragment was secure against his body. He took the first steps toward the unknown, guided not only by his senses but by the feeling that, just ahead, the desert would begin to speak with the voice of those long forgotten.