Night in the desert came without mercy. The sun didn't set; it collapsed. One moment the sky burned gold, and the next, shadows spilled across the dunes like spilled ink. Telara's desert was not silent after dark. It whispered. It scratched. It remembered.
Ronan did not sleep.
He sat beside a dying fire, his back against a stone that had once been part of a temple or a tomb. It was hard to tell. In Telara, those were often the same thing. The creature rested nearby, eyes closed, but not truly asleep. Its ears twitched at every movement, every distant cry of something hunting or fleeing. Its trust was cautious. Earned, not given.
Ronan watched the stars. Not out of wonder. He watched them the way soldiers watch the horizo — knowing that if something comes, it will come from there.
Telara had no constellations. At least, not anymore. The old ones had been forgotten or torn from the sky in some war so ancient it had no name. Now, people looked up and saw whatever they feared. Some saw ancestors. Others saw gods. Ronan saw judgment.
The creature stirred.
"You're not just a beast," he muttered. "You know that, don't you?"
It opened one eye. Glowed faintly. A soft orange, like dying embers. Then closed again.
Ronan tossed another bone into the fire. The flames cracked but didn't rise. Fire never burned high in cursed places.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"I need to name you."
The creature huffed.
"No," Ronan said. "Not to own you. Just so the world knows we walk together."
He waited.
The creature said nothing. But neither did it leave.
"Alright," Ronan whispered. "Then let the world call you Ashur."
The fire let out a single, sharp spark.
Ashur blinked once.
It was enough.
By dawn, they had moved on.
Ronan walked without looking back. The ruins would wait for another soul. Or perhaps bury themselves again, ashamed to have been seen. The desert had a way of reclaiming what it wasn't ready to share.
The two figures—man and beast—cut through the sand like old myths. Together, but never touching. Bound, yet separate. Ronan's shadow stretched long behind him, twisted by the rising sun.
He carried no map. Telara did not allow them. The land changed too often. Roads disappeared, cities moved, rivers dried. The only guide worth trusting was memory. And even that could betray you.
Still, he knew where he was going.
Not by name. There was no name for it anymore. But deep in the southern basin, where the land sank and the wind howled through broken spires, there was a gate.
A gate that opened only for those who had lost something irreplaceable.
And Ronan had lost many things.
They found the boy on the second night.
Or rather, the boy found them.
It was past midnight. Ashur stiffened first. Ronan turned, staff in hand. The fire crackled, and for a second, there was only wind.
Then came the coughing.
Dry, shallow, painful. From behind a nearby rock.
Ronan stood slowly. Stepped forward.
The boy looked about thirteen. Hair tangled with dust, skin cracked from sun and wind, and clothes torn into rags that barely held together. His eyes were wild. Not afraid, just… too used to being alone.
"Please," the boy rasped. "I didn't think anyone else was still…"
He stopped. His gaze fixed on Ashur.
Ashur bared teeth. Low growl.
Ronan held out a hand.
"Name," he said.
The boy hesitated.
"I… I think it was Elian."
"Think?"
"I haven't used it in a while."
Ronan gestured to the fire. The boy stepped closer, wary of Ashur but more afraid of the cold. Ronan gave him a small flask of water. Elian drank too fast. Coughing again. Ronan didn't stop him.
"You're alone?" Ronan asked.
Elian nodded. "My village… there was a sickness. Not one the priests knew. It came from the rain. Turned the river black. After that, people started… changing."
"What kind of changing?"
"They stopped sleeping. Stopped blinking. Started writing things into their skin."
Ronan's eyes narrowed.
"They drew circles," Elian whispered. "With teeth inside."
Ronan stood. Ashur rose with him.
"What?" Elian blinked. "What did I say?"
"You said enough."
He turned to leave.
"You're not going to help me?"
"I just did," Ronan said. "I let you live. Now run."
"But—"
"If they drew teeth," Ronan said quietly, "then something saw through them. Which means something might see through you. And I've walked too far to be seen."
He tossed a small bone charm to the boy. "Bury that at a crossroads. Before sunrise. It might buy your mind back."
Elian didn't argue. He grabbed it and vanished into the dark, barefoot and desperate.
Ronan sat again. Ashur looked at him.
"I know," he muttered. "I didn't like it either."
He didn't sleep for the rest of the night.
By the fourth day, the land began to crack.
The flat desert turned jagged. Stone erupted from the ground in broken formations, like the ribs of something too massive to name. Bones of an older Telara, back when gods still walked and the sky listened. Ronan climbed carefully, avoiding the edges where sand gave way to sudden falls.
Ashur moved ahead, silent but sure-footed.
At the peak of a black ridge, Ronan saw it.
Far below, half-swallowed by earth and shadow, stood a gate.
It was not made of wood or metal. It was made of names. Thousands of them, carved into stone, burned into rusted iron, whispered into bones tied to the frame with golden wire. Some names glowed. Others pulsed slowly, like hearts dreaming of blood.
Ashur growled.
"I know," Ronan said. "I hate it too."
The gate did not open with sound. It simply unfolded. Not a door, but a surrender. A recognition.
Ronan stepped through.
And the world changed.
The air inside the basin was colder. Not the cold of wind or night. The cold of places that do not forgive. The ground was slick with moss and bloodroot. The trees here grew sideways, drunk on strange light. Some whispered names as Ronan passed.
None of them were his.
Ashur did not like this place. He walked close now. Not for comfort. For protection.
They reached the shrine before dusk.
It had no roof. Only pillars, broken and bowed. At the center stood an altar shaped like a jaw, each tooth carved from a different stone. One of them was missing.
Ronan stepped forward. He reached into his coat.
Pulled out a tooth.
It gleamed black and green. Shifted as though it remembered being alive.
He placed it in the gap.
The altar screamed.
Not a noise. A memory, forced into his skull. He saw a mountain torn open. A city devoured by its own reflections. A woman screaming beneath a sky that had turned to blood.
And then… silence.
Ashur snarled.
The trees leaned in.
And from the shadows came a voice.
"You should not have come, Ronan of the Wastes."
Ronan turned. His hand was on the staff now.
A figure stepped into view. Robes of red ash. No face, only a veil of chain and bone.
"I don't follow your laws," Ronan said.
"This isn't law," the figure replied. "This is warning."
"I came for answers."
"And I came for a war."
Silence again.
Then the ground beneath the shrine cracked open.
And Ronan fell.
He awoke in darkness.
But it was not black. It shimmered with something older than light, as if stars had bled here once and left their secrets behind. He rose, slowly. His staff pulsed.
Ashur was not with him.
That scared him more than the voice.
From above, a whisper slithered down the walls.
"You've brought the key. But not the truth."
"I didn't come for truth," Ronan said. "Only the end."
"Then you've come to the wrong place."
Ronan looked up. His voice calm, but sharp.
"Where is Ashur?"
The shadows laughed. Not cruelly. Just… curious.
"The beast follows you because it remembers. Because it too lost something. You think it followed by accident?"
"What are you saying?"
"That the creature chose you."
And from the dark, Ronan saw them.
Eyes. Hundreds of them.
Not watching him.
Reading him.
To be continued.