It was a cool evening with it being a bit of the desert heat wrapped around us like a heavy blanket. Dry and sharp was the wind that dragged sand across his skin. Each step felt slower, heavier. Far and wide the Cradle of Fire lay. A city which, once, it had, hidden under the rebuffs of centuries, was now a grave of stone and glass.
Lucian looked up through his eyes to the sun above. "This place was alive once?"
Serakha nodded. "It was bright. Warm. Full of voices. The First Betrayal started here."
Arden kicked a half-buried stone. "Hard to believe. And the sun has been trying to burn the truth away ever since…"
The Onyx Wolf padded forward sniffing the dry air. The rest of them were, to be blunt, comically incapable of resisting the heat, but its dark fur shimmered faintly better than the rest.
The wind changed as they entered into the ruins deeper. It carried whispers now. Faint, broken. Not language — memory.
"Keep walking," Serakha said quietly. "This place remembers pain."
