In the desert

**Kelly Thompson's POV**

The desert bleeds.

Black sand cascades from the dunes like ash from a funeral pyre, each grain whispering secrets as it grinds against my boots. The twin suns hang low, their light a sickly amber that leaches color from the world. Eden walks ahead, his crow-feather coat molting, void-scarred fingers trailing through the sand. He carves symbols only he understands—circles within spirals, warnings or pleas.

Lila’s voice is a razor in the wind. *“You can’t outpace the inevitable, Stormbearer.”*

But here, inevitability wears new faces. The dunes shift, revealing fragments of a buried city—obsidian spires, their surfaces etched with wolves devouring their own tails. A civilization of teeth and hunger. Eden pauses at the base of a half-sunken archway, its keystone carved into a howling muzzle. “They knew the Weaver. Worshipped her.”