Ash Beneath the Salt

The Salt Flats stretched endlessly before them—a pale, cracked wasteland under a bruised sky. With each passing day, the terrain seemed to flatten even more, as if trying to erase itself from memory. No hills. No shadows. Just white. And the wind that spoke in ghost tongues.

The Dawnbreakers pressed onward.

According to Kael's topographic maps, they were two weeks out from Sevren's Gate, a fortified Lucent Alliance city-state nestled against the southern spires of the Ashen Range. The mountain winds would provide natural defense, and the city itself was known to shelter scouts and supply caches for resistance forces.

That was their goal.

If they could reach Sevren's Gate, they'd have a foothold. A staging ground. Maybe even allies.

If they could make it.

The day was harsh. The heat in the flats didn't come from the sun but from below—baking the air from the ground up, warping the light and cracking the salt. The sky above remained overcast, a strange, muted gray that hadn't changed for days.

Aera walked beside Elian, both of them at the front of the formation.

"You ever been to Sevren's Gate?" she asked.

Elian shook his head. "Only heard stories. It's one of the last cities with a true alliance council still intact. They've been holding out against Dezune incursions for years now. Somehow."

Aera glanced back at the long line of her squad marching silently. "You think they'll help us?"

"They'll help themselves. If we prove useful."

Aera smiled faintly. "Always so optimistic."

Elian gave her a sideways look. "You asked about the war once. Why people joined the Dezune Empire. Why others didn't. I didn't answer then."

Aera slowed her steps. "And now?"

Elian stared out across the salt.

"My father was a history professor. Before the war broke the world. He used to say every empire thinks they're the final one. The last needed. Dezune was born from desperation. The first world war shattered continents. The second destroyed half the oceans. By the third…people just wanted someone to win. Someone to stop it all."

He paused. "The Empire offered order. Even if it was brutal. People chose survival over freedom. Over morality."

Aera's gaze dropped to the white crust beneath her boots. "…So they just stopped caring?"

"They didn't stop. They couldn't afford to. Dezune offered food, safety, shelter. It wasn't hard to sell when the alternative was death. And when Dezune turned to conquest, those people followed. They wanted peace, but they wanted it now. And they were willing to burn everything to get it."

Aera's jaw tightened. "Then Kael…"

"He's the natural result," Elian said quietly. "A weapon shaped by the belief that peace can be engineered like a machine."

They walked in silence for a time, broken only by the crunch of boots on brittle crust and the occasional gust of wind.

Later, they crested a shallow rise—a rare break in the endless flat. Below, the landscape changed.

Jagged black stone rose like splinters from the earth, breaking through the salt in twisted shapes. A canyon, carved by something unnatural, split the flats like a wound.

"The Scour," Elian muttered. "Supposedly this was one of the first places Dezune tested their solar lances during the early war. The crust cracked, and the salt flowed in. Buried entire towns."

Aera stepped forward slowly.

From the edge of the rise, you could see bones. Half-fused into the salt. Human remains. Civilians, soldiers—who could tell? Their forms were stretched and deformed, flash-fossilized by unbearable heat.

The Dawnbreakers stood behind her in silent reverence.

"…We're walking on graves," she murmured.

Elian didn't argue.

That night, the squad made camp near a collapsed ridge, building a low barrier of salvaged metal and salt-crusted stone. Fires were forbidden—too risky. The heat from the salt crust kept them warm enough.

Aera sat alone for a while, watching the stars flicker faintly behind a thin veil of cloud.

She thought of Kael.

Of how far they'd come.

Of how different their roads were now.

And yet, they both walked through the same dead world.

She picked up a small stone and rolled it between her fingers. "I'll do better," she whispered to the wind. "Not because it's easier… but because it matters."

Behind her, the Dawnbreakers shared quiet stories, passing the time with laughter that was soft, but real.

Human.