The Whispering Dunes didn't scream or roar the way Elara had imagined.
They whispered---soft, slithering murmurs that grazed the edge of hearing like ghost fingers brushing her skin. Sometimes the voices sounded pleading, sometimes mocking. And sometimes----cruelly---they mimicked voices she thought she'd forgotten. Voices she had lost.
By the third day, even breathing felt like a betrayal to the silence around them.
Thorne's voice broke the heavy hush, low and sure.
"Don't listen too closely," he said, climbing the dune ahead of them, boots sinking deep. "The sand remembers voices. It borrows your regrets."
Talon laughed under his breath---a sharp, nervous sound.
"Well, that's just... charming."
No one else spoke. Words felt like stones in the throat.
Elara's steps slowed as a sound ghosted past her ear---her mother's voice. Not a full word. Just a melody. A hum from another lifetime, familiar enough to twist something inside her chest.
Vaelith fell into step beside her, silent for a moment before speaking, her voice roughened by old grief.
"You hear her too, don't you?"
Elara gave a tight nod, her throat thick.
"How do you make it stop?"
Vaelith shook her head.
"You don't." Her tone was neither cruel nor kind----just honest. "You just don't follow it."
The wind lifted again, stinging their faces with sharp grit. Nyra moved up front now, leading them with a length of thin, glowing silver chain trailing from her hand. It shimmered faintly even in the cursed twilight.
"Wyrmsteel," Nyra said, not turning. "Space bends here. The dunes lie to you. This keeps us anchored."
Elara found herself watching Nyra longer than necessary.
The woman moved like a shadow----efficient, clean, unhesitating. She asked for nothing. Offered no comfort. Only survival.
Maybe this is who I would've been, Elara thought, if I'd let the world cut me all the way down.
When night came, they found shelter inside the ribcage of a colossal, long-dead wyrm. Its bones arched overhead like the frame of a broken cathedral, and the wind screamed through its hollowed marrow.
The whispers grew worse here.
Kael settled beside her, unsheathing one of his knives to sharpen it against a whetstone with rhythmic, comforting strokes.
"Talk to me," he said without looking at her.
Elara hugged her knees tighter, her cloak wrapped around her like a shield.
"I see it every time I close my eyes," she murmured. "Kaemorath. The city. I don't even know it... but it knows me."
Kael set his blade aside and studied her, his expression softening.
"Maybe the sigil is waking memories that don't belong to you."
She met his gaze, searching for something----answers, comfort, anything.
"My mother's memories?"
"Maybe." His voice dropped to a murmur. "Or something older. The sigils... they're not just magic, Elara. They're echoes. They remember everyone who carried them. Every failure. Every triumph."
She swallowed hard. The desert air was too dry. Her chest hurt.
"Then maybe they'll tell me who I'm supposed to be," she whispered.
Kael smiled then---not the sharp, teasing grin he wore in battle, but something quieter. Sadder.
"You're already becoming her," he said.
A shiver ran through the wyrm bones, and they both went still.
Nyra was a blur of movement, her daggers flashing into her hands as she hissed, "We're not alone."
Figures stalked from the dunes---tall, gaunt things with blood-red brands burning on their sunken chests. Once men. Now nothing more than hollowed-out husks: Crimson Watchers.
Vaelith's eyes gleamed as she drew her twin swords.
"Finally," she growled, almost gleeful.
No one needed orders. They knew.
Elara felt the sigil ignite on her arm, silver fire flaring across her skin. Her sword leapt into her hand as naturally as breathing.
"Form up!" she shouted, voice cutting the thick air. "No fire spells. Moonsteel and shadow runes only!"
The fight exploded around them.
Thorne chanted under his breath, calling roots from deep beneath the sand, snaring Watchers by their legs and dragging them under. Talon carved symbols into the air with a snarl, blasting their enemies with concussive pulses that shattered bones and brands alike.
Kael danced between them, fast and merciless, a blur of blades and blood.
And Elara---
She stopped thinking. Stopped being afraid.
She became the fire that the Hunter's Moon had kindled in her.
Every swing of her blade sliced clean through the Watchers, silver light trailing behind like the tails of dying stars. She moved not to kill----but to protect. Her people. Her purpose.
The last Watcher fell with a gurgling hiss, its brand snuffed out like a dying coal.
Silence fell again.
But this time, it was earned.
They stood among the bloodied sand, breathing hard, their faces smeared with dust and shadow.
Talon leaned on his staff, looking around with wide, jittery eyes.
"Are they gone?"
Nyra cleaned her dagger with one efficient swipe across her sleeve.
"For now," she said. "But we made noise. That won't go unnoticed."
Elara slid her blade back into its sheath, chest heaving. Her gaze lifted to the moon rising, pale and heavy in the sky.
"We move," she said, voice hoarse but sure. "No rest tonight."
Vaelith sheathed her blades, watching Elara with an expression that was almost---almost---fond.
"You're starting to sound like your mother," she said quietly.
Elara didn't smile. Didn't even blink.
She just pulled her hood up against the cutting wind and began to walk---
toward the cold light of the moon,
toward the secrets buried in the bones of the world,
toward the person she was becoming.
And the whispers followed.
But Elara didn't listen.