Speed
997 Words
They rode hard until the city fell away behind them, until the stars swallowed the sky and only desert wind howled through the canyons.
Saltana slipped in and out of consciousness, her arm swollen and ribs cracked. Every bump in the path wrung a moan from her lips, but she didn’t complain. She just clung to Kaelen’s belt with the kind of quiet strength that earned respect without asking for it.
Kaelen reined the horse to a stop beneath the ruins of a collapsed watchtower. A half-forgotten waystation from a war no one spoke of anymore.
Amara was already dismounting. “Here. This will do.”
Kaelen slid from the saddle and caught Saltana gently in his arms. She gritted her teeth, refusing to cry out.
Amara tossed him a flask. “Boil this with water. Apply it to her side. It'll numb the worst of it.”
Kaelen laid Saltana down inside the stone remnants of a sleeping chamber. He worked silently, trying not to show how his hands trembled — not with fear, but with guilt.
“I should’ve seen the trap,” he muttered.
“You couldn’t have,” Amara replied. “That old man’s been bought by three different factions. He sold pieces of truth like spices.”
Kaelen looked up at her. “Tell me. Now. Who am I, Amara? What was that scroll trying to say?”
Amara’s jaw clenched. She leaned against the wall, her voice low.
“You’re the son of a murdered legacy. The last blood heir of Aru’Shenu’s exiled chief — the one who refused to let the Flame be chained by crowns.”
Kaelen blinked. “That’s… that is not possible.”
“No,” Amara said, voice tight. “It’s dangerous.”
Kaelen stared into the flames he’d built for Saltana. They flickered blue, just barely — as if the truth itself had heard and answered.
“Then this box,” he whispered. “The one everyone’s chasing—”
“Is locked with a sigil that responds only to your flame.”
Kaelen breathed deeply, hand curled over his chest.
“And Zaria?”
“She’s more than your match,” Amara said. “She carries the Flame. And maybe… even remembers it.”
Kaelen looked at the stars.
“We need to find her.”
“We will.”
Behind them, Saltana stirred. “Next time,” she rasped, “you’re doing the running. I’ll take the swordplay.”
Kaelen gave a weak smile. “Deal.”
The city hadn’t seen a coronation in over thirty years.
And yet now, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder beneath silk banners and oil-lit terraces as Sahen stepped onto the obsidian dais, his cloak sweeping behind him like smoke caught in flame.
The Council bowed.
The crowd cheered.
But no one smiled harder than Sahen.
He wore his new title — Head of Security of Aru’Shenu — like it was stitched into his bones.
“Today,” he declared, “we no longer bow to fading legacies. We shape new ones.”
His voice rolled through the courtyard like thunder. Polished. Calculated. Eager to be worshipped.
In the back of the crowd, a small figure in grey robes watched. Silent. Still.
She didn’t cheer.
She just noted — and then disappeared into the flow of shadows behind the fountains.
Later that night, long after the last trumpet fell silent, Sahen descended into a place the city forgot.
A dry-walled cave, buried beneath the palace foundations. Older than the current regime. Older, even, than most maps.
Here, the stone sweated. The air tasted like iron.
And waiting within — seated atop a broken altar — was the hooded figure who had tortured Chief Tenem-Ra’s mind with fire and whispers.
His chain-veil now lay beside him. His hands rested calmly on his knees.
“You're late,” he said, without looking.
“I was being crowned,” Sahen replied, smirking. “It seemed rude to leave.”
The man’s voice remained still. “The girl resists.”
“She can't resist forever.” Sahen replied with a confident smirk on his face.
“Then you’ll lose her before she breaks.” The hooded figure said calmly.
Sahen’s eyes narrowed. “She’s carrying something. Something that belongs to the legacy line. We need her alive.”
“And the Chief?”
Sahen sighed. “Leave him. For now. His usefulness hasn’t expired.”
The hooded man finally looked up, and for a moment, the flame-brand on his left palm glowed red — briefly, faintly.
“You disappoint your father,” he said.
Sahen didn’t flinch.
“He disappointed himself first.”
Then Sahen stepped closer, voice low, sharp, almost intimate.
“Let Tenem-Ra live. But if he speaks to anyone again — even dreams of betrayal — I will end his bloodline myself.”
The hooded man nodded once.
“Then we continue.”
They both looked toward the far wall — where a mural half-carved in stone showed a sealed box ringed by flames. And below it, a phrase etched in the old tongue:
> “Only the heir who forgets his name can open the flame of memory.”
Elsewhere — far from the caves and the city and the broken towers — a girl stood at the edge of a cliff.
Her feet were bare. Her blade was still bloody.
The wind tangled her hair across her mask.
Behind her, two riders approached.
“She’s seen something,” one said.
The other dismounted. “She always does. She’s the one who heard it first.”
The masked woman looked back.
“The flame is waking,” she said. “Kaelen is only the first.”
“And the others?”
She turned, her face half-lit by the moon.
“Scattered. Sleeping. Or being hunted.”
She held out a rolled parchment — a list of names scorched into black vellum.
“And we might be out of time.”
- Writer
