The dunes stretched endlessly, a sea of gold and rust under the twin suns’ unforgiving glare. Pyro Emberstrike adjusted the scarf over his nose, the fabric scratchy with sand and sweat. His boots sank into the shifting grains with every step, the weight of his quiver a constant reminder of how many arrows he’d wasted surviving this cursed desert.

  The Everstar Caravan rumbled behind him, its brass-plated hull shimmering like a mirage. He’d named it after the pendant that powered it a relic left by parents he’d never met. Today, it wheezed like an old man, steam sputtering from its smokestack. The Aetherium gauge flickered: **8%**.

  “Hold together,” he muttered, patting the caravan’s warm hull. “Just a little farther.”

  A flicker of movement ahead. A desert fox, its fur the color of ash, sniffed at a cracked cactus. Pyro nocked an arrow, the runes along his bow glowing faintly. He didn’t need fire for this just precision.

  *Wind.*

  The arrow whistled, slicing through the air with a gust that pinned the fox to the sand. Clean. Efficient. No wasted Flame.

  As he gutted the catch, his fingers brushed the journal tucked in his belt—a gift from Old Mara, his mentor. Her voice echoed in his head, sharp as ever: “Control the Flame, boy, or it’ll control you.” He’d failed that lesson spectacularly two weeks ago, reducing a bandit camp to cinders. The smell of burnt flesh still haunted him.

  He tossed the fox onto the caravan’s hearth. The fire hissed, devouring the offering.

  “You’re welcome,” he grumbled.

  By dusk, the gauge hit 5%.

  Pyro crouched at the edge of a dried-up oasis, chisel in hand, prying Aetherium shards from the brittle earth. The crystals glowed faintly, their light dimmed by centuries of decay. Not enough to fuel the Everstar, but enough to buy time.

  A shadow shifted.

  He froze. Three figures emerged from the heat haze—poachers, their faces wrapped in scarves, pickaxes slung over shoulders. The leader, a hulking brute with a serrated knife, grinned.

  “Well, well. A lone Kindled.”

  Pyro rose slowly, bow in hand. “Walk away.”

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  The brute laughed. “Or what? You’ll singe our eyebrows?”

  *Sand. Fire. Now.*

  Pyro loosed two arrows. The first exploded into a smokescreen of scorched sand; the second struck a poacher’s steam-powered rifle, overloading it with lightning. The man shrieked as sparks engulfed him.

  The leader lunged. Pyro sidestepped, but the knife grazed his arm, hot and sharp. He stumbled, firing blindly. A glass-tipped arrow shattered against rock, spraying shards that sent the poachers scrambling.

  “Crazy brat!” the leader spat, retreating into the dunes. “The desert’ll finish you!”

  Pyro slumped against the caravan, blood seeping through his sleeve. The gauge blinked: *3%.

  *No fuel. No time.*

  He glanced at the horizon, where a jagged black spire pierced the sky—the Shrine of Embers. Old Mara’s journal mentioned it. “Where the earth bleeds light,” she’d scribbled. “Beware the hungry shadows.”

  He gripped the steering lever. “One more mile, old girl.”

  The caravan groaned in reply.

  The shrine stank of ozone and forgotten prayers.

  Pyro’s boots echoed on cracked stone as he navigated the ruins. Murals lined the walls: robed figures offering flames to a star, a great wyrm coiled around a mountain, a shadowy hand shattering it all. His pendant pulsed, its heat searing his chest.

  At the altar, he found it a shard of crystal, glowing like a trapped star. An Eternal Shard.

  “Mara said they were myths,” he whispered.

  He touched it.

  Visions erupted a temple collapsing, a woman with white hair screaming, “Don’t let them take it!” A pendant, twin to his own, clutched in her hand. A man’s voice, desperate: “Protect him!”

  Pyro recoiled, the Shard burning his palm. His bow clattered to the floor.

  “What… what was that?”

  The shrine trembled. Sand rained from the ceiling.

  A low, guttural groan shook the walls.

  The beast erupted in a storm of sand and teeth—a juvenile sandworm, its segmented body thrashing, maw lined with crystalline fangs. Pyro scrambled back, nocking an ice arrow.

  *Too slow.*

  The worm lunged. He fired, the arrow freezing its jaws mid-strike. Ice spiderwebbed across its face, buying him seconds.

  “Ignite!” he screamed.

  The caravan roared to life outside, but the worm blocked the exit. Pyro vaulted over the altar, firing a fire arrow into its underbelly. The beast shrieked, molten ichor spraying.

  *Think. Think!*

  He spotted a fissure in the ceiling. A gravity arrow rare, unstable. He’d only crafted three.

  “Mara, if you’re watching… don’t laugh.”

  The arrow struck the ceiling. Stone groaned, then collapsed, crushing the worm’s tail. Pyro dove through the debris as the shrine imploded.

  Outside, he collapsed, coughing blood and sand. His bow lay in two pieces, snapped under the strain.

  The caravan’s gauge flashed: 1%.

  Night fell. Pyro huddled by the Everstar’s hearth, stitching his arm with shaking hands. The Shard glowed in his lap, its light pulsing like a heartbeat.

  *Find us.*

  The voice again.

  Suddenly a shadow blotted out the moons.

  “Took you long enough,” a woman drawled.

  Pyro looked up.

  She perched atop the caravan, hellfire dancing along her blade. Black hair whipped across her face, amber eyes sharp as knives. Scales glinted at her wrists.

  “Now,” The Woman said, leaping down, “let’s talk about that Shard.”