Of Flame, Sand, and Gold

Chapter 5

The Dust Quarter didn’t get its name from sand.

It came from what remained after things burned.

Kaelen walked its narrow lanes with his hood low, the fabric damp from morning fog and the scent of char and coal thick in the air. These streets tolerated visitors in a way that seemed like they weren't welcomed at all. Like wounds that never truly closed, only scabbed over until the next cut.

Saltana followed quietly, wrapped in a simple cloak, her posture tense but composed. She hadn’t asked many questions since they left the safehouse, and Kaelen hadn’t offered much.

She was smarter than she looked. She didn’t speak to fill the silence.

“I thought you were just a thief,” she said softly as they turned down an alley of broken brick.

Kaelen glanced at her. “I’m not a thief.”

“Right. A ‘messenger.’ Who walks like a soldier and bleeds like he’s done it before.”

He didn’t reply.

“Who are you really?” she asked, her voice quieter now. “Because if I’m going to be hunted for walking beside you, I’d at least like to know the name in the bounty.”

Kaelen didn’t stop walking. “I don’t remember everything,” he admitted. “There are pieces missing. Gaps in my mind. Names I can’t place. Faces that feel too familiar. Right now, there are very few I can trust”

Saltana didn’t speak right away. Then: “That sounds... lonely.”

“It is.”

They reached the contact’s location; a half-collapsed bookshop sunken into the street, its sign scorched and unreadable. Inside, the air was thick with mold and ink and the slow decay of memory.

An old man emerged from behind a curtain of beaded chains. His skin was papery; his left eye was filmed over. But his voice was clear when he spoke.

“You’ve come for answers.”

Kaelen stepped forward. “I’ve come for my wife.”

“Then you’ll have to go through your past first,” the man said. “And your blood.”

Kaelen’s jaw tightened. “Start talking.”

The man gestured to a low table covered in scrolls and ancient parchment. “Sit.”

Kaelen and Saltana exchanged a glance, then did as asked.

The old man unrolled a brittle scroll inked with what looked like two trees; one blackened and dead, the other flowering in red flame.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked.

Kaelen shook his head.

“This is the story of the Flameborn. Of the bloodlines that carried the Ember; the power that made kings and ended empires. You’re from one of them.”

Kaelen leaned forward, heartbeat spiking. “That’s not possible.”

“Your wife is,” the man said. “Your child will carry both.”

Kaelen blinked. “What child?”

Saltana sat upright, her eyes wide.

The old man frowned. “She didn’t tell you?”

Kaelen’s heart stuttered.

“No,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

He stood too quickly, the room tilting under his feet.

Zaria. Pregnant.

It hit him like a blade to the ribs — joy, disbelief, panic — all at once. His mind flooded with questions. Why didn’t she tell him? Had she planned to? Did she even know she was carrying a legacy that others would kill to possess?

The old man spoke again, gentler this time. “That child will be hunted, Kaelen. Not for who it is. But for what it means.”

Kaelen swallowed hard. “What does it mean?”

The man held up the scroll. “That the Flame is not dead. And if it burns again, it will choose its vessel.”

Saltana finally found her voice. “And if it doesn’t choose the child?”

“Then it will consume the blood that bears it,” the man said. “As it has before.”

Kaelen felt the walls close in. His memories — fractured as they were — swirled like ash in the wind. Pieces began falling into place.

The fire he woke in. The voices that whispered in dreams. The mark on his shoulder he never understood.

“Why me?” he asked quietly. “Why Zaria?”

The old man smiled sadly. “Because the old world never ended, Kaelen. It only hid. And now it wants to be born again.”

Kaelen stood, staring at the curling edge of the scroll. His mind screamed too much, too much. But under it all, something inside him... clicked.

Zaria wasn’t just in danger.

She was the danger — or the shield against it.

And their child?

That was the spark.

He turned to Saltana. “We leave now.”

She blinked. “Where?”

“To find Zaria.”

“And then?”

He didn’t hesitate.

“We burn the path behind us.”