Of Flame, Sand, and Gold

Chapter 9

The room had this scent of old dust and forgotten oaths.

Kaelen sat on the stone bench, staring down at the scroll on the table — the one with the twin trees, one dead and blackened, the other flowering in blood-red flame.

“Two legacies,” the old man had whispered. “One decayed by power. One still burning in the bones of the right blood.”

Saltana had leaned forward too, captivated, her voice quiet: “And you think Kaelen’s one of them?”

The old man’s expression had been unreadable. “He is flame-wrought. That much I know.”

Then — the change.

He stood slowly, bones creaking like dry bark, and smiled. But not the same way he had earlier.

“Wait here,” he said. “There is more you should see. Something left behind... by the first who carried the flame.”

He stepped toward the back wall — then out through a curtain — and vanished.

The door slammed shut behind him.

CLACK.

A bolt slid into place.

Kaelen stood instantly.

“Saltana.”

She was already at the door, yanking. It didn’t budge. “He locked us in.”

Kaelen cursed. “He sold us out.”

Outside, bootsteps.

Clanking armor.

Saltana pressed her ear to the door. “Guards.”

They both looked at the single, narrow window. Too small to escape. Too high to reach.

Kaelen stepped forward, pulled off one glove, and placed his palm against the iron lock.

His eyes were closed.

He whispered the old word Amara had taught him in their last time together.

His flame responded.

Pale blue light surged from his hand, the iron heating instantly, warping, groaning.

Saltana stepped back. “Kaelen, hurry—”

BOOM.

The door burst open in sparks and shrapnel.

But waiting outside were spears.

Half a dozen guards, blades raised, armored and smirking.

“By order of the House of Flamekeeping,” one shouted, “you are to surrender for questioning under royal decree!”

Kaelen stepped in front of Saltana. “Surrender this.”

He ignited.

Kaelen surged forward like a storm of blue flame and steel.

His baton cracked across one guard’s jaw, spinning the man to the ground. A second spear jabbed for his ribs — Kaelen caught it, spun it, and used the momentum to hurl the attacker backward into the others.

Saltana threw a table into their path with her good arm and ducked low as Kaelen kicked a chair across the room into another man’s chest.

But they kept coming.

One, then two more — blades flashing. One caught Kaelen across the shoulder — shallow, but enough to burn.

Saltana grabbed a broken staff and struck one square in the throat — he went down gasping. But then—

A mountain moved.

Two towering men stepped into the breach.

Broad, scarred, armored differently — not city guards, but mercenaries. Enforcers. And worse, flame-bound.

Their weapons hummed with dull red energy.

Kaelen shoved Saltana back. “Stay behind me—”

Too late.

One swung hard.

Kaelen blocked.

The second jabbed low — straight into Saltana’s side.

CRACK.

She cried out and crumpled, clutching her ribs. Her arm hung limp.

Kaelen saw red.

His flame burst higher, blue fire sweeping out in a wave that staggered both brutes.

But they didn’t fall.

They advanced.

Kaelen was breathing heavily now, staggering slightly. Saltana was groaning on the floor.

And the rest of the guards were closing in behind.

“Not today,” said a voice behind them.

A shape dropped from above like a hawk.

Amara.

She drove her hammer into one brute’s temple with a brutal crunch. He collapsed instantly, unmoving.

The other turned to swing — and she slid beneath the strike, wrapped a chain around his knee, and pulled — snapping the joint sideways with a sickening pop.

He screamed.

“Go!” she barked.

Kaelen scooped Saltana up. “Can you hold on?”

She coughed blood. “Wasn’t planning to fall off anyway.”

They burst out of the back wall into the open street — horses were waiting.

“Stole them this morning,” Amara grunted, slinging herself up.

Kaelen mounted one, Saltana, across his lap.

The guards poured out into the street behind them.

And then they were flying through the gates.

Out of the Dust Quarter.

Into the smoke and night and desert winds.

Saltana bled across Kaelen’s cloak.

Kaelen didn’t look back.

But fire was rising behind them.

Far from the city, in a crumbling tower swallowed by roots and whispers, three figures gathered around a dying fire.

One stood masked — the silver gleam still catching moonlight like a second skin.

The second was lean, tattooed in spiral flames down both arms — Ilen Varis, keeper of the broken archives.

The third was older, with all-white hair and eyes like sun-bleached ash — Rokhen Mar, once general to a forgotten queen.

The masked figure sat.

“We have confirmation,” she said. “Kaelen’s flame has awakened. And he’s being hunted.”

“And the girl?” Rokhen asked.

“In enemy hands,” the masked figure replied. “But not yet broken.”

Ilen stepped forward. “Then it has already begun. The twin flames are waking.”

The masked figure dropped a sealed scroll onto the table. Burned edges. Blood-wax.

“Tenem-Ra spoke of the box.”

Rokhen leaned closer. “Then it was real.”

“We must find Kaelen,” the masked one said, “before Sahen finds the lock he was born to open.”

“And if he already has?” Ilen asked.

Silence.

Then the masked woman’s whisper:

“Then Aru’Shenu will burn — from the inside.”