The golden sun hung low over the shifting dunes as we left the traveler's settlement behind, the heat of Azareth clinging to our skin like a final farewell.
The road ahead was long, but for once, we weren't burdened by the weight of exhaustion or endless war.
The night before had been… something else entirely.
Lucian was still smirking to himself every time he glanced in my direction, clearly not over the revelations from breakfast. Alaria, who had spent half the morning grumbling and cursing me out, was now lounging lazily in the carriage, her boots propped up, humming some old desert tune.
Elaris was sitting beside me, her lavender eyes soft with quiet contemplation, though I could still see the ghost of a blush on her cheeks from earlier that morning.
Callen, still traumatized from the conversation at breakfast, had chosen silence as his defense mechanism.
Gareth, who had seemingly given up on all of us, was reading an old spell tome, his golden eyes flicking between pages with practiced ease.
And Rowan?
Rowan was Rowan.
Still quiet. Still watching everything.
Still making me wonder if he ever truly slept.
The days of travel stretched on, the sands beneath us rolling like an endless sea, the towering rock formations shifting in the distance as if they were alive, whispering secrets of a world older than time itself.
The nights were cooler, the sky stretching infinitely above us, stars like scattered silver dust, the twin moons casting their pale glow over the dunes.
For a moment—just a fleeting moment—it felt peaceful.
Like we weren't being hunted. Like we weren't walking the edge of a blade.
Like we were just people traveling across the world, searching for something greater.
But peace never lasts.
Two days from reaching the next continent, the world shattered.
The first sign was the wind.
It shifted too fast, carrying a low, deep rumble that crawled through the sand like something waiting to be born.
Then—
A shadow blocked the sun.
I barely had time to react before a massive slab of sand-rock came hurtling toward us, tearing through the air like a god's hammer.
"MOVE!"
I barely had time to grab Elaris before the impact slammed into the carriage.
The sound was deafening—wood and steel splintering, the ground quaking beneath us as the front of the carriage was obliterated in an instant.
The horses never stood a chance.
Their screams were cut short, their bodies crushed beneath the force of the impact, blood staining the golden sands.
The entire carriage lurched, tipping dangerously as debris rained down around us.
I hit the ground hard, sand filling my mouth, my ears ringing from the force of it.
Alaria rolled beside me, coughing, her dagger already in her hand, eyes wild with adrenaline.
Lucian staggered to his feet, a thin trail of blood running down his temple, his sword already drawn.
Callen was groaning, trying to push himself out from beneath the shattered remains of the carriage.
Gareth muttered a low incantation, his hands glowing with faint embers as he scanned the dunes, his breath heavy.
And Rowan?
Rowan was already standing, blades in hand, his dark eyes fixed on the dunes ahead—
Because something was coming.
I could feel it.
The weight of it pressing against the air, something ancient, something massive, something watching.
The sands shifted.
The silence stretched.
And I knew—
This was just the beginning.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, settling like a weight on my chest.
Then—
The sand shifted.
Not the way the dunes naturally moved, not the slow, steady shifting of the desert tides—this was different.
This was deliberate.
The ground rumbled beneath us, low and deep, as if something massive was stirring beneath the surface.
Alaria wiped the blood from her lip, rising to a crouch beside me, her emerald eyes sharp with instinct. "That's not natural."
Lucian, still dazed from the impact, pushed himself up onto one knee, his sword gripping tighter in his hands. "Yeah," he muttered, shaking the daze from his head. "We got company."
The dunes rippled.
Then they rose.
A massive shape began to pull itself from the sands, chunks of sandstone and bedrock shifting, grinding, fusing together like pieces of an ancient puzzle forming a body.
A head emerged first, massive and jagged, its surface carved with deep, archaic markings, glowing with an ember-like light. Then broad shoulders, arms thicker than the trees in Evaria, fists as heavy as boulders.
The golem pulled itself free from the desert, its entire body shedding grains of sand like an ancient relic waking from a slumber that had lasted for centuries.
And then it stood.
Towering. Unshaken. Monstrous.
A construct of pure rock and rage, standing three times taller than any of us, its form weathered by time, by storms, by the weight of a thousand years.
The light pulsing from its core flickered once—then its eyes opened.
Twin glowing orbs of molten gold, set deep into the cracked stone of its face, fixing onto us.
The second its gaze landed on me, a sharp pain shot through my skull, the Rift reacting violently to whatever this thing was—because it wasn't just a mindless construct.
It was old.
It had purpose.
And now, we were in its way.
It let out a sound—a deep, resonating roar, the kind that vibrated through bone and marrow, shaking the sand loose from the dunes around us.
Callen was the first to react, scrambling to pull his shield from the wreckage. "Oh, hell no."
Gareth gritted his teeth, fire already forming in his palms. "It's a guardian."
Lucian cursed, rising to his feet. "Great. That's exactly what we needed today."
Alaria grinned, twirling a dagger in her fingers. "I was just thinking we could use a warm-up fight."
The golem moved.
Sand cascaded down its form as it stepped forward, each footfall shaking the earth beneath us.
Its fist clenched.
And then it swung.
I barely had time to react.