Tomorrow, I walk into the desert with a half-feral warlord and a pack of barely civilized killers, chasing a myth for a chance to save my son.
The real storm begins.
CHAPTER 22
KYLDAK
The convoy roars across the waste like a beast of steel and fire. The dunes blur, the horizon bends, the air tastes of metal and grit. Engines belch smoke, scorps of flame flick at exhaust vents. Every crawler, every rig, every battered vehicle behind me strains with the weight of expectation.
I ride heavy on the spike-mounted crawler, decked in scorched plating, the tines sharp like fangs. Jaela sits beside me, eyes fixed forward, cloak wrapped tight around her. Her jaw is hard, lines drawn; she’s not the Earth ghost anymore. She’s war-tempered, and I feel it in every gear shift, every glance she casts across the dunes.
“Clan ahead,” I growl, pointing out a ragtag column of desert raiders—war bikes, spiked armor, warpainted faces. They’re emboldened now: rumors spread about the “witch from Earth,” the “golden-eyed warlord.” I hear their warcries before we see their flags.
I don’t hesitate. We charge.
Dust shoots up like hell’s exhalation. I lead the line, the spike crawler spearing forward through the front. The raiders attempt flanking—not clever. I spin the crawler, gut the left flank with thetines. I feel the crunch beneath me. Sparks fly—metal on metal on bone. My teeth rattle. My arm trembles.
Beside me, Jaela is fire. She leaps from her seat with a sidearm drawn mid-ride, pistols blazing. She ducks behind the crawler’s plating, cants her aim, picks off bikers one by one. One warbike surges at us—I spin the crawler, brushing the bike’s flank. The rider falls. Jaela steps off, kicks his weapon, then hops back into the seat.
“The left flank!” she shouts.
I roar a confirmation and redirect our path. The convoy behind snarls forward. Explosions bloom in the dunes. Raiders scream. Engines stall. The dust swallows the carcasses.
When the fight ends, silence falls heavy. I glance at Jaela. Her face is smudged with sweat and dust, but her eyes burn. She wipes her cheek, half-smiling.
You astonish me, I think, but don’t say.
Later, dusk bleeding into night, we camp in a ruined fuel station—skin peeled away, tanks busted, tanks empty. The skeleton of it glints under two moons. The air’s sharp, cold. The wind picks grit into our tents.
I puttered around the remains, scavenging a few salvageable fuses, checking crawler armor. Jaela kneels by the rigged generator, wiring up a patch so we’ll have basic lights and minimal power through the night.
I lean against a rusted fuel tank, watching her in the glow. She catches me looking and doesn’t look away.
I speak in the soft hush of evening: “When you left Earth… I imagined a lot of things. That you were hunting someone. That you were a spy. That you carried secrets no one could survive. I thought maybe you came here seeking revenge.”
She doesn’t reply immediately. Her fingers twist wires, connecting panels. The generator hums, sputters, and steadies under her hands.
I press on. “I thought you wanted to die. Or break me. Or both.”
She turns, eyes sharp. “Never that.”
I step closer. “Then what did you expect? To find me like this? All rage and dust and broken things?”
Her voice is low, raw: “I didn’t expect anything. I just followed what I had left.”
I swallow. “You used to say you ran toward possibility, not away from pain.”
She doesn’t answer. Instead she tugs off a gauntlet and holds out her wrist—tiny scar, residual burns. “Your turn.”
I bare my arm. She presses soothe gel to it, rubbing gently. The contact grounds me. She’s steady, quiet.
“Jurtik broke me,” she murmurs. “Years of death, of whispering monsters. I thought if I found you… maybe I could heal. Or at least get answers.”
I watch her face, see regret and longing tangled. I manage: “And when you foundme, what then?”
She meets my gaze. “Then I realized I wasn’t the only one with ghosts.”
We don’t speak the truth yet. But the air between us warms. Trust flickers.
