The desert stretched endless before us, cold and lifeless beneath the weight of the night.
The wind howled through the dunes, stirring the sand in slow, ghostly waves. There was no warmth left from the sun—only the bitter chill that crept into my bones, tightening my muscles with exhaustion and pain.
I sat there, knees buried in the sand, my hands trembling in the dust as the ruins of our home burned in the distance.
Elara was beside me, hunched over, her breaths slow and uneven. She had barely spoken since we escaped.
There was nothing to say.
We had lost everything.
Again.
The people we had fought for—gone.
The walls we had rebuilt—ash.
The streets that had once been filled with laughter and life—now littered with the dead.
I clenched my jaw, swallowing against the rage clawing its way up my throat. This wasn't just an attack. This wasn't just another battle in an endless fight for survival.
This was a massacre.
A deliberate, calculated slaughter.
And I had failed to stop it.
I looked down at my hands, at the blood that still clung to my skin. Not enough.
I had killed. I had fought. But it wasn't enough.
I had reached for my power—for the golden force that had once torn through reality itself—but it had abandoned me.
Just like before.
Just like it always did unless I was dying.
I grit my teeth. I wasn't dying now.
But I wanted them to.
Every single one of them.
I lifted my head, staring at the smoldering remains of the settlement. Even from here, I could still smell the burning wood, the charred flesh. The wind carried it, a sickening reminder of what had been taken from us.
Elara shivered beside me.
She wouldn't meet my gaze, but I could see it in the way her hands were clenched into fists, the way her body was tense.
She was thinking the same thing I was.
We couldn't just leave.
We had to go back.
We moved at dawn.
The night had been long, unbearably cold. Sleep had never come, not when I knew what waited for us back at the settlement.
We walked in silence, the only sound the soft crunch of sand beneath our boots.
By the time we reached the outskirts of the ruins, the fires had died down, leaving nothing but blackened skeletons of buildings and the thick stench of death.
The sight of it made my stomach turn.
The walls—**the same ones we had rebuilt with our own hands—**were nothing more than broken rubble. Smoke still curled from the remains of homes. The air was thick with the scent of blood.
And the bodies…
So many bodies.
I forced myself to step forward.
Elara followed, her footsteps slow, hesitant.
No one was here.
Not a single attacker.
Not a single survivor.
Just the corpses of the people we had sworn to protect.
I walked through the ruins, my boots brushing against the scorched earth, stepping over fallen beams and shattered stone.
I stopped when I saw Lena.
Her body was still near the fire pit, her face pale, lifeless.
I had talked to her the night before.
I had fought beside her.
Now—she was just another body in the sand.
Revik was nearby, sprawled near the south gate, an axe still clutched in his fingers. His expression was frozen in anger, in defiance, even in death.
They hadn't gone down without a fight.
None of them had.
But it didn't matter.
They were all dead anyway.
Elara's breath hitched beside me.
I turned.
She was standing near the remnants of one of the homes, staring at something on the ground.
A small, bloodied hand stretched out from beneath the rubble.
A child's hand.
My chest tightened.
Elara turned away sharply, her body shaking.
I knew what she wanted to do—what she wanted to say.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to sob, to rage, to curse the world for what it had done.
But she didn't.
She just clenched her fists, silent.
Because there were no words for this.
There was only one thing left to do.
Find out who was responsible.
And kill them all.
I kept walking.
There had to be something. Some kind of clue. Some sign of who had done this.
My eyes scanned the bodies of the attackers—the hooded figures who had stormed our home like shadows in the night.
One of them had fallen near the remnants of a building, their body slumped over a broken beam. Their hood had slipped, revealing a face twisted in death, their mask of darkness torn away.
I frowned.
Something was glinting in the folds of their robe.
I stepped forward, nudging the corpse over with my boot.
The cloth shifted—
And a metal insignia tumbled into the dirt.
I froze.
It was circular, carved from dark steel, worn by time but unmistakable. A symbol of twisting iron and jagged mountains.
Elara sucked in a sharp breath.
I turned to her. "You recognize it?"
Her eyes were locked on the insignia, her jaw tight.
She did.
She knew what this was.
I crouched down, picking up the insignia, turning it over in my fingers. It was heavy, crude, but detailed. Deliberate.
Not a common marking.
Not something just anyone would carry.
This was a crest.
A crest of Ironhelm.
My pulse pounded in my ears.
Ironhelm.
One of the thirteen great cities.
One of the twelve ruling clans of the Kesather.
I clenched my fist around the insignia, my knuckles turning white.
This wasn't just a random attack.
This wasn't some desperate band of raiders, taking what they could.
This was planned.
This was a message.
Elara finally spoke, her voice sharp, cold. "Why would Ironhelm do this?"
I didn't answer.
Because I didn't care.
I didn't care about their reasons.
I didn't care about politics or clan rivalries or whatever justification they thought they had.
All I cared about was that they were responsible.
And they were going to pay.
I stared down at the insignia in my palm, the metal digging into my skin.
I swore it then—
I would kill them all.
Not just the warriors who had come here.
Not just the ones who had swung their blades, who had burned my home.
All of them.
Every single person involved.
Every single one.
And I wouldn't just kill them.
I would make them suffer.
They would know what it felt like to have everything ripped away from them.
They would know what it felt like to burn.
I stood, my grip tightening.
"Elara."
She looked at me.
I met her gaze, my voice like iron.
"We're going to Ironhelm."
Her expression hardened.
She nodded.
And as I turned away from the ruins of our home—
I made a vow.
By the time I was finished, Ironhelm would be nothing but ashes.