The sun was shining heavily but that could not stop Kelvin because he had somewhere to get to on time. Kelvin limped forward, keeping his experiences behind him as he forged ahead to Dusthaven.
His skin itched him with dried sweat and beneath his sleeve the sigil pulsed faintly like an ember beneath his skin, Xerion had gone quiet but Kelvin could feel that he is still watching and waiting in silence.
The battle had left him broken and shattered. His ribs ached with every breath, and a sickly heat continued to spread from the wound on his thigh. The infection from the wound held at his strength but he did not stop.
Not when Dusthaven stood just few miles after the bridge, which he was standing on. The Dushaven is a pathway of rusted steel, a place of barter markets, and possibly a medicine, if the gods of this shattered world were willing.
The gates of Dusthaven were cobbled together from scavenged plating and Rift beast bones, a makeshift fortress built out of necessity rather than grandeur.
Twin towers stood roughly at both side, manned by professional soldiers whose eyes followed Kelvin's approach like hawks.
One of them raised a rifle halfway, with one of his eyes closed as he looked at the blood-crusted figure and dragging himself across the sand.
"Stop right there," the guard barked at Kelvin. And he went ahead to tell him, "State your business."
Kelvin didn't answer him immediately because was too busy struggling not to collapse.
When the guard noticed what was happening he shouted, "He is a scavenger and he is injured, maybe in need of trade." He lowered his rifle and said to Kelvin, "you are bleeding heavily. Raise your hands up."
Kelvin raised his hands slowly, dropping his spear into the sand with a soft clatter. The moment he raised his hands, the gate creaked open and a woman with a braided grey hair stepped forward.
Her eyes were sharp and bright like a crystal, her coat were covered in patches and stitched-up tears but she is a medic, who is renowned in Dusthaven where she is highly respected.
"Bring him in," she ordered the guards. "Before the desert finishes what the Riftspawn started." She said.
Immediately two guards carried him into the woman's chamber, grumbling about how he is a filthy wanderer who may had encountered a bad luck.
When they brought him in, they laid him in a cot inside a shaded tent that smelled of herbs, oil, and rust.
The medica who is doctor Sura later introduced herself to Kelvin. With ease she peeled away the soaked bandage from his thigh and started cleaning up the wound with her face been tightened.
"This wound's had gone too long without any cleaning," she muttered, she went ahead to tell kelvin that he his lucky that his limb is not rotting. At that point she asked Kelvin, "who did this dressing for you, a sand rat?"
"Me," Kelvin muttered through his clenched teeth. "It was either this or bleed out I bleed to dead."
She grunted. "Well, you're here now and I will take care of it but must try not to scream while I do my job."
Kelvin indeed tried to endure the pain like a man indeed, which helped to fasten his treatment.
By nightfall, his wounds were properly cleaned and stitched, his ribs tightly wrapped up and his strength returned partially. But even as his body recovered, his mind felt frightened.
The memory of the claw, the Xerion's claw when it was shimmering in fire and was haunted in fury. Kelvin thought to himself that he had not summoned it consciously and it had answered a call he had not made. That scared him more than the wyrm ever did.
Dusthaven's hardly came alive when the sun died. Under the hanging lights that stretches from rusted poles, vendors peddled the Rift beast parts, old-world tech, stale bread, and stolen whispers. Kelvin moved through the streets like a ghost with his hood drawn low.
He picked up some supplies that he would be needing like water, dried meat and herbs for pain which he traded with scavenged gear that he stripped off Vark's gang.
One of their necklaces held a Riftstone shard. That earned him a pouch of rations and a cracked cylindrical container for healing herbs.
He was about to return to the tent when a low guttural sound curled in his mind like a smoke.
"You hide among the insects, Heir."
Kelvin stopped. He tightened his knuckles on the pouch in his hands.
"You struck like fire. Now you are cowered like ash."
"Shut up," Kelvin muttered to the voice.
A drunked trader passing by glanced at him and asked, "Are you talking to a ghosts, sand-walker?"
Kelvin ignored the man and kept walking he walked into a quieter alley filled by stacked metal drums and old generators humming low.
"I didn't summon you," Kelvin said aloud this time. "You acted on your own."
"I acted because you hesitated. I acted because your weakness was inviting death and I saved your life."
"No you did not do that just to save me," Kelvin said, facing the wall. "You killed because you enjoyed it."
"Power must taste blood before it is been tamed."
Kelvin touched the sigil that were under his sleeve but it was quiet at that time, no heat, no glow. But he remembered how it felt when Xerion had emerged, the fire, the rage and the hunger that he felt.
At that point it had not been a bond. It had been a possession.
"You're not in control," Kelvin said, steadying his breath. "I am the one who is in charge."
Then Xerion's voice came low and amused.
"Then prove it."
Kelvin left Dusthaven before dawn very early, his injuries were wrapped and his body steadied by pain root extract.
He had gotten a map from a trader which is blurry, half-torn, but showing a location on it, west of Dusthaven marked "Riftspire."
The trader claimed it was a crater where beasts swarmed like flies on carrion and a place where tamers tested their will.
That was exactly where Kelvin needed to go.
He had to understand the sigil. Understand Xerion and above all find the means to control it before it becomes too late for him.
The desert stretched endlessly, a land of bone and dust. Kelvin walked in silence. Hours passed but he kept moving. The sky changed from orange color to white and then to red color in that manner continuously.
Kelvin moved instinctively, he stopped to look just as at that time a massive winged shadow swooped past. It was a drake black-scaled, runes were scorched into its chest and upon its back was a rider in crimson armor bearing a chained staff of glimmering crystal.
Kelvin moved behind a dune as the creature passed over his head in circle movement. The rider's helm turned toward his hiding spot.
"A Tamer."
A real one," he said.
At this point Kelvin's heart was pounding. He wasn't ready for anything that will come out.
"Your journey accelerates, Heir," Xerion whispered. "Will you rise... or burn?" Xerion asked.