The night bled into a new dawn over the Fire Crown Temple. No bells rang. No birds sang. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Dhruv stared at the burning glyph on the ground. It pulsed like a heartbeat, casting long shadows across the circle of braziers. The quill-blade on his hip felt heavier now, less a relic, more a responsibility.
Behind him, Meena meditated in stillness, her breath in sync with the flames. Raiya paced like a caged panther, watching the skyline for signs of movement. The tension wasn't just anticipation. It was a remembrance. The Loom wasn't just reacting to the world anymore. It was predicting. Calculating. Fearing.
Dhruv stood. "We leave before the sun rises fully. If Prana's coming, I want her chasing us, not the other way around."
The old man who had guided them earlier was already gone. Only a parchment remained where he'd sat: a map drawn in soot and prayer-ink. It marked a hidden path through the Sand Spine Dunes to the forgotten ruins of Alangara.
Alangara, once a temple to Vayu, is now a crypt of scattered winds.
"The wind is memory too," Meena said, reading over his shoulder.
Dhruv nodded. "And we need every ghost we can find."
The Dunes of Alangara
By midday, the sky became molten silver. The sand shifted like breathing scales. Temperatures warped memory itself, each gust of wind whispering half-forgotten verses in languages not yet born.
The trio pushed forward, following ley-lines and footprints erased before they were made.
Meena began to chant, low, ancient, rhythmic. Her mantras bent the heat around them. Dhruv followed closely, using the Loom to trace invisible ley lines in the dust. Raiya walked behind, slicing any mirage that approached too close.
They passed buried idols, upside-down stupas, half-submerged bones that whispered in their ears. Once, Dhruv stumbled and landed on a rune-stone that briefly lit up, projecting a child's laughter that wasn't his.
"Don't stop walking," Meena said. "The desert remembers us too quickly."
As dusk approached, they rested inside a collapsed ruin partially swallowed by the dunes. A hollowed-out reliquary of some wind cult, its columns carved with spiraling text that dissolved the moment one looked away.
"I think this place was a library," Meena whispered.
"A breathing library," Dhruv corrected, pressing his hand against one pillar. "It edits itself based on the reader."
Outside, the sand began to shift. It moved too rhythmically.
Then came the storm.
It didn't roar. It screamed.
Not with thunder, but with language. Thousands of voices, layered on top of each other, speaking contradictory truths:
"You are the Archive's error." "You will kneel before the new Axis." "History will forget your name." "Prana comes."
The storm shaped itself into figures, burning outlines of forgotten warriors, each wielding weapons of glass-memory.
The Ashvamedha had sent its first emissaries.
Raiya's eyes glinted. "Time for a rehearsal," she grinned, unsheathing her blade.
The Wind Duel
The sands turned white-hot. Illusions and memories danced like fireflies. Dhruv activated the Loom, drawing a circle of truth around them. Meena invoked the Nameless Sutra, unraveling the voices' grip on their minds.
But it was Raiya who led the charge.
She leapt into the sandstorm, slicing through phantoms and falsehoods alike. Her blade didn't just cut bodies, it severed lies. Every enemy she struck vanished not in blood, but in forgetfulness.
Dhruv joined her, the quill-blade becoming liquid in his hands, changing shape as needed: a staff, a whip, a dagger of ink. Every strike rewrote the memory of the attack.
One phantom impaled him, only for its blade to dissolve. Dhruv had changed the outcome by scripting a false history mid-duel.
Meena held her arms wide, her chants rising in pitch and purpose. The air itself shifted. Wind patterns collapsed into spirals of silence. She called on ancient breath—Prāṇa Vāyu—to cleanse the field.
"Let the breath of the first wind judge this memory false!"
The storm collapsed. The voices stopped.
Silence reclaimed the dunes.
Raiya wiped sweat and phantom dust from her face. "That was round one, yeah?"
"Round one," Dhruv agreed.
From the broken edge of the dune, a relic piece hovered briefly before dissolving. Not all enemies were illusions.
"We'll meet them again," Meena said softly. "But next time... they'll remember us."
The Door Beneath the Sand
In the aftermath, Raiya discovered a glyph half-buried in the sand.
ॐ वायवे नमः — To Vayu, Keeper of Echoes.
Dhruv traced it with the quill.
The earth rumbled.
A spiral staircase emerged, leading deep underground.
The air that escaped from within wasn't stale; it was charged. Filled with static and story.
As they descended, the walls around them shimmered with residual memory. Murals showed a forgotten god wrestling with the storm itself, wielding no weapon but breath. Another panel showed seven wind priests arguing over what name the wind should carry.
Dhruv paused. "The Archive doesn't like ambiguity. This place... is ambiguity incarnate."
Meena touched the wall. "That's why they buried it."
The deeper they walked, the more the air changed. Lighter. Hungrier. As though it wanted to speak, but had forgotten how.
At the bottom of the stairs, a great chamber waited, its floor carved like a windrose. In the center, an altar. On the altar: a relic wrapped in cloth and silence.
The cloth was woven from air itself, threaded with echoes.
As they approached, the Loom pulsed.
Relic Detected: Breath of Vayu.Condition: Dormant, Fragmented.
Dhruv reached out. The relic stirred.
And far above, in the Vault of Prana, a chime rang.
She opened her eyes. And turned.
"They've found the wind," she whispered.
She did not sound surprised. She sounded pleased.