Kael woke with a violent, racking cough, his lungs expelling a cloud of fine, salty dust. The first sensation was not pain or confusion, but one of impossible relief. The air he was breathing was not the hot, searing air of the flats; it was cool, moist, and clean. He was alive.
He pushed himself up on his elbows, his head spinning. He wasn't out in the glaring, white sun. He was inside a small, temporary shelter, a dome made of a dark, heat-reflective hide stretched taut over a frame of interlocking, lightweight poles. A small, strange fire burned in the center of the shelter, its flames producing no smoke, only a steady, efficient heat. A strange, humming device sat next to it, a small crystal at its core pulsing with a soft blue light.
He realized there was something over his face. A mask. A tight-fitting apparatus made of leather and crystal that covered his nose and mouth. The source of the cool air. It was connected by a thin tube to the humming device by the fire. He panicked, the feeling of confinement overwhelming, and ripped it off his face.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. Air's expensive out here."
The voice was female, sharp as a shard of obsidian, and laced with a dry, cynical amusement that grated on his nerves. He looked up. Sitting across the small fire from him, cross-legged and perfectly at ease, was a woman.
She was lean and weathered, her age impossible to guess. She could have been thirty or fifty. Her skin was a deep tan, a testament to a life lived under the open sky, and her dark hair was pulled back in a practical, no-nonsense braid. Her most striking feature was what she concealed: her eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark-lensed goggles, designed to protect her from the brutal glare of the flats. Her gear was not scavenged or crude like the things he'd seen in Barren. It was practical, efficient, and well-maintained. Every strap was secure, every tool in its place. She was a professional.
Kael's hand instinctively shot to his belt for the Jag-Wolf fang. It wasn't there. His heart leaped into his throat. He saw it then, lying on the ground next to the woman, just out of his reach.
"Easy, mountain man," she said, her voice calm, not moving a muscle. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have left you for the Salt-Scuttlers to pick apart. They like to start with the eyes." She gestured vaguely outside with her chin. "Lucky for you, I was tracking a lost caravan shipment and found you first. You looked like you were worth more than whatever was in their crates."
Her words were not reassuring. This was not an act of kindness. He was not a person she had rescued; he was an asset she had salvaged.
"Who are you?" Kael rasped, his throat raw.
"Name's Ria," she said. She watched him for a moment, her head tilted slightly. "I've seen marks like that before." She nodded toward his exposed leg. The crude bandage he had made was gone, replaced by a clean, professionally wrapped one. The edges of his silvery scars were visible just above it.
"A Breaker's Mark, some of the old-timers call it," she continued, her tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. "A sign you danced with a Dissonant blight and somehow didn't die. Makes you interesting. Makes you valuable, maybe."
The statement shocked Kael into silence. This woman, this stranger in the desert, not only recognized the nature of his scar, she had a name for it—a name from the outcast world, not the rigid terminology of the Chorus Masters. A Breaker's Mark. It was a name that held a hint of respect, of power, not just of corruption. She knew what he was, or at least, she knew that he was something different.
"What do you want?" Kael asked, his suspicion overriding his relief.
"Right now? I want to get paid for the water you're breathing," she said, tapping the humming device with the toe of her worn leather boot. "This is a Mark Four moisture reclaimer. Top of the line. Pulls humidity right out of the air and pipes it to that mask you so rudely tore off." She leaned forward slightly. "But in the long term, I want what I always want: a profitable arrangement."
She explained what she was. A Wayfinder. A professional guide, a cartographer, a scout. For a price, she would navigate the dangerous, untracked parts of the world, guiding caravans, mapping new resource deposits, or finding lost people. She operated by a simple, brutal code of commerce.
"Here's the deal," she said, her voice all business. "You're a long way from anywhere. Another day out there on your own, and the Scuttlers will be wearing your boots. I can guide you to the nearest settlement, a port town on the shores of the molten sea. Place is called Silt. It's a cesspool, but it's got water and walls. It'll take three more days of walking."
Kael waited for the other shoe to drop.
"My guidance, my water, and the fact that you're not currently being eaten, is not free," she said, her gaze dropping to the Jag-Wolf fang beside her. "Your knife. That's a prime trophy. A fang from a pure-strain Obsidian Jag-Wolf? Un-cracked? That's rare. Worth a lot in Silt to the right collector. More than enough to cover my expenses and turn a neat profit." She tapped the fang with the toe of her boot again. "That's my price."
Kael stared at her, then at the fang. It was more than just his best weapon. It was his trophy, his proof of survival, a souvenir from the battle that had transformed him. Giving it up felt like giving up a piece of his own history, of his own strength.
But he looked past her, through the opening of the shelter, at the endless, shimmering white hellscape outside. He knew she was right. To risk the flats alone now, in his weakened state, was suicide. He was strong, but he was not invincible. The desert had already proven that.
Reluctantly, slowly, he gave a single, curt nod. Survival first. Everything else was a distant second.
"Good choice," Ria said, a thin, humourless smile touching her lips. "Now put the mask back on. You're wasting my inventory."