The desert was a graveyard of forgotten gods. Golden dunes stretched beyond the horizon, endless and cruel. Every step sank deeper than the last. Wind howled across the sands like a voice too ancient to die.
Prince Ardeshir Vireon, last of the flameborn kings, pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. The heat baked his armor during the day, and the cold bit into his bones at night. But he didn't complain. He couldn't afford to. Not after Vahram.
Taleen walked beside him, eyes fixed on the fading sky. The stars were beginning to pierce through the twilight, soft as candlelight, yet sharp as knives.
"We'll rest when the Scorpion falls below the Archer," she said, pointing to two constellations above. Ardeshir nodded. He didn't understand the stars, but he understood purpose—and hers burned clearer than his own.
They were six days into the Dar-Al-Sahra, where even maps refused to exist. All around them: sand, silence, and the taste of distant death. They camped in the ruins of an old watchtower, now half-buried by shifting dunes.
As Ardeshir built a small fire, Taleen laid out the Codex of the Crowned Flame across a slab of broken stone. Her fingers traced lines of glowing ink written in an ancient tongue Ardeshir still struggled to read.
"The Fang of Shahravar," she said quietly. "It's not just a relic. It's alive, in a way."
Ardeshir looked up. "Alive?"
"Forged from the tooth of a forgotten flame god. They say it drinks the wrath of its wielder, then returns it tenfold."
He stared into the fire. "I've no shortage of wrath."
Taleen glanced at him, eyes flickering with something unreadable. "That's exactly what makes it dangerous."
The next morning, the desert gave no mercy. The sun rose like a curse. By midday, Ardeshir's cloak was soaked with sweat, and the sand burned through his boots. Still, Taleen pressed forward, her fingers raised to the sky, watching for signs only she could read.
"We're close," she said. "There's something under this dune line. Something humming."
Ardeshir frowned. "I don't hear anything."
"It's not for your ears."
She knelt and brushed her fingers across the sand. Symbols emerged—faint lines that glowed silver under her touch. Then the earth rumbled.
The dune collapsed inward, revealing a sunken stone archway, choked by thorny vines and guarded by a shattered statue of a jackal-headed warrior.
"The temple of Shahravar," Taleen whispered. "Unsealed."
High above, on a cliff of sand and shadow, someone watched. Rostan the Jackal leaned on his curved blade, eyes narrowed beneath his dust veil. His mount—an ash-skinned sandbeast—snorted beside him.
He grinned beneath the cloth. "So the little prince follows the stars," he muttered. "Let's see if the stars can save him from what sleeps below."
He tapped the hilt of his dagger—poisoned, curved, designed to maim, not kill. He didn't want Ardeshir dead. Not yet. The Usurper had promised a great reward for the prince's heart delivered still beating.
Below, Taleen descended the staircase into the earth, Ardeshir behind her, torch in hand. The air grew colder, wetter. The walls pulsed faint orange, and murals of flame-wreathed beasts stared down at them from above. The deeper they went, the louder the whispers became.
"Do you hear that?" Ardeshir asked, hand tightening on his sword.
Taleen nodded. "The Fang is speaking."
At the base of the steps, they found a great stone door etched with flames and fangs. A single line of Old Persian ran across its width: "Only the flame that forgives shall wield the fang that devours."
Ardeshir felt something twist in his chest. "I'm not here to forgive," he muttered.
Taleen placed a hand on the door. "Then it may not open."
Ardeshir stepped forward, placed his palm on the stone, and the door shuddered. It recognized him. The last flame.
The door cracked open, revealing a long chamber filled with smoke and light. At the center, hovering above a pedestal of blackened bone, floated a curved fang-blade—jagged, alive, dripping with fire that did not burn.
"The Fang of Shahravar," Taleen breathed. "It's real."
But as Ardeshir stepped forward, an arrow struck the wall beside his head. Rostan's voice echoed from the shadows. "I don't need you dead, Your Majesty. Just broken."
Dozens of figures emerged behind him—desert mercenaries, assassins, and flame hunters. Ardeshir stepped between Taleen and the fang, eyes blazing. "If you want my heart," he growled, "then burn your hands trying."