By the third day, the desert began to shift.
Not by sight, but by sense — the rhythm of the world stumbled. The dunes no longer rose the same way twice, and the sun leaned too far west no matter the hour. Nakala felt her body walking forward, yet her shadow often stretched behind her at a wrong angle, as if it didn't trust her path.
They followed the fading stars until Iri'okan halted, raising a hand. "We're here."
Nakala looked up.
A ruin lay ahead — half buried in sand, yet somehow breathing. The pillars rose like ribs of a colossal creature, and carvings shimmered faintly in the starlight. Lines of forgotten runes wound across the stones like veins filled with molten glass.
The air was colder near it.
The kind of cold that made you remember things you hadn't lived.
> "This place remembers me," Esh'ra whispered through Nakala's bones.
"Though I do not remember it."
"You built this?" Nakala asked quietly.
> "No. My worshippers did, after I devoured their suns. They called it The Cradle of the First Forgetting."
Iri'okan stepped closer, his expression unreadable. "A temple that remembers its god even when the god does not — that's blasphemy in most lands."
"Then perhaps that's why it still stands," Nakala said.
---
They entered through the collapsed archway.
The interior was vast — too vast. What should have been a single chamber opened into corridors that split and curled like the inside of a seashell. The walls hummed faintly, the same deep tone that vibrated in Nakala's chest when she breathed through Histinak.
"This place is alive," she murmured.
Iri'okan nodded. "The old temples were built with woven rhythm — Histinak bound into stone. That's why ruins like these don't crumble; they endure until forgotten."
> "Histinak is not mere magic," Esh'ra murmured within.
"It is the pulse of remembrance itself. Those who wield it bend memory into form — swords that cut through recollection, or shields that anchor identity. The more you use it, the harder it becomes to forget yourself… or others."
"That sounds dangerous," Nakala whispered.
> "It is," said Esh'ra. "It's how gods were born."
---
They walked deeper. The deeper they went, the more the air grew heavy — not with weight, but with presence.
The air shimmered faintly, and sound seemed delayed, as though the walls needed time to remember what was said before echoing it back.
Iri'okan's eyes darted to the walls. "The temple's rhythm is waking. We shouldn't stay long."
Nakala brushed her fingers along the carvings. The stone pulsed faintly beneath her touch.
Each symbol told a story — not written, but remembered. Fragments of a war older than the desert. A woman standing atop a field of hollow suns. Her body wreathed in flame and shadow, her mouth devouring the light itself.
> "That's you," Nakala whispered.
Esh'ra didn't answer.
> "I do not know this version of me," the goddess said finally.
"But she remembers me. That is enough to bind us."
"Do you think she's… still here?"
> "A memory is never gone, child. It merely waits for someone to believe in it again."
---
At the heart of the temple lay a circular hall.
A single obelisk stood at its center, carved from black stone that absorbed light rather than reflected it.
Its surface was etched with lines that spiraled inward — not a pattern, but a question written in rhythm.
"What is this?" Nakala asked.
Iri'okan approached carefully. "A pulse-stone. They used these to test the purity of one's Histinak. But this one's… different."
He pressed his palm to the stone.
Nothing happened.
Then — faintly — the runes began to glow, answering not his touch, but hers.
The black stone flared silver where Nakala stood, as though her mere presence was rewriting its rhythm.
> "It knows me," Esh'ra said quietly.
The obelisk trembled. Light streamed out like strands of molten memory, wrapping around Nakala's body. Her breath hitched — not in pain, but recognition.
Visions flared behind her eyes.
She saw a woman — Esh'ra, but not. Her hair white as ash, her eyes burning like dying stars. She stood before a mirror made of living flame and whispered, "To devour is to remember perfectly."
Then she stepped into the fire and vanished.
Nakala gasped and staggered back.
"What did you see?" Iri'okan asked.
"She… she consumed herself," Nakala whispered. "To keep her rhythm from being stolen. To ensure the world would forget her before she forgot herself."
Iri'okan looked at her sharply. "That's why the N'gai fear you. You carry a rhythm that can't be erased."
> "Not yet," Esh'ra said softly.
"But even eternity frays if left unwatched."
---
They camped at the temple that night.
The stars above seemed closer — not shining, but listening.
Nakala sat by the flickering fire, fingers tracing the sand absently.
"Iri'okan," she said finally, "why do you still follow me?"
He shrugged. "Because I can still remember your name. That seems… worth something in a world that's forgetting everything else."
She smiled faintly. "You say that like it's a curse."
"Maybe it is," he said. "But it's one I'll keep."
---
> "You feel it, don't you?" Esh'ra's voice was gentler now.
"The threads between you and the mortal — thin, but resonant."
"I do," Nakala whispered inwardly. "It's not love. It's… familiarity. Like I've known him before."
> "Perhaps you have. Every life is a rhythm, Nakala. Some play again when the world forgets the first song."
The wind outside shifted, and the temple seemed to breathe once more.
Far below, the obelisk pulsed faintly, sending a rhythm through the sand — one that reached beyond the desert, into the heart of sleeping kingdoms.
And somewhere beyond the horizon, something ancient stirred.
Something that remembered the goddess who devoured herself.
---
End of Chapter 6