Khelt did not welcome the living. It endured them.
The ash moon hung beneath the gray skies, the color of old bone. Its surface was scarred with ruins so ancient their purpose had eroded into geometry—towers with no doors, circles carved too perfectly to be natural, corridors that led nowhere… and everywhere.
Old scars marked the planet's crust. Not just from mining, but from something older. Something deliberate.
Long before the Khar'Vael arrived, Khelt had already been hollowed out. Civilizations had risen here, burned themselves out, and vanished into dust, leaving behind structures that defied reason and erosion. The planet remembered them, even if no one else did.
The ship shuddered—not violently, not with sound—but the pressure shifted. The hum of engines deepened. The vessel descended.
The metal hull vibrated faintly beneath Lucas's feet, a subtle reminder that gravity itself had been borrowed here, imposed artificially by the Khar'Vael.
Minutes passed. Then hours. Lucas couldn't tell. Time on Khar'Vael ships stretched and folded, measured not by clocks, but by hunger and pain.
The ship's ramp extended. Metal scraped against metal. The doors opened.
A gust of heat and ash struck the prisoners before they fully stepped onto the surface.
The twin suns burned overhead. The sky was pale, sun-bleached bone. Dust swirled across the landing platform, carried in sudden gusts that clawed at exposed skin and filled mouths with grit.
The slaves were herded out. Feet shuffled across roughened metal and down into the desert sands beyond. Collars hummed low at their throats. Soldiers flanked them, rifles glinting beneath the twin suns. Two suns. Relentless heat. Light that scorched vision before the mind could adjust.
Lucas felt it immediately—the weight of the sun, the ash, the knowledge that there was no escape. And still… he did not collapse.
The prisoners were led in tight rows across the dunes. The sand was fine, gray, almost metallic beneath bare feet. Each step sank slightly, then resisted, as if the ground itself objected to their presence. Heat waves rippled, twisting the horizon into false shapes. Ruins appeared, vanished, then reappeared closer than they should have been.
Whispers began when the guards turned their backs.
"This place… it eats people," one of the slaves whispered, voice tight with panic.
"Not eats. Keeps. The moment you're in, there's no way out," another muttered, eyes distant, as if speaking from deep inside the pit itself.
"They say the sand… remembers your footsteps… even after you're gone," a third added, voice breaking, carrying the weight of horrors long past.
Lucas listened without reacting. He had learned quickly that curiosity could be as dangerous as defiance. Still, the words lodged themselves in his thoughts.
Inside one of the massive tracked transports, Lucas found himself seated beside the older prisoner he had noticed aboard the ship. Wiry. Scarred. Alive in a way that hadn't yet been beaten out of him.
The vehicle lurched forward, treads grinding sand and stone into a low, endless groan. For a long while, neither spoke. Then, a voice—low, careful, deliberate.
"Khelt," the man murmured, eyes fixed on the horizon. "That's where they send the ones they don't expect to come back from."
Lucas didn't turn his head.
"No one comes back from slavery?" he asked, his voice shivering slightly at the thought.
The slaves around him chuckled—not a real laugh, but one born of desperation.
"True. But Khelt doesn't even pretend otherwise."
A pause. Softer, almost a whisper.
"They say this route always ends the same. Dig until your hands bleed. Dig until your thoughts go quiet. Then you die… or you wish you had."
Lucas swallowed.
"You've been here before," he asked, his voice quiet, almost testing the air around them.
The slave nodded once, his eyes distant, carrying the weight of experiences he didn't need to repeat.
"Not the pits. But the stories… they travel faster than ships," he said, voice tinged with resignation and quiet warning.
The transport passed near a cluster of half-buried ruins. Massive stone arcs protruded from the sand, etched with symbols worn smooth by time. The man noticed Lucas watching.
"There's something else," he said. "Something they don't talk about."
Lucas's eyes flicked briefly toward the guards. They weren't listening.
"What?"
The man leaned closer, his voice barely a whisper.
"A temple."
Lucas stiffened almost imperceptibly. He had heard of that temple before. From another slave.
"Not in the pits. Further out. Past the dig lines. Past where they want us to look."
The word settled into Lucas like a stone dropped into water. A temple. On this cursed planet.
"A ruin?" Lucas asked shortly.
The man shook his head.
"No. Still standing. Still… used," he replied.
"Used by who?" Lucas asked.
The man hesitated, then gave a crooked, almost embarrassed smile.
"Monks, supposedly," the slave said.
Lucas waited.
"Or recluses. Or lunatics. Depends who you ask. Some say they worship the planet. Some say the planet listens back."
The transport rumbled onward.
"And there are crazier stories too. That they can do things. Things the collars can't stop."
Lucas felt a flicker ignite behind his ribs.
"What kind of things?"
The man shrugged.
"Move the stone without touching it. Walk through heat like it's nothing. Hear thoughts. Control light. Nonsense, probably. Starved minds making gods out of shadows."
But Lucas didn't dismiss it. He couldn't. Something about the ruins. The geometry. The way the planet felt… aware.
If even part of it is true…
The idea took root. Temple. Monks. Power untouched by collars.
Lucas said nothing more, but his gaze lingered on the distant stone shapes half-swallowed by ash.
At the dig site, the transports stopped. The slaves were unloaded beneath the open suns. Heat crashed down like a physical blow.
Before them yawned the excavation pit. A vast, spiraling wound carved deep into Khelt's crust, its walls lined with scaffolds, lifts, and bodies moving like insects along the stone.
This was where slaves finished their lives.
Lucas stepped forward with the others, dust coating his skin, thirst clawing at his throat. Scraps would come later. Dirty water. Just enough to keep him moving. He did not complain. He had learned better.
But as the suns burned overhead and the ground trembled beneath distant machinery, Lucas held onto one thought. Not hope. Intention. Somewhere on Khelt, beyond the pits and the guards and the lies, stood a temple that did not belong to the Khar'Vael. A place older than their chains. Older than their rule. And if the whispers were true… he would uncover its truth. No matter the cost.
A single name surfaced in his mind. Rin. Lucas's jaw tightened. Rin would love to see this. He would laugh at the danger. Run headfirst into the mystery without a second thought. A quiet breath slipped from his lips. Almost a laugh. Even here… the thought of him still warmed the dark.
Lucas swallowed hard. He would do anything to unravel the secret of the temple. Anything to make sure his brother lived long enough to see it.
Whatever awaits me in those ruins… I'll be the one to reveal it first, he thought, as a faint grin touched his lips.