The descent from the High District back into the mundane reality of Désa was silent, yet Ámmon's mind screamed louder than any sandstorm. Namer's words "Maybe a Grasslander with sand in his veins" clung to his thoughts like ticks on a camel's hide.
As they reached the bottom of the marble steps, leaving the oppressive aura of the Inner Sanctum behind, a scrawny man waited for them. His pale skin was smudged with soot, and he wore a green tunic that had seen far better days. He was gnawing on a dirty fingernail with frantic anxiety, but the moment he spotted Namer , he straightened up, flashing a crooked smile that was missing a canine tooth.
"Master Namer !" the man exclaimed, sweeping into an exaggerated bow that nearly sent him toppling over. "I see the sky hasn't fallen on our heads, which I consider a personal victory, seeing as I owe money to three different loan sharks who would be very upset by my premature demise."
Namer didn't even slow his pace. "Jory. I hope you have a reason for breathing my air and blocking my path."
"Ah, the air is free, Master. It's the only thing the Council hasn't taxed yet," Jory replied, falling into a quick step beside them and casting a curious glance at Ámmon. "But yes, I have news. The trackers returned. Some died but they caught it."
Ámmon stopped abruptly. Namer stopped too, turning slowly to face the servant, Khepri poked his head out the bag, his long ears twitching nervously at the sudden halt.
"The beast?"
"The striped demon itself," Jory confirmed, wiping his nose on his tunic sleeve. "It was limping near the Forest Edge, bleeding like a pig on slaughter day. My brothers... well, the ones who survived, managed to corner it with steel nets. It's exhausted to its limits, but alive."
A cold relief washed over Ámmon's chest, followed immediately by a wave of nausea. "You chained it again?" Ámmon asked, his voice coming out harsher than he intended. "It ran to be free. It fought for that."
Jory blinked at the boy, his smile faltering for a second. "Well, freedom doesn't fill a belly, sand-boy. And that thing eats more meat in a day than my entire family saw last winter. If we let it loose, it would eat peasants. And peasants, while abundant and cheap, tend to complain loudly when they're being chewed on."
"It was too close to the city limits," Namer interrupted, his voice smooth but carrying that heavy tone of possession Ámmon had learned to loathe. "If we hadn't captured it, they would have slaughtered it."
"That doesn't solve the transport issue, Master," Jory countered, wringing his hands. "We can't bring it inside the walls; the authorities are already furious about all this. And moving it elsewhere? Impossible. The thing is mad with rage. Every time we get close, it tries to murder everyone in a ten-foot radius. It will die of stress before we march a hundred paces."
"I can help calm it down," Ámmon declared, the words slipping out almost without thinking. He felt Khepri scratch lightly against his chest, as if warning him against the idea.
Namer looked at the boy. He saw the tension in Ámmon's shoulders, the same tension he had witnessed on the roof before the boy bent the jerboa's will. The exile smiled, the grin of a predator who had found a new favorite toy. "Very well," Namer said, calculating. "Take it to the Dead Vines Estate. It's isolated and close to the south mountains, two days' ride to the southwest of the Forest edge. No one asks questions there. Jory will accompany you. You leave at dawn."
Namer dismissed Ámmon with a wave, instructing Jory to prepare the supplies. But Ámmon couldn't go back to the luxurious guest room. That palace felt like a gilded cage, and he needed air. He needed to see something that wasn't made of lies and marble.
Night in Désa-Dipilih was a different creature than the day. While the Sacred District slept in respectful silence, the city's lower ring, where the stench of sewage mixed with the aroma of roasted meat and cheap spices, was alive. Ámmon found the tavern, The Leaking cunt, by following the sound of raucous laughter and out-of-tune music. The place was an assault on the senses. Smoke from clay pipes hung in the air like a dense fog, and the heat of hundreds of bodies packed together was suffocating. Ámmon kept a protective hand over his pocket, ensuring Khepri wasn't crushed in the throng. But it was honest. Here, no one pretended to be noble.
He spotted Elara at a table in the back, the yellow light of an oil lantern dancing across her face. Kael was beside her, laughing loudly with a wooden mug in his hand. When Ámmon approached, Elara stopped laughing. Her eyes scanned the clean, high-quality tunic Namer had given him, a stark contrast to the filthy, desperate boy she had found days ago.
"You look less like a ghost and more like someone who just sold their soul," Elara said, kicking out an empty chair. "Sit, brother."
Ámmon sat, accepting the mug Kael pushed toward him. He took a sip and nearly spat it out; the liquid was bitter, thick, and burned his throat. "How do you drink this? It tastes like jackal piss."
"It's called ale, boy," Kael laughed, slapping him on the back hard enough to nearly knock him off the chair. "It's an acquired taste. Like sand in your food, I suppose."
"We're leaving tomorrow," Elara said, her voice turning serious. "We're heading back to Thálassa, the port city. The trade is done, and the rumors in the city are getting... strange. They speak of a demon close to the city gates. I thought it best we leave before they close the gates or something."
Ámmon stared at the table, tracing the wood grain with his finger. "I'm staying."
"I imagined so," Elara sighed, looking at his new, too expensive to be a good thing, clothes. Her eyes dropped to his chest where Khepri's small head had popped out to sniff the bitter ale fumes. "And I see you've already started a family."
"I found what I was looking for," Ámmon murmured. "And he says he will help me."
"Noble men never 'help', Ámmon," Elara warned, leaning forward. "They invest. And they expect a return."
"I know," Ámmon replied, remembering Namer 's gaze on the roof.
The night wore on between sips of bad ale and shared stories. For the first time since the massacre in the valley, Ámmon felt something close to camaraderie. When they finally stood to leave, Elara gripped his arm tightly.
"If the desert calls you back, Thálassa always has ships," she said.
He watched her disappear into the crowd, feeling a tightness in his chest. He was alone again. But this time, he had a destination.
Dawn brought a throbbing headache and the unpleasant sight of Jory chewing on a piece of rock-hard bread atop a cart pulled by two lethargic oxen. "Good morning, Your Little Highness!" Jory shouted, waving the crust as if it were a scepter. "I hope you slept well, because this cart offers all the luxury of a sack of rocks tumbling down a hill."
"How is it that you, a grass-eater, speak the tongue of the sands so well?" Ámmon asked, climbing up beside him, his curiosity genuine. Khepri scrambled out of the tunic and perched on Ámmon's shoulder, his black eyes wide as he took in the morning light.
Jory swallowed a chunk of bread and grinned, eyeing the rodent. "When you owe money to as many people as I do, Little Highness, you learn to beg for mercy in every language known to man. I can also cry in Mountain-Ice-Giant and scream 'Not the face!' in three different dialects of the Hestia Tribes." He pointed a crumb-covered finger at the jerboa. "Is that breakfast or a passenger? Because if we run out of rations, he looks tender." He winked, then broke off a small, jagged piece of the rock-hard crust and flicked it through the air. Khepri caught it with impressive dexterity, clutching the prize to his chest. The little creature nibbled on it with an expression of pure, unadulterated bliss, looking happier than a king at a banquet. Jory chuckled at the sight, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. He snapped the reins, and start to guide the oxen onto a narrow, overgrown trail that wound its way into the depths of the forest.
The journey to the site of the beast's capture took a day and a half, a blur of creaking wheels and Jory's incessant chatter about the varying quality of tavern gruel across the seven districts. The forest grew denser, the air thicker with the scent of damp earth and rotting leaves. When they finally broke through the tree line into a secluded clearing, the sight that greeted them stole the breath from Ámmon's lungs. In the center of the clearing, surrounded by a ring of nervous men clutching spears, sat a massive iron cage. The Saber-Stalker lay inside, a mountain of matted fur and dried blood. It looked defeated, its breathing shallow and labored.
"Stay back, kid," one of the trackers warned, spitting on the ground.
"That's my older brother, Rory," Jory whispered, though the introduction was cut short.
Rory spat again, his eyes fixed on the cage. "It's been quiet for ten minutes. Don't wake the—" He didn't finish. A young tracker stepped on a dry twig near the bars.
The reaction was instantaneous and terrifying. The beast didn't just wake up; it exploded. It threw its massive weight against the iron bars with a sound like a thunderclap. The cage shuddered violently, lifting inches off the ground. The creature roared, not a sound of the throat, but a vibration that rattled the teeth in Ámmon's skull. It thrashed, claws striking sparks against the metal, biting at the air, its eyes rolling back in a frenzy of pure, blind panic.
"Kill it!" Another tracker shouted, raising a crossbow. "It's going to break the lock!"
Ámmon didn't think. He sprinted.
"Get back, you idiot!" Jory screamed, his fingers clawing at the back of Ámmon's tunic, but the fabric slipped through his grasp. Ámmon didn't stop. He ducked under the tracker's raised arm and threw himself toward the cage, skidding in the dirt until his chest slammed against the cold iron bars. The beast lunged at him, jaws wide enough to crush his skull, hot saliva spraying his face. Ámmon didn't flinch. He felt Khepri trembling violently of fear, and felt something in his mind click, he just closed his eyes and pushed. He didn't use words. He slammed his mind against the beast's like a shield wall. But the connection didn't happen like it had in the arena. In the arena, it had been a spark. This was a lightning strike. The barrier between boy and beast shattered, and Ámmon didn't just feel the creature's emotions, he became them.
Agony blinded him. A white-hot lance of pain shot through his right flank. His leg felt crushed, trapped in a phantom net. But worse than the physical pain was the mind. It was a labyrinth of terror and betrayal. The beast remembered the forest, the silence, the freedom... and then the nets, the sharp sticks, the cage. It was too much. The rage was a physical weight, crushing Ámmon's lungs. He felt his own consciousness fracturing under the sheer, primal power of the predator's soul. He tried to scream, Peace, but his mouth tasted of copper and bile. The world spun, green trees, gray iron, yellow eyes, and then compressed into a single point of excruciating light. His knees buckled. The last thing he felt was the rough iron against his cheek and the echo of a heartbeat that was slowing down to match his own, before the blackness swallowed him whole.
He woke to the smell of onions and the sensation of being poked in the ribs. Above him, a rough voice muttered something incomprehensible, the sharp, guttural syllables of the Grasslander tongue grating against his ears like stones grinding together.
"He's dead," Jory's voice replied, in the desert tongue, though it trembled with genuine panic. "The Master is going to skin us alive. Look at him! He hasn't moved an inch."
"I'm not dead," Ámmon croaked, his throat feeling like he had swallowed sand.
He opened his eyes. Jory was leaning over him, holding a half-eaten onion. The sun was high in the sky, hours had passed.
Ámmon sat up with a groan, looking frantically toward the cage.
The beast was lying down, its massive head resting on its paws. Its eyes were open, watching Ámmon with a deep, liquid intelligence. It wasn't thrashing. It wasn't roaring. It was waiting.
"Well, I'll be damned," Jory muttered, taking a bite of the onion. "You actually did it. The thing is purring. Like a giant, homicidal kitten."
"It... dead... too. We... think... both... spirit... dead." The words came out mangled, spoken by a burly Grasslander tracker with an accent so thick it was nearly unintelligible to Ámmon.
"This is my younger brother, Cory. I'm still teaching him how to speak Sand," Jory explained, gesturing vaguely at the large man with his half-eaten onion. "It's a slow process. He still thinks 'dung' is a type of soup," Jory added with a crooked grin. "But he's right. The beast woke up about forty minutes before you did. And in all that time, it hasn't blinked. It hasn't growled. It's just been staring at your unconscious body like you're the most interesting pile of dirt in the forest."
Ámmon pulled himself to his feet, his legs trembling slightly. He walked toward the cage. He didn't know exactly what he was doing, or if the beast would snap back into violence. But the Saber-Stalker didn't move. It simply exhaled a warm, rhythmic breath, its vertical pupils dilated and soft.
Ámmon nodded slowly, as if accepting a truce with the beast, even though he didn't understand it. He turned to Jory.
"Let's go," Ámmon said, stumbling slightly as he moved toward the wagon. "I don't know what is happening... but he seems calmer."
With the beast calm, the trackers, moving with exaggerated slowness so as not to break the spell, managed to hoist the heavy cage onto a reinforced flatbed wagon hitched to four heavy-draft oxen.