The wind whispered like an omen through the desolate dunes. Sand danced around them in ghostly spirals, hissing against their boots. The Temple of Sekhmet rose ahead, a shattered monument swallowed by time—its pillars crumbled, its entrance barely visible beneath a ridge of sandstone.
Reina pulled her cloak tighter, her breath catching in her throat. "This is where it begins, isn't it?" she murmured.
Zaire didn't answer. He simply stepped forward, his eyes narrowed as if reading messages in the dust. Behind him, Elior scanned the horizon, hand resting near the hilt of his blade.
"There's no echo," Elior muttered. "Places like this should hum with Ka. This one… it feels like it was drained."
Rael shimmered into view beside Zaire, his smoke form flickering uneasily. "Something fed here. Something old."
They moved together into the ruins. Stone walls rose like broken ribs from the sand. Ancient carvings—claws, suns, serpents—lined the interior. At the center of the chamber stood a dais, cracked in two. Scorch marks still lingered around it, as if fire had once tried to purge the darkness.
Reina knelt before a cracked mural, fingers tracing the fading symbol. "This one... it's Sekhmet. But she's not alone. That's—"
"Her twin," Aristea's voice echoed from the journal, projected through a Ka-scroll Reina had carried. "Sekhmet was one side of war. The other was Amneris—the healer who turned rage into resolve."
Zaire glanced at Reina. "And your bloodline descends from both. You carry the chaos… and the calm."
Before Reina could respond, the temperature dropped sharply. Shadows twisted unnaturally.
Rael growled low. "We're not alone."
From the temple's dark edges, a sound rose—like weeping and snarling folded into one. A wraith emerged, spectral and howling. Its form was skeletal and blazing with corrupted Ka. It moved like smoke but struck like lightning.
Zaire moved first, intercepting with a flash of dark energy. His bandaged hand ignited with Ka as he struck its core. The wraith recoiled but reformed almost instantly, lashing out with a scream.
Reina raised her hands instinctively, a red-gold barrier sparking into place. The blast shook her to the bone. "It's strong. Feeding off the broken seal!"
Elior jumped in beside Zaire. "We hold, you find the trigger!"
Zaire nodded, ducking another strike and slashing across the wraith's center. "You heard him! Aristea—give us something useful!"
The scroll buzzed. "In the southern alcove—there should be a relief! A mirror carved in obsidian. Sekhmet's Eye. It channels the eclipse rites!"
Reina dashed toward the alcove, her feet skidding over loose stone. The mirror was there, half-buried beneath rubble. She gripped it with shaking hands and whispered the invocation etched into her mind:
"Let rage see itself and surrender. Let blood remember its shape."
The mirror flared. The wraith screamed. Zaire shouted over the din, "NOW!"
Reina turned the mirror toward the spirit.
The light erupted—not bright, but deep, warm, and final. The wraith's form shattered like glass hit by truth.
Silence crashed into the chamber.
Ash drifted down.
Rael returned to Zaire's side, his form steadier. "That was one. But more will follow."
Reina collapsed to her knees, staring at the mirror. "I felt it… it knew me. It wasn't just attacking. It was remembering."
Elior approached and knelt beside her. "Then we make sure it remembers who we are."
Zaire looked at the scorched altar. He traced the mark it left behind—a crescent within a sun.
"They were testing us," he said. "And we passed the first trial."
The wind howled through the broken walls, and far in the distance, drums began to beat.
Echoes of war were stirring again.
And the heirs had only just begun to wake.