The desert moved on.
Azrana, once the heart of empire, now stood as a fractured jewel—its spires repaired by calloused hands, not royal decree. There were no more banners with golden suns, no more decrees from thrones of ivory and obsidian.
Instead, there were councils.
Led by those who had bled in the sand.
---
Kael's absence was felt like a missing wind in the sails.
No statue marked his resting place. No songs praised his name. He had insisted on it—no monuments. No myths.
But the people remembered.
Farmers spoke of a quiet man with tired eyes who once lifted a fallen child during a sandstorm. Soldiers drank to a warrior who never once sent a man into danger he wouldn't face himself.
Liora remained in Azrana, reluctantly taking a seat among the new ruling council. She wore no crown, only her sword, and her silence during meetings spoke more than the loudest voices ever could.
Bael, restless as ever, returned to the outer territories, training militias to guard their homes—not for conquest, but for peace.
As for Narek, he disappeared. Some said he returned to the old libraries to gather the remaining pieces of history. Others claimed he went in search of other relics—either to destroy or bury them deeper.
---
Ten years passed.
Then fifteen.
One night, during a rare rain that swept across the southern plateau, a child wandered into an old ruin and found something strange—a sigil etched in stone, deep underground, glowing faintly.
When he touched it, he saw fire.
Not burning or wild, but warm.
A voice echoed faintly in his mind: "To protect, not rule. To serve, not rise. Flame shall never bind the will of man again."
The villagers sealed the ruin the next day.
They told no one.
---
In the shadows, the Circle that Kael founded had grown.
Twelve Guardians. No names. No allegiances to kingdoms or coin.
They met only when danger whispered through the dunes, when tombs stirred or whispers of the First Flame surfaced again.
They carried no symbols.
Only oaths.
And each of them had heard the same story: a warrior-king who could have become a god—and chose to walk away.
---
Back in the desert, a single set of footprints led over a high dune and vanished into the wind.
Some say it was just a traveler.
Others believe Kael still watches.
Waiting.
Because power always returns.
And so must those sworn to stop it.