Chapter 8: Blood and Salt
They reached the salt flats by dusk. Endless white stretched in every direction, blinding and barren under the dying sun. It was a place where nothing grew, where no birds flew, and where time itself seemed to hold its breath.
Dineo stepped beside Tau, her boots crunching against the crystallized surface. "The old stories say this was once a lake so vast, it touched the stars. Then the gods bled into it, and it turned to salt."
"Sounds like the kind of place a trial would be hiding," Tau muttered, scanning the horizon. "No cover. No shelter. No direction."
The last shard still hung dormant across his chest, dull compared to the others. Whatever this final test was, it hadn't begun yet. But the land was stirring.
The wind picked up as the sky turned amber, and in its gusts, Tau heard it again. That low, distant hum. Like a chorus of voices swallowed by time.
"We're being watched," he said.
"Always," Dineo replied, her voice tense. She pulled her scarf higher and nodded toward a faint black dot far ahead. "That's not natural. C'mon."
They trekked for what felt like hours. The dot grew larger, resolving into a structure of sorts—a jagged mound of black stone rising unnaturally from the white. It had no clear entrance, no windows, just a single vertical split down its center like a sealed mouth.
As they approached, the final shard buzzed violently. Tau took a step forward and the ground pulsed beneath him.
A voice boomed, louder than any before. Not from the stone, but from the sky itself.
"To wield the legacy, you must surrender the self. You must face what you fear becoming."
The black stone split open with a harsh crack, revealing a narrow path into darkness. Dineo reached out instinctively, but Tau stopped her.
"This one's mine."
She hesitated, then nodded. "I'll wait. Just... don't die."
Tau smirked. "Trying not to make it a habit."
He stepped inside. The moment the salt-crusted door closed behind him, all light vanished. It was as if the world outside had been shut out entirely.
Then came the heat. Oppressive, suffocating. Sweat beaded on his brow. He moved forward, hands grazing the narrow walls. The air grew thicker with every step, until it wasn't just heat—it was memory.
He blinked and suddenly he wasn't in the stone corridor anymore.
He stood in a familiar place.
Red sand. A burned hut. A boy's scream echoing in the distance.
His village.
Tau staggered back, heart pounding. He hadn't seen this place since the night it all fell apart. He had buried the memories deep, beneath years of rage and exile.
A small figure ran past him. Bare feet kicking up sand. Crying.
His younger self.
Tau turned. Standing at the edge of the village was a man cloaked in black, the same he had seen in dreams—the one who took everything. The one who smiled as it all burned.
Tau ran. The world warped around him, and suddenly he was the boy again, helpless, screaming for a mother who would never answer. The fire roared louder, and in its glow, shadows danced. Soldiers. Magic. Death.
He fell to his knees, the shard around his neck searing hot.
The cloaked man stepped through the flames, face still obscured. "You live with the guilt of survival. The shame of silence. You want to bury the boy you were. But he's the only reason you still stand."
Tau shouted and lunged. But this wasn't a battle of blades. It was soul versus soul.
The world shattered again.
He stood on the salt flats, but everything was wrong. The sky was red. The sun had cracked. And at the center of this broken realm stood a twisted version of himself.
Not the phantom of the first trial. This one wore his face but held none of his humanity. Its eyes glowed with unchecked power. Its hands dripped with blood.
"This is who you become if you let anger win," the echo said. "If you let vengeance guide your hand."
They clashed.
The battle was unlike anything before. Magic erupted from their strikes. Wind tore across the salt. Each blow was a choice—mercy or wrath. Memory or madness.
The echo fought without restraint, without fear. It laughed as it struck. It whispered with every attack.
"She dies because of you."
"They chose you to suffer."
"Power doesn't protect. It punishes."
Tau bled. But he didn't break.
At the height of the fight, he drove the echo back with a surge of will, lightning cracking across the sky. The echo staggered, wounded.
Tau stood over it, breathing hard. The killing blow was in reach. But he remembered the words of the woman in the Grave of Giants:
"You carry us. With pride."
He lowered his blade.
"I know what I've lost," Tau said. "But I won't lose myself to it. Not now. Not ever."
The echo snarled. Then it vanished like smoke.
The world went silent.
He was back inside the black stone. The shard on his chest glowed brighter than ever, fusing with the other two until they became one whole piece again.
The doorway behind him opened. Dineo rushed in.
"You're bleeding!"
Tau smiled faintly. "Not the first time."
"Did you win?"
He looked at the shard. At the cracked salt beneath his boots. At the fading visions in his mind.
"No," he said. "But I didn't lose."
Outside, the wind screamed. A wall of sand rose in the distance, a storm unlike any they'd seen before.
The trials were done. The path of the bearer had begun.
And the desert had only just started to awaken.