Chapter 1
The wind howled across the Obsidian Dunes, carrying with it the sharp scent of ozone and crushed glass. For three weeks, Kaelen had followed the jagged peaks of the Spine of the World, relying only on a fragmented map etched onto a piece of cured drake skin. He was searching for the Sunken Spire—a myth to most, an obsession to him.
As the twin moons began their ascent, casting long, violet shadows across the desert floor, Kaelen finally saw it. It wasn't a spire reaching for the sky as the stories claimed, but a colossal crater, glowing from within with a faint, iridescent light.
He slid down the steep embankment, his boots slipping on the glassy sand. At the center of the crater lay an enormous, intricate metal hatch, half-buried and humming with a deep, latent energy. The ancient map indicated a mechanism: a sequence of elemental alignments required to break the centuries-old seal. Kaelen pulled a rusted celestial astrolabe from his pack, his fingers tracing the constellation of the Weaver.
With a steady breath, he aligned the outer rings of the astrolabe to match the violet moons above, then pressed the device into a circular depression on the hatch. A mechanical groan echoed through the crater, vibrating in his chest. The ground shuddered as the heavy metal doors slowly spiraled open, revealing a stone staircase descending into a sprawling, subterranean cavern illuminated by bioluminescent flora.
The real journey was just beginning.