Character
Aerik listened as she spoke, his gaze following the faint pattern of her footprints pressed into the sand ahead. The wind swept over them, lifting thin streams of dust that glimmered beneath the stars. He said nothing at first, letting her voice fill the stillness as he studied the horizon. Every sound reached him clearly—the rasp of her breath, the shifting of the dunes, the whisper of wind caught between ridges, and the way their clothes rustled with every move.
“You speak of him as though he is already gone,” he said finally, his tone even. “That is how it should be. A man like Vedieu never sees the blade that ends him.”
The cold reached deeper now. He could feel it creeping into his hands and along his arms, slowing the strength in his fingers. He flexed them inside his gloves, forcing blood to flow again. The ache was sharp but grounding, something to measure himself against.
When she spoke of the Jawas and the nomads, his eyes followed her line of sight, tracking the long, dark stretch of dunes to the north. The faint marks of Sandcrawler treads were visible beneath the thin veil of windblown sand, the scent of oil and scorched metal lingered faintly in the air.
“You know this world well,” he said. “The desert listens to you. It is not a gift many have.”
He adjusted his pace to keep beside her, his senses open to every change around them.
“If this meeting place is inside the bones of a Krayt dragon, then your father chose well. The dead things of this desert keep their secrets better than the living.”
He fell silent for a few moments, studying the way the starlight painted the horizon in pale silver.
“Hollow, dark, and tanned. Perhaps not a place, but what waits inside it. Your father was careful with words.”
The wind shifted again, carrying the smell of salt and sand from somewhere distant. Aerik pulled his cloak tighter, fighting the cold that tugged at his strength.
“We will find it,” he said. “Whatever truth he buried in this riddle, it will not stay hidden from you.”
He looked ahead, eyes narrowing against the wind. The stars above burned steady as they pressed onward, their light glinting in his eyes like fire trapped in amber.
It did not take long before they reached the place Irina had mentioned. Aerik smiled as he took in the majestic view. This was a site he had never seen before, and he drank in the awe of it. Bleached bones, picked clean by the sand and wind, stood out in a bright white as the moonlight above made the teeth of the great beast unmistakable.
He stood just outside the maw. They were close.