The heat was unbearable.

  The Iron Howl rolled deeper into the Red Dune's Edge, its iron chassis glowing faintly under the desert sun. The storm from the night before had passed, but its whispers still echoed in Ryker’s ears. The man they rescued—Jin—slept below deck, his body wrapped in gauze, while Kaen kept watch from above with a brooding silence.

  Kess walked beside Ryker, fanning herself lazily with a dented metal plate. “Remind me again why we’re not turning around and heading literally anywhere else?”

  “Because this is where the map leads,” Ryker replied, holding up the crumpled parchment passed down from the old man in the slums. The ink glowed faintly now, pulsing as they approached their destination. “The Vault of the Forgotten Kings is buried somewhere in these sands.”

  Kess snorted. “Right. A myth. A fairy tale. Just like the Dominion says.”

  Ryker flashed his usual grin. “Exactly why it’s probably real.”

  ---

  An hour later, the Howl rumbled to a halt before a jagged ravine carved into the earth, like the mouth of a sleeping god. There was something unnatural about the place—as if time had stopped here long ago.

  Jin stirred awake, coughing as he stepped onto the deck. His eyes widened when he saw the ravine.

  “You’re going in there?” he asked, his voice laced with disbelief.

  Ryker nodded, his smile not faltering. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Jin stared at him for a moment. “You’re insane.”

  “Yeah,” Ryker replied, leaping from the deck. “But it’s a fun kind of insane.”

  ---

  The Vault of the Forgotten Kings wasn’t marked by gold or treasure. It was marked by stories carved into stone—murals of kings who defied gods, empires that fell from the inside, and rebels who wore crowns of bone and flame.

  As they moved deeper, Kaen trailed behind silently. He could feel something ancient pulsing in the walls.

  Then, they found it.

  A throne of glass and ash, cracked and forgotten, with a massive symbol carved into the floor below it: a burning wheel, the sigil of the Old Sovereigns—the ones who ruled before the Dominion.

  “What… is this?” Kess whispered.

  Ryker stepped toward the throne. “Proof.”

  He sat down casually, swinging a leg over one of the armrests.

  And the room awoke.

  ---

  The floor trembled. Pillars lit up with red-gold light. A voice—deep, cold, ancient—whispered through the air:

  > “You who seek the throne of the broken kings… what do you fight for?”

  Kaen’s chains snapped to life defensively. Kess grabbed her daggers. But Ryker didn’t flinch.

  He stood.

  “I fight for the ones who can’t fight. For the ones who’ve been crushed, caged, erased. I don’t care about thrones or legacies.”

  He raised his fist.

  “I want to burn the lies—and build something true.”

  Silence.

  Then the flame on the pillars surged upward.

  A golden ember drifted down… and landed on Ryker’s chest. It didn’t burn. Instead, it left a mark—a brand etched over his heart, shaped like a flaming wheel.

  Jin gasped. “You’re one of them now.”

  Kess stared. “One of what?”

  “The Sovereign Flame.”

  ---

  They didn’t have long to bask in it.

  The sky above cracked with thunder, and raiders on infernal cruisers appeared over the cliffs—the Scourge Riders, drawn by the activation of the Vault.

  The chase was on.

  ---

  The Iron Howl roared to life once more, tearing through the sands as fire and gunfire lit up the desert behind them. Kaen fought off boarders with his chains, Kess manned the back turret, and Ryker took the wheel, guiding the beast of metal through death and flame.

  And all the while—despite the danger—he laughed.

  ---

  By nightfall, they had escaped.

  Jin sat beside the fire that night, staring into the flames. He looked at Ryker, still branded, still grinning.

  “You don’t even know what you’re becoming, do you?”

  Ryker leaned back and tossed a metal bolt into the fire. “Maybe not. But I’ll keep moving forward. One ruined throne at a time.”

  Jin smiled for the first time. “You remind me of someone I used to believe in.”

  ---

  In that moment, Ryker wasn’t just a drifter with a dream.

  He was a symbol.

  A fire the Dominion couldn’t put out.

  The hope people thought they’d lost.

  And his legend was just beginning.