Alloy Hunter

The committee stirred as Ses-Hath approached the altar. Shattered hulls and broken trees formed a crude rotunda around the three elders. Overhead, Solus probes drifted in feathered robes, their optics glowing faintly. Below, only the drums cut through the cries of the crowd. She knelt before the elders. The drumming stopped. Silence followed. Vel-Thoth, the eldest, rose and began to circle her, talons scraping stone. Before her, a ceremonial probe descended, cloaked in silk and ash. From its chassis, a bowl emerged, filled with a fluid that shimmered like molten glass, refracting colors no eye was meant to see. The elders lifted the bowl. She drank. Magenta and lime streaked her beak. The crowd erupted. And the world widened. She felt heat radiating from feathers in the crowd. Heard the failing servo of a probe overhead. A child’s breath caught beneath a cloak. Vel-Thoth’s limp carried the weight of generations. Even the moonlight had texture. The glass burned through her, illuminating more than ceremony. It showed her the machine - buried deep beyond the ash hills - feeding on the same living glass now coursing through her. Forests crushed into powder. Rivers boiled down to steam. Its hunger shaped the horizon. She rose. Salvaged Solus parts crowned her in metal and wire. The Spear of Ra-Thun found her hand, heavy with intent. The crowd stared. Wings spread, eyes forward, she lifted from the rotunda into the night. The engine would fall. The land would remember her name.