"Built not for conquest nor glory, but for remembrance. Here, the wind carries names, not orders."
— Inscription at the Gate of Qoruul
The wind carried more than dust now. It carried languages. Thirteen dialects. Five scripts. Prayers from desert clans, blueprints from southern masons, laughter from children who had never known the scream of war horns. The basin that once held only bone and wind had become a forge for the future, and at its heart, the Sky Citadel rose.
Tenger Ul.
They called it the Breath of the Sky. Not a fortress. Not a palace. But a city-shaped promise.
When word reached the Free Cities that the steppe-born tribes were building something not for conquest, but for unity, a quiet shift rippled across the lands. At first, cautious messengers rode out bearing diplomatic scrolls penned in ink that still smelled of hesitation. But the replies that came back weren't declarations. They were invitations.
No banners demanded fealty. No sigils threatened violence.
Just one phrase, repeated across every letter carved in stone, etched in wood, spoken by riders and monks alike:
All are welcome who come with peace.
That broke something loose in the world.
From the fallen halls of Shanjing to the wind-temples of the Broken Sutra Order, people began to move. Craftsmen from Xilu whose ancestors once forged qi-tempered steel for emperors now carved stone for a citadel that would never kneel. Healers from the Jade Canopy Guild arrived bearing spiritroot and phoenix ash salves. Scribes who once copied lies for dead kings now pressed truth into paper with reverence.
And from the north came a gift of gratitude: mountain-cut stone, carted in long convoys down treacherous passes. The Free Cities sent not only supplies, but volunteers, architects, scholars, toolsmiths, and dreamers, answering not to a lord, but to a call.
They came not for coin, but because Altan had once helped hold the line when no one else would.
The city was built in a year.
It began on the high steppe, beneath a night sky carved with stars. A circle of tents was pitched with reverence, not rank. Warriors gathered not in rows, but in arcs. Elders, clan mothers, whispering sages, storm-eyed scouts, and blade-worn chiefs sat shoulder to shoulder. The Thirteen Tribes had not met like this in decades—not as a council of war, but as a people.
At the circle's center burned a fire fed by wood from each homeland—cedar from the north, thornbrush from the dunes, windwood from the southern plateaus.
Altan stood before it. Not in armor. Not on horseback. But clad in dark leather stitched with old tribe-marks, his hair bound by a simple cord. Behind him stood a Stormguard—silent, hooded, their helms removed for the gathering. Their black cloth masks revealed only the lower face, their mouths set like chiseled stone.
Altan raised no sword. He raised his voice.
"We were shattered," he began. "By kings who bought our loyalty with trinkets, and broke it with taxes. By generals who called us rebels and thieves, yet plundered our herds and burned our homes. By the world, which sees only raiders in the dust."
He looked around the ring. "We have spent generations riding alone. We scatter when war comes. We bury our dead in separate winds."
He drew a small clay disc from his belt and cast it into the fire. It cracked with a hiss.
"I do not propose a throne. I do not want to rule."
"I propose a hearth."
"A place we can ride back to. That remembers our names even when we forget each other's."
"Let us build a city not to bind us, but to anchor us."
"A city that holds our flags without folding them into one."
"Not a capital."
"A beginning."
He paused. Let the silence speak. Let them think.
"We are not one tribe. But we can be one people."
Around the fire, heads bowed. Some in disbelief. Others in grim, worn hope.
Then, without signal or speech, the eldest among the Khoron tribe rose. She was bent by age, but her voice cut the air like a knife.
"One vote per tribe," she said. "No more. No less. Not by bloodline. Not by blade."
"Let the flame decide."
So it was done. The Thirteen Tribes—from sand-riders to cliff-speakers—cast their tokens into the fire. Clay discs etched in old runes. One by one, they cracked in the heat.
When the last token split, Altan did not smile. He simply nodded.
"Then we build."
Altan drew a design into the dirt with his boot. Circles within circles. Rivers rerouted, walls raised, towers in watchful arcs. The Sky Citadel atop the highest hill, back set against the lake. The main aqueduct would draw water from the elevated lake behind the citadel, flow beneath its foundation, and cascade down its front like a waterfall. That split of water would feed channels and cisterns across the city below.
Thirteen towers stood atop the Sky Citadel, each one overlooking a corresponding tribe's district spread across the lower basin. The city was encircled by two great walls. The outer wall safeguarded the tribal quarters. The inner wall, heavier and more defensible, protected the four central districts: the Archive, the Quarter of Hands, the Market of Banners, and the Hearth Plaza.
Daalo, chief fabricator, knelt beside the drawing and marveled. He saw not just lines, but layers. Defense and philosophy, symmetry and breath. He offered refinements, reinforced the base angles, drafted how wind would be caught in certain alleys and cooled by the lake-mist.
Together, they shaped not just a city, but an inheritance.
And Altan, in secret, inscribed the city further.
Upon the inner walls of the citadel, along the paved arteries of its streets, he etched protection glyphs drawn from knowledge lost to time. No scholar could read them. None knew the Sea of Mind, the vast inner library Altan had touched in dreams. He told no one of its depths, nor how the glyphs called to it.
When the final glyph was set beneath the Sky Citadel's highest tower, the city breathed.
A spirit awakened.
Not in the form of flame or wind, but of will. The city knew itself.
In the heart of the citadel, a great library stood. Those allowed to enter—citizens and tribesfolk alone—would find books offered not by shelves, but by an old man seated within. He had no name. Altan called him the Librarian.
He was not real.
He was an avatar of Altan's own creation. Yet none could tell. The Librarian always offered the right book, the one whose knowledge mirrored the soul who asked.
The books could be read and memorized—but never copied, never taken out. No one beyond the city's people was permitted to remove a single page.
Knowledge was sacred. And in Qoruul, it had a guardian.
The city had risen.
The flame endured.