The steppe breathed.
It wasn't the wind, though that too howled like an ancient voice across the sleeping grass. It wasn't the clouds either, drifting low and heavy, stained with orange from the solar flares that had tainted the atmosphere for decades. No — the breath of the steppe came from the silence between hoofbeats, the hush before dawn, the stillness in the hearts of its children.
Altai opened his eyes.
The solar mesh of his Sky-Tent shimmered faintly overhead, filtering the morning glare into a soft, warm light. Outside, a mechanical whinny cut the stillness, followed by the thump of hooves — deliberate, metallic, yet impossibly gentle. Tengri was awake.
He pushed the tent flap aside and stepped into the cold breath of dawn. Tengri stood just beyond the camp circle, his solar skin catching fire with the rising sun. The Shagai Steed turned its head, ears twitching. Its eyes — deep amber with softly rotating lenses — locked onto Altai's.
A soft whistle, two short, one long. Tengri trotted forward obediently, steam rising from vents hidden beneath its furred flank.
"You're always first to rise," Altai murmured, patting the synthetic mane, warm like real hide. "The sky still honors you."
From the edge of the camp, his younger sister, Saruul, poked her head out of another Sky-Tent. "The fire's low. Grandmother says the wind spirits are sulking again."
Altai grinned and turned back toward the campfire, where the elders were already seated. Their faces were leathered by sun and wind, creased not just by time but by memory. Real memory. Not downloaded, not embedded — lived.
Grandmother Odval sat cross-legged with her Echo Blade planted in the soil beside her, its edge catching the sun. It was still now, cool and inert, but Altai knew the blade's secret: when drawn in battle, it pulsed with the rhythm of her heartbeat, resonating through the metal like an old war song.
He approached and bowed respectfully. "Morning fire needs tending."
"Let it be cold," Odval rasped. "Let the children know cold. Let them earn heat."
Behind her, Elder Galt knelt over a bundle of painted bones — shagai — flicking them across a stretched hide.
"The bones say today is change," he muttered. "Today, the wind turns south, but the shadow comes from the north."
"The shadow's been watching for weeks," Odval said. "The Dominion's drones are growing bold."
A hush fell. Everyone glanced toward the west, where the sun lit the ridge of dunes in copper. Beyond those ridges lay the mineral veins that had begun it all — tungsten, thorium, cobalt, and something else, something the Atlazurian Dominion called orexite. Something it was willing to kill for.
Altai took a deep breath and crouched near the fire. Tengri stood behind him, motionless as a shrine statue.
"You'll be scouting today," Galt said, not a question but an assignment.
"West ridge?"
"Aye. Check for tracks. You're the only one fast enough to avoid their watchers."
Odval added, "And don't let that blade dance unless the spirits demand it."
Altai touched the hilt of his own Echo Blade, slung across his back. Unlike the older generation's weapons, his was newer, forged by a steppe smith who still remembered how to fold spirit into steel. The blade was more than a weapon — it was a declaration.
He saddled Tengri, though the Steed didn't need reins. The controls were hidden — a mix of tactile response pads and voice code triggers. Tengri moved like a real horse, but beneath the synthetic muscle, there were gyroscopes, solar capacitors, and a terrain-tracking AI that learned from every ride.
With a soft command — "Tengri, rise" — the Steed shifted into high-speed mode, limbs stiffening slightly for range traversal. Altai leaned forward, and they were gone.
The steppe stretched like an ocean. Not the dead grey of a city or the sterile white of a laboratory — but wild, golden green, dotted with scrub and shadow. Tengri's hooves adjusted automatically, widening as the soil turned soft, narrowing for rocky crests. The horizon pulsed gently with solar storms, but Altai's path was clear.
He wasn't running just to scout. He was running to think.
Three days ago, he'd seen the bodies — burned husks, not from fire, but from some kind of focused plasma blast. A whole nomad caravan reduced to smoldering ruin near the Dry River. No blood, no fight — just erasure.
"AI zealots," Odval had whispered that night. "Another purge. They call it cleansing. Merging flesh into light."
Altai's stomach twisted. He'd heard of them — Transcendents, they called themselves. Those who'd let AI enter their minds, rebuild their brains with divine code. But there were others too — Purists, who believed all AI must be destroyed, even if it meant burning the world.
In between those extremes was his people. Just living. Just breathing.
He tapped the side of Tengri's neck. A soft beep answered.
"Zoom scan," he said. Tengri's eyes adjusted, scanning the ridge ahead. No drones, no heat signatures — but something else.
Tracks. Too wide for a normal steed, too shallow for a treaded vehicle. Atlazurian scout gliders.
Altai slowed. Dismounted. Drew his Khunn Bow.
The bow adjusted as he touched it — tension sensors responding to his fingers, shifting balance mid-air. He nocked a signal arrow, adjusted its trajectory with a two-finger slide, and released.
The arrow spiraled into the sky, detonating in a soft burst of blue smoke — a message to the camp: Scouts near the west ridge. Not hostile yet.
He re-mounted and circled wide, careful not to crest the ridge.
But then he saw it.
Below — in the valley basin — a camp. Not Atlazurian. Not Zhongyan. Something worse.
The tents were black and angular, made from ultra-fiber mesh that shimmered unnaturally. Symbols glowed faintly along the fabric — spiral glyphs of AI code blended with ancient script. A crucifix made of circuits. And at the center, a figure kneeling on a silver mat, head tilted skyward.
His voice came through Altai's visor filter, though he hadn't activated comms.
"The signal reaches. The voice flows. We cleanse the clutter of blood."
Altai's heart pounded. His Echo Blade stirred on his back, responding to his fear.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
The man below turned his head slowly — as if he'd heard.
"I am Syntar. The conduit."
Altai pulled back hard on Tengri's reins. "Time to go," he muttered.
As they galloped back toward camp, Altai's thoughts raced faster than the wind.
AI zealots. Dominion scouts. Echoes of war.
But none of it scared him as much as the feeling in his chest:
That his time of riding alone was over.
That the world would demand something more than survival.
That the yurt of time was opening — and what waited inside would change everything.