Book One – Chapter 2

What had moments before sagged and flowed and convulsed beneath impossible heat now tightened with violent haste. The ground hardened faster than it could settle, splitting where it could not hold. Fissures raced across the dune. Cracks burst through scorched stone and fused glass as the sudden absence of heat drew every surface taut. Shards contracted with sharp, brittle reports that echoed across the darkness. Beneath the crust, trapped pockets of molten sand constricted and collapsed into themselves with long, granular groans, sinking and settling around something buried far below.

Whatever force had burned the crater had yielded to another, one that held the entire basin in absolute suspension.