The storm reached the ruins just after sunset.
William sensed it moments before the first lightning strike landed nearby. The air inside the chamber thickened suddenly, the faint hum he had noticed earlier rising into a low vibration that trembled through the stone beneath his feet.
Then the sky erupted.
A blinding flash tore across the desert outside the breach in the wall. Blue lightning struck somewhere among the dunes with a violent crack that echoed across the landscape like the splitting of stone. The thunder followed instantly, a deep concussion that rattled the ruin and sent loose sand cascading from the ceiling.
William instinctively stepped away from the opening.
Wind slammed through the breach with sudden force, carrying clouds of sand and glowing blue dust into the chamber. The particles swirled through the air like sparks drifting from a fire before settling across the floor and walls.
The crystal veins reacted immediately.
Light surged through the stone.
What had once been faint threads of color now burned bright beneath the surface of the walls, illuminating the carved patterns throughout the chamber. The scarabs gathered along the seams erupted into frantic movement, their tiny bodies glowing so brightly that the insects looked like living embers crawling across the ruin.
Another flash split the sky.
This one struck much closer.
The impact shook the entire structure. A chunk of stone broke loose from one of the upper walls and crashed onto the floor, shattering into fragments that scattered across the sand.
William glanced toward the ceiling.
The ruin was beginning to fail.
Outside, the storm howled.
Wind roared across the desert in powerful surges that ripped sand from the dunes and hurled it into the air. Lightning continued striking the ground in irregular bursts, each impact sending pulses of blue energy crawling across the surface of the desert.
The air inside the ruin grew brighter with every strike.
William drew the dagger from his belt again.
This time the reaction was immediate.
The moment the blade left its sheath, the runes ignited with blue light.
Not a faint flicker like before.
A steady glow.
The metal vibrated in his hand as though the weapon had suddenly awakened after centuries of silence.
William stared at it in disbelief.
The cracks in the blade were changing.
The largest fracture near the base was slowly closing, the metal along its edges shifting almost imperceptibly as the weapon pulled itself back together. The chips along the edge remained, but even they looked smaller than before.
The dagger was repairing itself.
Another thunderclap shook the ruin.
A violent gust of wind tore through the breach and slammed against the interior walls. Sand blasted through the chamber like a wave, stinging William's face and arms.
The ceiling groaned.
He looked upward just in time to see another fracture split across the stone overhead.
The ruin would not hold.
William turned immediately and moved toward the deeper corridors he had explored earlier.
The outer chambers had been damaged long before he arrived, their walls weakened by centuries of erosion and buried sand. If the storm continued growing stronger, those sections would collapse first.
The interior structures might survive longer.
He moved quickly through the narrow passage leading deeper into the ruin. Blue light from the glowing crystal veins illuminated the corridor now, casting strange shadows across the carved symbols lining the walls.
Behind him another crash echoed through the building.
The outer chamber had partially collapsed.
Stone fragments rolled across the floor as another section of ceiling gave way. Wind howled through the expanding breach, turning the front of the ruin into little more than a battered shell against the storm.
William kept moving.
The corridor sloped downward slightly, leading into one of the deeper chambers he had previously abandoned because of the sand drift blocking the passage. Now the shifting winds outside had changed the structure again.
The sand slope had partially collapsed.
A narrow opening had formed along one side of the obstruction, revealing a passage beyond.
William hesitated for only a moment before squeezing through.
The chamber on the other side was larger than any he had seen yet.
Massive stone pillars rose from the floor, their surfaces carved with the same geometric patterns found throughout the ruins. Unlike the upper chambers, these pillars remained mostly intact, their bases anchored deep within the buried foundation of the ancient structure.
The ceiling here was thicker as well.
William felt the difference immediately.
The roar of the storm above became slightly muted, the heavy stone absorbing much of the vibration from the thunder outside.
For the first time since the storm began, the chamber felt stable.
He leaned against one of the pillars and exhaled slowly.
The dagger continued glowing in his hand.
William held it closer to the crystal veins running through the stone wall.
The reaction was immediate.
The runes brightened.
Energy pulsed along the etched lines of the blade, flowing through the metal like light through water. The fracture near the base sealed completely, the edges of the metal fusing together until the crack vanished entirely.
William stared at the blade.
The weapon looked stronger than it had when he found it.
Not perfect yet.
But closer.
Another bolt of lightning struck somewhere above the ruin.
Even in the deeper chamber the thunder rolled through the stone like distant artillery. Dust fell from the ceiling in thin streams as the ancient structure absorbed the shock of the impact.
William lowered the dagger slowly.
Outside the storm raged across the desert, unleashing waves of energy that tore across the dunes and shattered the fragile remains of the buried city above.
But here, deep within the ruin's foundation, the ancient stone endured.
For now.
And as the blue light from the crystal veins continued to pulse through the walls, the weapon in William's hand glowed brighter with every passing strike of lightning.
The storm was feeding it.
And something told him the storm had only just begun.