Not like cowards fleeing, but like bodies moving that no longer had the margin to choose.
The white sand opened beneath their steps. It was not soft like snow, but hard, rough, hot and cold at the same time, as if the ground had not decided which season to obey. Each step lifted pale dust that clung to the blood and turned it to mud.
Kael ran with Arhelia on his back.
He carried her high, across his shoulders, like one carries a wounded in a field that no longer exists. The weight was not just that of a child's body: it was the weight of broken flesh.
Where her right arm should have been, there was only tight cloth and warm blood. The leg hung useless. Each impact against his side drew a moan that did not call for help: it simply happened.
Pain traveled with them.
Kael was not whole either. Where his left foot should have been, there was nothing. From the wound, blood trickled with each step. It left black grooves in the white sand, and there, dust and blood mixed until they became thick mud, almost alive. The mud clung to the stump and returned the pain multiplied.
He clenched his teeth.
His mouth filled with iron.
He did not scream.
In his left hand he carried something else.
Her arm.
He held it with brutal care, as if it were both a relic and a burden at once. The fingers were still warm. The blood continued to fall, slow, patient, as if the body refused to accept the separation.
Behind them floated All or Nothing.
The sphere moved with difficulty. Its surface was cracked; light and shadow misaligned, like a heart beating off rhythm. It did not look forward. It watched. It guarded the White Forest.
The Forest of Whispers did not whisper.
From it emerged the Dhurnark.
The creature rose among the white leaves like an ancient blasphemy. Blind, mutilated, but whole in its hatred. It stopped at the edge of the smooth sand, as if something invisible had ordered it to wait. The earth ceased to tremble beneath its limbs.
The world held its breath.
The children reached the fortress.
It was not a common ruin.
It was neither tower nor castle.
It was a body of stone.
Low, wide walls, eroded by centuries that asked no permission. Broken arches, truncated columns, carvings erased by wind and sand. Smooth stone, polished by ancient hands and then abandoned. The design spoke of prayers, of chants, of discipline imposed with gentle cruelty. There were no clear symbols. Only tired geometry and open courtyards.
On the main roof, a figure waited.
A young man.
Crimson eyes.
He wore fine, black and red clothes, clean in a world covered with mud and blood. He stood upright, hands crossed behind his back. The wind did not touch his hair. The sand did not approach him.
He smiled.
Not a wide smile.
A precise curve.
Arrogant.
The Dhurnark lifted its face toward him.
It could not see.
But it watched.
Kael fell to his knees.
He placed Arhelia on the ground with clumsy care, as if the earth could be kind. The impact drew a dry moan from her. The sand dyed itself with new red. Still, she raised her gaze. Her look oscillated between the two extremes of the world: monstrosity and the young man.
All or Nothing trembled.
The sphere vibrated like a wounded animal recognizing a greater predator. The light contracted. The shadow thickened. The object did not attack. It observed. It feared.
The young man extended his aura.
Level one.
It did not explode.
It weighed.
The air grew dense. The sand stopped moving by itself. The ruins seemed to straighten a little, as if remembering why they had been built. The Dhurnark tensed its body. The world recognized the newcomer as someone who could command.
But the earth did not surrender.
Beneath the white sand, something ancient readjusted, like an animal accepting the predator… without letting go of its throat.
In a blink, the young man left the ground behind and the sky held him.
He floated above the Dhurnark. In his right hand he held a black cloth, wide, alive like a night ripped out. In his left, three thin, polished knives, like promises.
The cloth enveloped him.
The air tore.
Where there had been a man,
fell a red lion.
It did not roar.
It descended.
The jaws came down and the beast's jaw splintered. The impact was dry, surgical. Before the creature could react, a claw traced a perfect line across its neck. Black blood spouted like a mistake corrected too late.
The counterstrike responded.
A blind claw swept the air and struck the mane. The impact drew a low, animal groan and threw it away like a red smudge against the sky.
It landed rolling once.
It rose slowly, elegant.
Unhurt.
Warned.
The Dhurnark retreated.
The earth reclaimed it.
Pillars of stone sprouted in violent spasms, tongues of rock shot up from all angles. The field became a tribunal, and all that existed was called to judgment.
The lion smiled.
Each attack passed where it was no longer. Elegance brutal. Exact movement. Violence was not fury: it was choreography.
Kael, from the ground, raised the saber.
He swung at the air. Cuts that did not touch flesh but pushed. The Dhurnark's pressure cracked for a moment. Kael fell back, rose leaning on his broken knee, and cut again. Again and again.
Arhelia raised the hand she still had.
The shadows responded.
They did not scream.
They advanced.
They stretched from walls, broken arches, and spilled blood. They tied, distracted, bit pillars before they could reach the lion.
He breathed deeply. He raised his voice, broken by pain.
It was not a plea nor a prayer.
It was law.
The border of All or Nothing tensed.
A heartbeat.
He coughed blood. The chant cracked. The wind turned it to silence.
He spoke again.
Nothing happened.
A few heartbeats later, the sand cracked.
From it emerged a monstrous drill, made of compact darkness and impossible edges. It spun with a grave wail that made the white sand vibrate.
It sank into the earth and drilled like soft flesh.
The stone screamed.
From the opened depths, something was forced back. It emerged among rubble and dark blood, dragged from its refuge like an animal exposed to lethal light.
The lion advanced.
And nothing had the right to interfere.
It approached the Dhurnark until all escape was erased. Its claws sank into the belly and tore it open sideways. It was not fast. It was deliberate. The entrails came out like old hair.
The beast fell.
The earth reclaimed it late.
The sand did not absorb everything. Part remained on the surface, simmering slowly, as if the soil needed time to accept what had occurred.
The lion stepped aside.
It looked at the children.
Not with pity.
With mockery.
As if it had not been a battle, but a test.
It was not a warning. Nor a victory.
It was measurement.
The sand settled.
The sky remained blue.
And silence fell over the fortress
like a broken oath.
The lion dissolved without noise.
There was no flash, no ceremony.
The black cloth unfolded upon itself and the red receded, obedient, until the air admitted a human body again.
Where once were claws, now were hands. Where jaws, a young, intact, precise face.
The knives did not return.
They hovered for an instant —beautiful, impossible— and then cracked like fatigued glass. They did not fall: they crumbled. Fine, shining ash danced in the open wind.
The young man shook his hand, as one brushes off annoying dust.
He touched the still-living cloth and, with a quick, almost domestic gesture, commanded it into another obedience.
The night became a napkin.
Black. Elegant. Clean.
He folded it and put it in the chest pocket, like a handkerchief never used to bleed.
Then the hair was noticed.
Black like a night that promises no rest. Short. Shiny. Beautiful without asking permission. Each strand seemed laden with splinters of the world: dry pride, polished selfishness, a hypocrisy so ancient it already knew how to smile. There was no disorder. Nor humility. Only precision that unsettled the air.
He laughed.
Not loudly.
Not happily.
—Hehehe… Hello…
The word hung suspended.
The side responded with a dense pulse. He lowered his hand, touching the wound. Dark. Red. Open enough to remind him that the world could still bite. Not deep enough to matter. Level one. An inconvenience.
—…promises —he continued—. Or should I…
He paused. He breathed. The wound throbbed again.
—…or should I say Zverkhāns.
The name was not called.
It was placed.
Arhelia saw it.
Or thought she did.
The image arrived broken, blurry, as if her eyes had learned too late to ask permission: the young man, the sand, the blood simmering slowly on the white surface. The world slid sideways from her. The body did not negotiate. She fell face-first to the ground.
The impact was dry. Undignified. Final.
—Arhelia! —shouted Kael.
The voice came broken, heavy with sand and iron. He tried to move forward. The knee collapsed. The stump burned. The saber fell from his hand, surrendered.
The young man did not move.
He observed the fall as one watches a poorly tossed coin. No pity. No urgency.
The Dhurnark no longer claimed attention.
The earth, tired, had closed its mouth.
Night fell.
Not like a curtain.
Like a hand turning off a lamp without asking.
The cold arrived first.
It did not bite: it infiltrated. It breathed through the cracks in the stone.
The room was not new.
Nor hostile.
It had been designed to last, not to comfort.
Old stone, worn wood from nameless hands. Lamps anchored to the walls spilled stable, yellow light, enough to deny the night but not erase it. In the corners, cobwebs remained where they had always been. Dust, too. No one tried to conquer them; they simply coexisted.
On the bed with green sheets lay Arhelia.
She did not sleep.
Nor was she fully awake.
The body was a sealed map. Bandages everywhere: chest, neck, sides, thighs. Layers pressed until she became a rigid, almost alien form. Where the arm was missing, what remained had been restored with careful violence. Iron on the shoulders. Cold, firm pieces embedded to prevent the body, in its confusion, from attempting to expel itself again.
A damp, warm cloth covered her eyes.
Not to heal.
To contain.
The bed was stained.
Old blood, dark. New blood, warm. Cold sweat spread like a second skin.
The smell was thick, metallic, persistent.
The body had fought. And was still fighting.
Arhelia trembled.
Not as one shivers from cold, but as flesh trembles when pain has no outlet. Short, dry coughs that cleared nothing. Moans that did not ask for help, only confirmed that the body was still there, tied to itself.
The bandages were soaked.
The skin beneath burned and recoiled. Half-naked, covered only where essential, her body was treated with silent precision.
The caretakers did not speak. Did not look at her face. They worked. Hands firm, fast, skilled. Cleaning. Adjusting. Reinforcing. There was no tenderness, but a hard respect: respect for something that had not yet decided to die.
Before the bed, seated low, floated All or Nothing.
The sphere did not emit clear light.
Nor complete shadow.
It observed.
It was unclear if it judged or, for the first time, something like concern tensed its surface. The boundary between light and dark remained rigid, expectant, like a jaw that has not yet bitten.
Then Arhelia woke.
The body did so without warning.
The scream that came from her was not a scream. It had no form nor sufficient air. It was spasm. A brutal twist of the torso. Blood rose to the throat and fell back. The tremor multiplied. The legs tried to move and could not. The shoulders arched against the iron, and the iron responded without yielding.
The caretakers rushed.
Not to calm her.
To prevent the body from destroying itself.
Hands holding. Weight on the chest. Low, clipped voices. The pain did not lessen. It concentrated. It became sharp, screeching, constant, like a blade placed without intent to cut completely.
The sphere tensed.
The surface vibrated slightly, as if something inside recognized a limit it should not yet cross.
Arhelia screamed again.
And again.
The whole body arched, useless. Fingers could not move. The head could not turn. Pain occupied every space. Time thickened, endless.
This lasted an hour.
Not exact.
Unmeasured.
An hour of broken moans, aimless spasms, breaths that entered poorly and exited worse.
The room endured.
The lamps did not flicker. Cobwebs did not move.
And then, as if the body had exhausted its last argument, calm arrived.
Not relief. Calm.
The tremor ceased. The cough became deep. Arhelia breathed.
Broken.
She inhaled fully for the first time. Air entered as far as it could. She exhaled with a wet cough that shook the chest and left a new trace on the bandages.
And so she remained.
Breathing poorly, but breathing.
Alive, without asking.
Sustained, without understanding by whom.
All or Nothing did not move.
The room remained old.
The bed, green.
The blood, blood.
And the world, outside, continued.
They awoke without announcement.
Not by order, nor tug. It was the cold, withdrawing just enough to allow awareness.
The air of the fortress had changed weight; it no longer oppressed, it guided.
The lamps remained where they were, but their light seemed to have learned another discipline. Shadows no longer moved on their own.
The wounded were lifted first.
No questions. No explanations. Hands touched the bodies with the same exactness as the previous night: neither soft nor cruel. Functional.
The bed gave way under Arhelia with a wet sound. Bandages tightened. Iron on her shoulders responded with a brief, clean pulse, like a warning that needed no repetition.
She was placed in a wheelchair.
The metal was cold. The wheels did not squeak. Someone had greased them recently, as if knowing they would be needed.
A deadly nurse pushed her.
The white tunic fell straight, without useless folds. Gloves white. Head covered by a bag of the same color, tight, featureless. From the forehead, a long cloth descended to the knees. Embroidered in red, a symbol: a four-clawed serpent coiled around a sword. It did not shine. It absorbed light.
The symbol advanced before the body.
Arhelia was given a tunic over the bandages. Thick. Designed for the cold that had learned to stay. The right arm rested in a sling, returned to its place by iron and constant pressure. It did not hang: it weighed. The skin, trapped under tight layers, burned with concentrated, sharp, insistent pain. The hand that still responded clenched on its own. Fingers tried to scratch where the flesh screamed under unyielding bandages. They restrained themselves.
The chair moved.
The corridors were old and narrow. Not narrow from neglect, but by design. Stone worn at shoulder height, not the floor. Touched by bodies, not footsteps. Few lamps. In some stretches, none. Light interrupted and resumed like irregular breathing. Doors appeared without frames. Others lay knocked down, leaning against walls like defeated shields. No one had put them back.
The place was not abandoned.
It had been left.
The architecture did not ask for admiration. It imposed posture. Low ceilings forced one to bow the head. Sharp turns broke the pace. Walls too thick to be just walls. The design spoke of obedience practiced over generations until it became habit. No visible religious symbols. Only proportion, repetition, fatigue.
At the end of the corridor, stairs.
They descended.
The steps were high, uneven, carved for complete feet. Each turn of the wheel made the metal vibrate and the tremor rose through Arhelia's body to concentrate in the fixed shoulder. Iron responded with a brief, dry pulse, like a repeated command. Pain did not spread: it stayed. It learned the contour of the immobile arm and claimed it as its own.
Below, the space opened.
There was Kael.
Standing, leaning on a muleta held in the left hand. Dark wood, polished by recent use. Where the foot was missing, bandages clean and firm held it in place. A light cloth covered the cheek wound. It did not hide: it pointed.
The body leaned slightly forward, as if still learning to negotiate with its new center.
He saw her.
He smiled.
Not a confident smile. A clumsy, disarmed gesture, the muscles forgetting the correct order. Still, it happened. He held it longer than necessary, as if fearing that letting go would lose something more.
Arhelia looked at him.
She did not respond immediately.
The red symbol passed between them. The chair stopped. The red symbol passed between them. Pain pushed again from the held arm, insistent, as if something inside had not yet accepted the obedience imposed. The tunic rubbed the bandages. Still, she leaned just enough to approach. She said nothing. It was unnecessary.
And she said:
—I see you're alright. And… thank you for saving me, I think.
She spoke, her voice dragging the cold still hanging in the corridors.
—Yes… but I doubted. I thought if I left you, I'd gain time. But I saved you… I think it would be a debt.
Kael spoke, and his words struck the air like dry leaves in the corridors.
—Yes.
The silence remained suspended, dense. It moved between them like a dark liquid. One of the doctors coughed. The sound reverberated against the stone, and the physician looked at him… or seemed to. The cough carried away some of the air, but the void settled back in, heavy, humid.
—What do you think?
—About what?
—About the master. He called us.
—Yes… I think I heard he is someone who takes seriously what he teaches. Although… between us, it's not what he should have been teaching.
The echo of the phrase dissolved against the walls, leaving only the memory of their steps vibrating.
—You believe that…
—Speaking of another topic, why was there a fallen cultivator in the forest?
—I don't know.
—Do you think… it's because new times are coming?
—Could be.
Kael remained silent. He seemed to calculate each word, weighing what he should say. Then he opened his eyes. Something sparked—a restless glint—and he spoke:
—There are secrets, spread among the ten clans of our country… It seems cultivation cannot happen elsewhere, due to lack of resources and other matters. Some cultivators with nothing went to these lands, but that… that was before.
—How "before"? —Arhelia asked—. Did more cultivators fall?
—Yes… and also the flourishing of the Four Moons is coming. And if you know…
—The near-impossibility of surviving in the Gates. —Arhelia interrupted, her voice low, hard.
—And also the coming of the Depths. —Kael completed, as if pointing toward an invisible horizon.
—Exactly. Now the harvests move faster, and new treaties dictate how to survive.
A metallic sound cut the conversation. A deadly nurse appeared in the doorway.
—Excuse me, but you must see your master now.
Arhelia looked at her. Her eyes were blades that pierced the white fabric and gloves. She made a minimal gesture of disgust and a barely audible sound of revulsion.
Kael noticed. He raised an eyebrow, confused, but the nurse ignored him. She was not invisible, but she did not matter either. Her presence was an extension of the fortress: inevitable, without indulgence.
She led them toward the inner courtyard of the fortress.
Threshold of Those Who Wait
The courtyard was rectangular, enclosed by ruined reddish brick walls. They were not collapsed from neglect, but from ancient wear, as if time had passed too many times over the same point. Low columns marked the center of the space, aligned with precision, remnants of a vanished building still retaining a memory of order.
White grass covered the ground. It did not grow: it occupied. Its pale tone contrasted with the ancient architecture, reflecting light upward, forcing one to look. In the distance, the landscape opened into plains of smooth white stone, extending as far as the eye could see. Over them, night descended in a contained blue, marking a change of rhythm, as if time had learned a different cadence. New times. Without announcement.
At the exit stood two figures.
The first was a young man with crimson eyes. A wide cloak covered his entire body and feet, hiding the shape of his step. On his shoulders he wore black wool: wolf or some nameless beast. Over the fabric, brutal decorations zigzagged like needles or golden thunder, without ornamental symmetry, only applied force. His eyes did not observe: they waited. His wide smile revealed twisted amusement, barely contained by discipline learned late.
To his right, a woman.
Her posture was straight, stoic. Hands together in front, low, without visible tension. Golden eyes held the scene with a calm that asked for no permission. Short hair framed a face of soft, almost tender expressions, excessively delicate for the place. That delicacy became playful as it rested on the approaching young people.
She wore trousers both wide and fitted, cinched to the abdomen like a functional sash. The white shirt, with loose, open sleeves, added a light, almost festive contrast, improper for the environment. From her belt hung several instruments: some resembling torture tools, others simple iron pieces, unadorned. From all of them emanated the same pressure. A contained aura. Level one. Exact.
The courtyard did not react.
The grass did not move.
The columns offered no shadow.
The threshold was marked.
The silence remained suspended, dense. It moved between them like a dark liquid. One of the doctors coughed. The sound reverberated against the stone, and the physician looked at him… or seemed to. The cough carried away some of the air, but the void settled back in, heavy, humid.
—What do you think?
—About what?
—About the master. He called us.
—Yes… I think I heard he is someone who takes seriously what he teaches. Although… between us, it's not what he should have been teaching.
The echo of the phrase dissolved against the walls, leaving only the memory of their steps vibrating.
—You believe that…
—Speaking of another topic, why was there a fallen cultivator in the forest?
—I don't know.
—Do you think… it's because new times are coming?
—Could be.
Kael remained silent. He seemed to calculate each word, weighing what he should say. Then he opened his eyes. Something sparked—a restless glint—and he spoke:
—There are secrets, spread among the ten clans of our country… It seems cultivation cannot happen elsewhere, due to lack of resources and other matters. Some cultivators with nothing went to these lands, but that… that was before.
—How "before"? —Arhelia asked—. Did more cultivators fall?
—Yes… and also the flourishing of the Four Moons is coming. And if you know…
—The near-impossibility of surviving in the Gates. —Arhelia interrupted, her voice low, hard.
—And also the coming of the Depths. —Kael completed, as if pointing toward an invisible horizon.
—Exactly. Now the harvests move faster, and new treaties dictate how to survive.
A metallic sound cut the conversation. A deadly nurse appeared in the doorway.
—Excuse me, but you must see your master now.
Arhelia looked at her. Her eyes were blades that pierced the white fabric and gloves. She made a minimal gesture of disgust and a barely audible sound of revulsion.
Kael noticed. He raised an eyebrow, confused, but the nurse ignored him. She was not invisible, but she did not matter either. Her presence was an extension of the fortress: inevitable, without indulgence.
She led them toward the inner courtyard of the fortress.
Threshold of Those Who Wait
The courtyard was rectangular, enclosed by ruined reddish brick walls. They were not collapsed from neglect, but from ancient wear, as if time had passed too many times over the same point. Low columns marked the center of the space, aligned with precision, remnants of a vanished building still retaining a memory of order.
White grass covered the ground. It did not grow: it occupied. Its pale tone contrasted with the ancient architecture, reflecting light upward, forcing one to look. In the distance, the landscape opened into plains of smooth white stone, extending as far as the eye could see. Over them, night descended in a contained blue, marking a change of rhythm, as if time had learned a different cadence. New times. Without announcement.
At the exit stood two figures.
The first was a young man with crimson eyes. A wide cloak covered his entire body and feet, hiding the shape of his step. On his shoulders he wore black wool: wolf or some nameless beast. Over the fabric, brutal decorations zigzagged like needles or golden thunder, without ornamental symmetry, only applied force. His eyes did not observe: they waited. His wide smile revealed twisted amusement, barely contained by discipline learned late.
To his right, a woman.
Her posture was straight, stoic. Hands together in front, low, without visible tension. Golden eyes held the scene with a calm that asked for no permission. Short hair framed a face of soft, almost tender expressions, excessively delicate for the place. That delicacy became playful as it rested on the approaching young people.
She wore trousers both wide and fitted, cinched to the abdomen like a functional sash. The white shirt, with loose, open sleeves, added a light, almost festive contrast, improper for the environment. From her belt hung several instruments: some resembling torture tools, others simple iron pieces, unadorned. From all of them emanated the same pressure. A contained aura. Level one. Exact.
The courtyard did not react.
The grass did not move.
The columns offered no shadow.
The threshold was marked.