Dawn came in thin slices through the shutters, pale and dusty, turning the air into something you could almost see.
Alisa's eyes opened to the same ceiling, the same cracked plaster, the same faint smell of old metal in the water bucket and for one stupid second her body expected snow.
Then she shifted, and the ache in her ribs reminded her: desert. The cloth at her throat was lighter now, the scarf Iris had given her sitting loose against her skin. Her winter clothes were still there bundled and heavy, clutched close on the chair like proof she hadn't imagined another life.
She sat up slowly. Her mouth felt lined with sand. Her palms still stung in places where panic had scraped them raw. And under all of it was something worse than pain: the quiet fear that if she listened hard enough, she'd hear her sister's voice again.
Nothing, she told herself. It's morning. Just morning.
Her stomach disagreed, twisting tight with hunger. She swung her feet down, stood, and nearly swayed legs weak, head thick, the kind of weakness that came after standing up too fast. She gathered the bundle of her old clothes to her chest anyway, because letting go of them felt like letting go of her name.
Downstairs, the common room was dim and cool compared to the day before. The innkeeper was already up. He looked like he hadn't slept at all grey beard rough, eyes sharp in a tired face as if night had been a job he'd finished and didn't want to talk about.
He saw her on the stairs and pointed, wordless, to a cup.
Water. Real water, not the metallic bite from the upstairs pump. It sat waiting like he'd poured it five minutes ago and decided she'd drink when she was ready.
Alisa took it with both hands. The first swallow hurt going down. The second made her eyes sting. She drank slower after that, embarrassed by how close she'd been to crying over something so simple.
The innkeeper set a small plate on the counter flatbread, coarse and warm from a pan, and a handful of salty dried fruit that stuck to her teeth.
"Eat," he said. Not gentle. Not unkind. Practical.
She obeyed because her body needed it more than her pride did.
When she'd managed a few bites, he nodded toward the bundle in her arms. "You're carrying that all the way to Suraam?"
Alisa tightened her grip. "Yes."
He didn't argue. He only made a small sound through his nose half disbelief, half understanding and stepped around the counter toward the door.
"You want south," he said. "You're not walking it."
Outside, the desert had changed faces. Morning light made the dunes look almost harmless soft gold instead of last night's black. Almost.
The innkeeper walked a few paces from the threshold and stopped. He didn't draw a circle or chant or do anything that would look impressive in a story. He just placed his palm on the ground like a man checking the temperature of stone.
The sand shivered.
Alisa froze, bread still in her mouth.
The earth didn't rise like a monster this time. It rose like something answering its name. Granules of sand tightened into packed soil, soil darkened into clay, clay crusted into stone layering fast, shaping fast, as if invisible hands were pressing the desert into a form it remembered.
A golem pulled itself up from the ground low and broad, built like a beast meant for distance. Four thick legs, jointed wrong in a way that looked ancient rather than broken, its body a slab of fused earth and pale rock. No face just a blunt head with a carved ridge like a brow, and in its chest a dull, steady glow like a coal buried under ash.
It exhaled no breath, just a soft spill of dust and lowered itself slightly, waiting.
Alisa's throat went tight. This is normal here, some part of her mind tried to insist. This is what people do.
She didn't believe it.
The innkeeper glanced back at her. "It'll take you south. It won't get tired. It won't talk. Just do not fall down"
Alisa swallowed. Looked at the golem. Looked at the empty horizon beyond it.
Then she stepped forward because fear wasn't a plan, and south was the only direction anyone had offered her that sounded like it led to people.
Alisa lingered, her gaze anchored to the old man as if waiting for a final scrap of wisdom or a reason to stay. The silence between them was thick, heavy with the things they both knew couldn't be fixed by words.
With a weary sigh that seemed to rattle in his chest, the man reached out, his calloused hand steadying her as he helped her hoist herself onto the golem's broad, stone-hewn back.
As she settled onto the shelf of its shoulders, a flicker of genuine shock crossed her face; the thing felt less like a statue and more like a low-frequency hum of ancient energy.
"Anyway," the man grunted, stepping back and wiping his palms on his apron. He looked at her one last time, his eyes searching hers with a grim, paternal sort of pity. "Have a good journey, girl. Maybe the tides will turn, and we'll see each other again in a better world."
He turned his back, his heavy boots thumping against the porch as he retreated into the shadows of the inn, the door clicking shut behind him like a final period at the end of a sentence.
"Thank you," she mumbled, the words so quiet they were instantly swallowed by the rising wind.
Then, the golem moved. It was a jarring, rhythmic lurch that sent a jolt straight up her spine. Every step was a localized earthquake, a bumpy, grinding motion that made her muscles ache within the first hour. But as the miles bled together, she found the rhythm, her body swaying instinctively with the golem's heavy gait.
For a long time, the world was nothing but a repetitive canvas of sun bleached sand, jagged teeth of rock, and the rare, desperate cluster of scrub brush clinging to life.
The heat was a physical weight, and boredom began to settle in like a fever. Alisa's chin dipped toward her chest, her eyes flickering shut in a daze, until the light suddenly vanished.
Suddenly a vast, cool shadow swept over her.
Alisa's head snapped up, her confusion sharpening into a cold spike of adrenaline.
Iris was there, descending from the sky like a fallen star, her feet landing soundlessly on the golem's stone hide just behind Alisa.
"Hey, don't look so surprised," Iris said, her voice a melodic contrast to the dry whistling of the desert. She stood tall, her white hair dancing in the wind like silk threads. "We already know each other, don't we? I figured the silence out here was enough to drive anyone mad. I thought maybe I'd make it a little less boring."
Alisa's mouth hung open. "Sure," she managed to mumble.
Iris stepped closer, her brow furrowing as she studied Alisa's hollow expression. She reached out, her hands surprisingly warm as she gripped Alisa's shoulders, grounding her.
"Hey," Iris whispered, her gaze piercing. "Are you better now? You look like you had no sleep."
"Not really," Alisa admitted.
Iris sighed, a soft sound that held the weight of centuries. She squeezed Alisa's shoulders, leaning in until their eyes met.
Iris leaned forward until Alisa couldn't pretend she didn't hear her.
"Hey." Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. "Look at me for a second."
Alisa's eyes stayed on the horizon. Sand, stone, heat same color forever. Her hands were clenched in her lap so tightly her knuckles had gone pale.
"Alisa."
That finally did it. She turned her head a little, like she was bracing for something. Like she expected the words to hurt.
Iris softened, just a fraction. Not pity. Something steadier.
"It's okay that you're not okay," she said. "Really."
Alisa blinked once. Her throat moved as she swallowed, but she didn't answer. The wind tugged at the cloth around her neck, and she pulled it tighter without thinking.
"Anyone would be a mess after what you've been through," Iris continued. "So stop punishing yourself for reacting like a normal person."
Alisa's mouth twitched almost a scoff, almost a laugh, almost nothing. Her eyes flicked away again.
"I'm fine," she muttered, but it came out thin. Automatic. Like she'd said it a thousand times to make adults stop asking.
Iris didn't argue with the word. She just watched her for a beat.
"Don't start talking about yourself like you're useless," Iris said, more firmly now. "Or 'too weak.'"
Alisa's shoulders tensed. Her jaw tightened as if she was holding something back. For a second it looked like she might snap. Instead, her voice dropped into something small.
"I don't know what I'm doing," she admitted, so quiet it almost disappeared into the golem's heavy footsteps. "I don't even know where I am."
The confession landed like it had weight. Like saying it out loud made it real.
Iris nodded once, like that was allowed. Like it wasn't a failure.
"You're still here," Iris said. "That means something."
Alisa stared at her. Really stared this time like she was trying to find the trick in it, the catch, the reason those words weren't true.
Her lashes fluttered. She blinked hard, too fast.
Iris kept her voice calm. Human.
"You don't need to have it all figured out right now," she said. "You don't need to know the whole plan. You just need to keep going."
Alisa's breath came out shaky. She looked down at her hands, then at the bundle of her old clothes resting against her leg like a lifeline she didn't want anyone to notice.
"One day at a time," Iris added. "One step at a time."
For a moment, Alisa's face did something strange like her expression couldn't decide whether to break or to hold. Her eyes stung. She hated it. She wiped at them fast, angry at herself for even almost crying.
"I can't…" she started, then stopped, because she didn't even know what she meant. I can't go back? I can't do this? I can't keep being alone?
Iris didn't push. She let the silence exist for a second, just long enough for Alisa's breathing to slow again.
Then Iris leaned in a little closer not crowding, just present.
"And if you want to see your family again…" Iris said carefully, like she was choosing every word so it wouldn't shatter her, "…then we don't quit."
Alisa's eyes snapped up, sharp and wet. Hope and pain together, tangled like barbed wire.
"Not today," Iris finished, quiet but absolute.
Alisa held Iris's gaze for a long moment. Her lips parted. Nothing came out. Her throat worked like she was trying to swallow a stone.
Finally, she nodded once.
It wasn't brave. It wasn't dramatic.
It was the smallest yes a person could give.
"…Okay," Alisa whispered.
And Iris like she'd been waiting for that exact sound exhaled, the tension easing out of her shoulders.
"Good," she said softly. "That's enough for now."
Iris sat back on the golem as if the conversation hadn't just scraped something raw out of Alisa.
For a while they rode in silence just the steady, heavy thump of stone feet against sand and gravel. The horizon stayed stubbornly the same. Heat shimmered. A few low rocks. A strip of dry scrub clinging to life and giving up again.
Alisa kept her eyes forward, but her shoulders weren't as tight anymore. The words Iris had said still sat in her chest like something warm she didn't know what to do with. She hated that it helped. She hated that she wanted it to help more.
Iris glanced at her from the side, like she was measuring the difference without pointing at it.
Then she spoke, casual on purpose.
"Can I ask you something?"
Alisa blinked, pulled out of her thoughts. "What?"
"If you had the choice," Iris said, "would you want to learn an elemental art?"
The question was so normal so random that it made Alisa look at her like she'd misheard.
"Elemental… what?"
Iris made a small gesture with her hand, like she was talking about learning to swim. "An art. A way of moving the element you're born with. Most people never do it. Some can't. Some just don't try long enough."
Alisa's throat tightened.
She remembered the old man outside the inn how the desert had tried to kill him and he'd answered like it was nothing. The weapon. The impact. The way the ground itself had cracked open like it was obeying him.
Her stomach turned.
"Is that what he was doing? The old man" she asked before she could stop herself.
Iris didn't smile, but something in her face softened like she was glad Alisa's mind was reaching for why instead of spiraling into the dark.
"Something like that," Iris said. "His is… a very practical style."
Alisa stared out at the sand again. The golem lurched over a buried rock and she had to brace herself with one hand. Her other hand found her pendant without thinking, thumb rubbing the cold edge of silver until it hurt.
"I don't know if I can," she admitted. "I don't even know what I'm " She cut herself off, jaw tightening. "I'm not like him."
"You don't have to be like him," Iris said, simple. "You just have to be yourself. You know there is a lot's of different ways beings use elemental power. Just be yourself Alisa"
Alisa's brows knit together. "Why are you even asking me this in the first place?"
Iris's gaze flicked ahead, like she was watching the distance while she spoke. "Because you're traveling alone. Because things out here can be dangerous. It is not like your old World were the worst thing that can happen is a bear. This world can be cruel"
Alisa swallowed.
"And because," Iris added, quieter, "learning something you can do with your own hands helps. Better then allways relying on others. Also boosts your self confidence"
That hit too close. Alisa's fingers tightened on the cloth around her knee.
She forced her voice to stay steady. "So you want to teach me."
"I'm asking if you'd be interested," Iris corrected gently. "Teaching only works if you want it."
Alisa hesitated.
Part of her wanted to say no. Stay small. Stay invisible. Stay safe.
But another part of her angry, humiliated, exhausted of being helpless, remembered the door. The sand grabbing her ankle. The way her body had frozen and refused to move. The way she'd begged.
She hated that memory more than she hated the heat.
"…Yes," she said finally, almost like it slipped out of her. Then she repeated it, steadier. "Yeah. I think I would."
Iris nodded once, as if that was the only answer that mattered.
"Okay," she said. "Then first: we figure out what element you have."
Alisa's heart stuttered. "I thought everyone just… knows."
"Most people guess," Iris said, dry. "Or they get told by someone who knows it."
Alisa let out a breath that was almost a laugh, but it didn't quite make it. "And how do you know?"
Iris looked at her for a second just long enough to remind her that Iris was Iris.
Then she shrugged it off like it wasn't important.
"I have a good eye," she said.
Alisa narrowed her eyes, suspicious despite herself. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting right now," Iris replied, and there was the faintest hint of teasing in it like she was trying, on purpose, to make the moment lighter.
Alisa looked away, but her mouth twitched.
Iris leaned forward a little, bracing as the golem climbed a shallow rise. "Tell me something," she said. "When you're scared, when you panic , what does it feel like in your body first?"
Alisa frowned, thinking. "My chest. Like… it locks. And my hands get… weird. Cold. Even if it's hot."
Iris nodded slowly. "And when you're angry?"
Alisa's jaw clenched. "I don't know. I don't get angry."
Iris's eyes slid to her. Flat.
Alisa sighed, defeated. "Fine. I do. It's like… pressure. In my throat. Like I want to scream but I'm swallowing it."
"Good," Iris said, like that was useful information, not a confession. "That's a start."
Alisa's heart beat faster, nervous in a different way now. "So what is it?"
Iris didn't answer immediately. She let the wind pass. Let the golem take three more heavy steps.
Then she said, "I think you're going to hate me for this."
Alisa's stomach dropped. "Why?"
"Because learning it is going to be frustrating," Iris said. "It's going to feel unfair. And it's going to make you confront parts of yourself you've been avoiding."
Alisa stared at her. "That's not that's not an element."
Iris's mouth curved slightly.
"No," she agreed. "That's just the price."
Alisa swallowed, then forced herself to ask the real question.
"…So do we start now?"
Iris's eyes lifted toward the sun, then toward the lengthening shadows on the sand.
"We start now," she said.
And Alisa's stomach tightened not with fear this time, but with something sharper.
Readiness. Or maybe stubbornness.
„What are elements for you, Alisa"? Iris asked curious.
Alisa stared at Iris for a moment like she was trying to figure out what answer wouldn't get her laughed at.
Then she exhaled,slow, careful and forced herself to talk anyway.
"Okay. On Earth… elements are mostly just… nature." She glanced down at her hands, then at the sand like it might help her explain. "Like in school you learn about chemistry, but that's not what people mean when they say 'elements' in stories. In stories it's usually the simple stuff. Fire. Water. Wind. Earth."
She rubbed her thumb over a rough spot on her palm, as if grounding herself.
"And even then, it's not real. It's symbolic. People say 'she's like fire' or 'he's calm like water.' Or you see it in games when someone shoots flames, someone makes ice, someone controls storms. But that's fantasy. It's… entertainment." Her mouth tightened. "It's supposed to stay in books."
She looked up again, more directly now.
"But books make it bigger. They add extra ones. Like… lightning, ice, metal, plants. Light and darkness. Like stuff that isn't even an element in real life but feels like one in a story."
Alisa swallowed. Her voice went quieter.
"I thought it was all made up."
Her eyes flicked toward the golem behind them, stone shaped into obedience and the memory of the old man moving like a blade through the night flashed in her mind. The way the ground had cracked like it was answering him.
"But then… I saw him."
She paused, then continued, a little faster, like she'd decided if she didn't get the words out, she'd lose the nerve.
"He explained it to me. Not… gently. Just straight." Alisa gave a small, humorless breath. "He said every person is born with an element. Like it's already there, even if you never touch it. And most people don't."
She glanced at Iris, checking if she was following.
"He said some people live their whole lives with it sleeping inside them. They're still that element, but they never awaken it, so it doesn't matter. And then some people do awaken it through training or fear or… whatever causes it." Her fingers curled lightly in her lap. "And once it's awake, it's not just a trick. It changes what you can do."
Her voice steadied as she remembered the list, the way the innkeeper had laid it out like rules.
"He said there are categories. Three of them."
She ticked them off slowly, making sure she didn't miss anything.
"The first ones are the common ones. The ones most people have. He said that's the first eight."
Alisa's gaze drifted to the horizon for a second, like she could still see the map in her head, the desert shaded in the center.
"Flame," she said. "Tide,water. Gale,wind. Stone,earth. Frost. Bolt,lightning. Flora." She hesitated half a beat, then added, "Metal."
She looked back at Iris, almost apologetic. "He said those are the ones you actually see. The ones towns and villages are built around. People with those can still be rare if they awaken it, but the element itself isn't shocking."
Her throat bobbed. She forced herself onward.
"Then he said there are the next four." Her voice dropped a little, instinctively. "The ones that are… extremely rare."
She named them carefully.
"Shadow which is Darkness i asume. Radiance,light. Spirit. Aeon, time."
Just saying time made her stomach tighten, because she remembered what it felt like for reality to glitch, like her life had been cut and spliced.
"And then…" Alisa's hand lifted to her necklace again, not gripping, just touching, like checking that she was still there. "Then there's Void."
She looked away as she said it, as if she didn't want to see Iris's reaction.
"He said Void is basically a myth. Like people talk about it because it sounds scary and powerful, but it's not something normal people ever meet. He said there's only one known being that has it." She swallowed hard.
For a brief, unwanted second, Iris's face flickered in Alisa's mind, standing in the desert like she belonged to it more than the sun did.
Alisa quickly pushed the thought away.
"And…" She drew a breath, remembering another line from that conversation, something that had stuck like a splinter. "He also said there's a god for each element. Like… each one has a god that represents it. And they have areas dedicated to them."
She hesitated, then added, because she couldn't stop herself:
"I remember you saying back in the desert, about 'his territory.' Like the… things there were his creations." Her voice tightened. "So when the man said this area is connected to the god of Stone, it felt like… it matched."
She looked down, then back up, searching Iris's face.
"But I don't really get it," she admitted. "I don't know what it means to be born with an element. I don't know how you're supposed to feel it. And I don't know what mine would even be." Her mouth pulled into a tense line. "I just know I'm… here. And apparently that matters."
She fell quiet after that, like she'd run out of safe words.
Then, smaller, she asked the only honest thing left:
"So… what do you want me to do with that?"
Either way, it was movement.
Iris didn't answer right away.
She sat down on the rock beside Alisa like it was just two travelers catching their breath, while the golem waited nearby, hunched, patient, sand sliding off its shoulders in slow little avalanches.
"You're not from here," Iris said.
Alisa's stomach tightened anyway. Hearing it out loud made it heavier.
"I figured," Alisa muttered, keeping her bundle of old clothes in her lap like it could keep her real.
Iris nodded once. "Most people here are born with an element. Not always awakened, not always strong, but it's… there. Like a seed."
Alisa looked up. "And me?"
"You don't have one," Iris said plainly.
For a second, Alisa almost laughed,sharp and bitter, because of course she didn't. Of course the one thing everyone had was another thing she got left outside of.
"So I'm just… useless," she said.
"You're not useless," Iris cut in immediately, firm enough that Alisa flinched. "You're just not shaped by this world's rules the way they are."
Alisa swallowed. "So what does that mean? I can't ever get one?"
"I didn't say that." Iris shifted, elbows on her knees, voice more practical now. "There are ways."
Alisa's attention snapped into place. "How?"
Iris sat with her elbows on her knees, watching the golem stand there like a patient statue. Its shoulders shed little slips of sand whenever the wind touched it.
"There are four ways people end up with an element," she said.
Alisa stayed quiet, clutching the bundle of her old clothes in her lap. The fabric smelled faintly of a world that didn't exist here. Her fingers kept tightening without her meaning to.
Iris lifted a finger.
"First, some people just have it." She shrugged, like she hated how unfair it sounded. "They're born with it. Sometimes it wakes up young. Sometimes it doesn't wake up at all. But the seed is there."
Alisa's jaw worked once. She didn't argue. There wasn't anything to argue with.
Second finger.
"Second, environment and repetition." Iris tapped the stone beneath them. "People grow up surrounded by something, working with it, living inside it until their bodies start to understand it in a way words can't teach."
She glanced toward the far-off smear of green that might have been scrub or nothing at all. "In jungle regions, Flora shows up more often. Kids there learn plants like a language before they learn math. In mining towns, Stone is common. In coastal places, Tide. It isn't just 'because nature', it's because your life shapes what you notice, and what you notice shapes what you survive."
Alisa swallowed. "So it's… earned."
"Sometimes," Iris said. "And sometimes it's just the only thing your life ever gave you the chance to become."
Third finger.
"Third, artifacts or items." Iris's tone sharpened, more warning than explanation. "Objects that carry an element inside them: a sword that bends metal like it's soft clay, a ring that calls lightning, a book that teaches flame the way a teacher teaches maths. Basicaly a grimoire."
Alisa's eyes flicked to Iris's hands. To her calm.
Iris kept going anyway.
"And then there are the cursed ones." She said it like she'd seen it too many times. "They don't give you power. They trade you for it."
Alisa's stomach tightened. "Trade what?"
"Time," Iris said simply. "Memories. Years off your life. Pieces of you. Some take your sleep until you can't tell dreams from waking. Some take your emotions until you move through the world like a doll. Some don't take anything at first, then one day you realize the artifact isn't in your hand anymore. It's behind your eyes."
Alisa's grip on her clothes bundle went hard, knuckles whitening. The idea hit too close to her already-fraying sense of self.
Fourth finger.
"And the rarest," Iris said, and her voice dipped as if the desert itself might be listening. "A god gives it to you."
Iris looked at her for a long moment.
Then she said, quietly, "You already noticed something, didn't you?"
Alisa frowned. "What?"
Iris didn't perform. No glow. No wind kicking up on command. She just looked… worn, in a way that didn't match her face. Like someone who'd stayed awake through too many endings.
"The way I show up when I feel like it, just to disapear again" Iris said. "The way that… thing, your door the Eima, ceased to exist the second I touched you. The way i feel not affected by anything. Be it heat, dehydration or hunger"
Alisa's throat tightened. She had noticed. She'd tried not to. Because once you admitted it, you couldn't un-know it. You couldn't go back to pretending you were simply lost. Lost was fixable. This wasn't.
Iris exhaled slowly, like she'd been carrying that sentence around for a while.
"I'm not really a girl," she said. "Not in the way you mean it. I'm… a avatar or a aspect. A shape I can wear. Something you can look at without your brain snapping in half."
Alisa stared at her, pulse loud in her ears. "A avatar of what?"
Iris hesitated, just a beat, like she was weighing whether honesty would help or hurt.
Then she said it plainly.
"Void."
The word didn't feel like a fantasy term. It felt like a cold spot in the air. Like the world got a little quieter just to make room for it.
"The element people argue about," Iris added, voice steady. "The one most people don't believe exists because it's easier that way."
Alisa's mouth opened. Nothing came out. Her hands tightened around her old clothes until the fabric bit into her palms.
She thought, stupidly, of her sister's voice coming through that door. Of hearing something she loved become a hook.
Iris leaned a little closer, not looming. Not pushing. Like she was trying to keep Alisa from tipping over.
"I'm not saying this to impress or scare you," Iris said. "And I'm not asking you to worship anything. I'm telling you because you deserve to know what you're dealing with."
Alisa's voice scraped free. "Why tell me now?"
"Because you asked how people get an element," Iris said. "And because… you're not from here. The usual paths might not recognize you."
Alisa blinked hard. It made her eyes sting, and she hated that it did. She hated how quickly her body betrayed her. Like her tears were impatient.
Iris watched her, quiet. Waiting. Not filling the silence to make it less awkward.
"And," Iris said after a moment, softer, "because if you want help, I can give you something most people don't even get the chance to hear about."
Alisa swallowed. "The void… you can just give it to me?"
Iris shook her head immediately. "No."
No sweetness to it. No drama. Just a clean refusal.
"Not like that," Iris said. "Not safely. And not for free."
Alisa's stomach dropped. "For free?"
Iris looked away toward the dunes, like she didn't love the answer either. "Power always takes something. Even when it's 'given.' Sometimes the price is time. Sometimes it's pain. Sometimes it's… the way you look at yourself afterward."
Alisa's fingers twitched around the pendant at her throat, like she needed proof she still owned her own body.
Iris turned back to her. "But I can show you the path. And I can stay close enough that you don't drown in it while you learn what it feels like."
A gust of wind pushed past them. The golem shifted its weight, stones grinding. Alisa felt it through the soles of her boots like an animal adjusting.
Alisa swallowed again, throat tight. "And if I say no?"
Iris shrugged, small, human. "Then you keep going to Suraam. You eat. You sleep. You learn something else. Maybe learn to know new people. Just continue life."
The fact that Iris said it like survival was still an option, still valid, hit Alisa harder than the void did. Like she'd been waiting for someone to tell her she was trapped, and Iris refused to.
Alisa stared at her, at the calm, at the terrifying normality of being offered a choice.
"Okay," Alisa whispered. "Then… what do you need from me?"
Iris's expression softened, barely. Like she'd expected that answer and still didn't want to push her luck.
Iris let out a slow sigh, the kind that didn't sound annoyed, just tired, like she'd had to say this before and never liked how it landed.
"I need you to be sure," she said.
Alisa's fingers tightened around the bundle in her lap. The cloth creased under her grip.
Iris kept her voice calm, but there was an edge of seriousness in it that made Alisa sit a little straighter.
"Void isn't like the other elements," Iris continued. "Yes, any element can become terrifying in the wrong hands. Any element can grow past what you think is possible, especially when gods are involved."
She looked out at the dunes for a moment, then back at Alisa.
"But Void is… different. It doesn't just hurt. It erases. And once something is gone the way Void makes it gone, you don't get to undo it. Imagine you delete a drawing from a Manga Panel"
Alisa swallowed. Her throat felt tight even though she hadn't been crying.
Iris didn't soften the truth to make it easier.
"The moment you touch it, you become dangerous. Not because you're evil, because you're human. You get angry. You panic. You break. And when you break with Void in your hands, it's not just you who pays."
Alisa's lips parted. "I wouldn't-"
"I know you think that," Iris said gently, cutting in before it could become a promise she couldn't guarantee. "But think about this. Imagine you erase something, not out of cruelty, just out of grief, or fear, or a second where you can't breathe and your head goes blank."
Iris paused, watching Alisa's face as if measuring how much she could take.
"And then, later, you realize what you did."
Alisa's stomach turned.
Iris's voice stayed level. "If you're a god, you can… correct things. Not always. Not perfectly. But you have ways. If you're not a god, if you're just a person, there is no reversing it. You don't get a second try."
Alisa stared at the sand between her boots. Her hands trembled, barely.
"So you're saying…" Her voice came out small. "You're saying you won't give it to me."
Iris didn't look away from her.
"I'm saying you're not ready," Iris answered quietly. "And I'm saying I don't want to be the one who hands a ticking bomb to a girl who's still learning how to breathe again. You are still not yourself. Even if you do not understand at the moment what i mean. You will figure it out."
The words hit like a slap, not because they were cruel, but because they were true in a way Alisa couldn't argue with. She felt heat rise behind her eyes, immediate and humiliating.
She forced it down. "Then why bring it up at all?"
"Because you deserve to know what you're stepping near," Iris said. "And because you deserve a path that isn't just 'stay weak forever' or 'die.'"
Alisa's nails dug into the fabric she was holding. Her voice shook anyway. "So what am I supposed to do?"
Iris's gaze softened a fraction.
"You'll travel," she said. "You'll meet the others,gods, or their avatars, their aspects, whatever face they're willing to wear in the world. They'll test you. They'll teach you. Some will refuse you. Some will help you. And little by little… you'll gain what you can actually hold."
Alisa blinked hard. "The other gods…"
Iris nodded once. "I'll notify them. If they don't already know a Visitor has arrived, they will soon."
The word Visitor still made Alisa's skin prickle.
"And then?" Alisa asked, voice rough. "I just collect powers like, like I'm doing chores?"
Iris gave her a look that made it clear she wasn't amused by the comparison, but she didn't scold her either.
"It's not collecting," Iris said. "It's learning. It's discipline. It's control. It's proving, over and over, that when you're hurt, you don't become a weapon pointed at everything around you."
Alisa's throat tightened. She looked away because the idea of being that kind of danger, danger she didn't notice until after, made her feel sick.
Iris's voice dropped, quieter. "If you master the elements you're given… and you master yourself… then I'll meet you again."
Alisa's head snapped up. "You will?"
Iris nodded. "And if you're ready, truly ready, I'll teach you what I refused to teach you today."
Alisa sat frozen for a second, caught between relief and frustration, between wanting to argue and wanting to cling to the fact that Iris wasn't shutting the door forever.
"But…" Alisa whispered, and hated how her voice cracked. "That could take years."
"It might," Iris said honestly.
Alisa's shoulders sank. The wind tugged at her scarf. For a second she looked very young.
Iris watched her like she could see the exact moment Alisa started blaming herself again.
"Hey," Iris said, firmer. "Don't make that face."
Alisa swallowed. "What face?"
"The i am a failure face," Iris replied. "You're still alive. That matters. And you're still choosing to move forward. That matters too."
Alisa didn't answer, because if she did she might start crying for real, and she couldn't stand the thought of crying in front of someone who spoke like she could see through her ribs.
Iris stood, brushing sand from her palms.
"For now," she said, "you don't need Void. You need your feet under you."
She glanced toward the horizon, toward a direction Alisa couldn't read.
"The Stone aspect is close," Iris added. "Closer than the others. The god of Stone has always kept a tighter grip on this region."
Alisa's heart beat a little faster. "Stone… like the old man?"
Iris nodded. "Like him. Same root."
Alisa tightened her hold on her bundle. "And you're taking me there?"
"I'll get you to the threshold," Iris said. "I'll make sure you don't get swallowed by something stupid on the way."
Alisa's breath hitched. "And then?"
Iris's expression didn't change, but something about the pause told Alisa she already knew the answer.
"Then I leave for a while," Iris said.
Alisa looked down fast, like she could hide the disappointment by not showing it. "Right. Because… people can't see you."
"And because you need to learn how to stand without holding onto me," Iris added, not unkindly. Just… certain.
Alisa swallowed hard. She nodded once, because she didn't trust her voice.
Iris stepped closer and, very briefly, set two fingers against Alisa's shoulder, light pressure, grounding.
"Come on," Iris said. "Let's go meet that grumpy god."