We ran toward the crystal.
Toward the promise.
Toward the end of this parenthesis — too beautiful, too long, too gentle.
We didn’t stop again.
Not for a night. Not for an hour. Not even to catch our breath.
Sleep fell upon us with every step, weighing on our eyelids, our legs, our thoughts. And all around, the landscape — still just as magnificent, still just as treacherous — kept whispering to our tired hearts in a low, slow, enveloping voice: Stay. Rest. Forget.
The flowers offered us their perfu. The vines opened their arms. The ground grew softer, warr, more welcoming.
But I held on.
I held firm.
I clenched my teeth. I repeated to myself, every mont, what I had almost forgotten. Every heartbeat beca a reminder.
I had found my center again.
And I refused to lose it once more.
Not now.
Not after coming so close to dissolving.
Lysara struggled more.
At tis, I saw her slow down, almost without noticing. Her steps grew hesitant, heavier, and her gaze... blurred, drifting, caught by the glowing tall grass or the trees leaning over her like silent mothers co to cradle her.
Once, she stopped completely.
Frozen.
Mute.
Her pupils dilated, her face relaxed. Too relaxed. A strange serenity, almost frightening. As if sothing had emptied her. Or absorbed her.
I ran to her, my heart pounding too fast.
— Lysara... co back.
She didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink.
I took her arm. It was warm, relaxed, supple. Not absent... but elsewhere. As if she were floating in a soft, deep dream, impossible to shatter.
I whispered, closer now, almost into her ear:
— This isn’t real. This happiness... it’s stolen. This world caresses you to erase you. Co back to .
Still nothing.
Just a smile.
Distant.
Drifting on her lips like a mist that doesn’t know where it cos from.
And I held her. Tight. Because she couldn’t anymore.
So I did what I had to do.
Without thinking further, without giving her a choice, I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her, forcibly.
Her body, limp, compliant, tensed all at once. She groaned, barely resisted, like a sleeper torn from a dream too deep, too warm, too beautiful to want to leave.
But I didn’t let go.
My arms held her, my steps dragged us out of that silent trap, and I felt her breath quicken against , her body tense, stiff — resisting, then faltering.
And little by little, the enchantnt broke.
Like cracked glass.
Like a bubble bursting without sound.
She dropped to her knees, right there in front of , gasping, shoulders trembling, face bowed as if the earth alone could help her regain her footing.
— I’m sorry... she whispered between two tears. I just wanted... just for a mont...
Her voice broke in places. Not with sha. Just with imnse exhaustion. And that silent desire, that stifled cry I knew too well: the yearning to remain in the gentleness.
— I know... I murmured, placing my hand on her nape. But this isn’t our end. Not yet.
She closed her eyes, inhaled slowly, then straightened.
One knee, then the other.
And without another word, we resud walking.
Together.
Slow. But resolute.
The vegetation grew denser as we advanced.
Taller. Broader. More radiant.
The leaves looked polished like gemstones, the trunks engraved with living patterns, the roots pulsed slowly beneath our feet like arteries. Everything shimred a little too much. Breathed a little too much. Lived... insistently.
The colors, at first fascinating, beca almost unreal — more vivid than the retina could bear.
The scents, intoxicating, thickened in the air until they felt almost liquid, suffocating, as if the atmosphere itself wanted to be drunk.
And the sounds... too pure. Too clear. As if they had never known the echo of a scream.
It was beautiful. Yes.
But it was too much.
And the more beautiful it beca, the more I grew wary.
As if perfection itself was hiding sothing. A waiting. A trap.
Creatures appeared, scattered all around us, at a careful distance — just far enough not to frighten, just close enough to be seen.
Glass birds, their translucent wings catching the light like prisms.
Golden stags, mute, unmoving, with eyes that seed human.
Fla-spirits, floating among the trees, swaying like hesitant thoughts.
And others, less distinct. Shapes made of mist and light, never touching the ground but following us, slow, patient.
None moved toward us.
None threatened.
But all watched.
And finally... we arrived.
We had arrived.
And yet... it wasn’t the end.
Before us, the heart of Terra Neutralis opened — vast, silent — like a sanctuary hidden in the hollow of the world, guarded always by silence itself.
All around, nature seed to have arranged itself, forming a strange, almost solemn geotry — trees rising in a perfect circle, mossy stones outlining spirals, lights suspended in the air without any visible source, as if this place rejected the laws of the outside.
And at the center... it was there.
The Crystal.
Floating just above a black basin, smooth as obsidian glass.
It didn’t touch the water. It hovered a few centiters above it, motionless, yet vibrating with a power one couldn’t see — only feel. A heavy presence, imnse, contained.
It was of unreal beauty.
Not cold. Not distant. But dense. Hypnotic.
Its surface was neither smooth nor rough: it shifted constantly, like living tal. At tis, you might see veins of light. At others, shapes. Faces, maybe. Fragnts of imprisoned mories.
It emitted a soft light — violet, tinged with blue in places — but the light didn’t seem to co from it: it ca from farther. From deeper. As if the crystal were only a porthole, and on the other side, another world was watching us.
Among everything we had encountered in Terra Neutralis, it was... other.
Not just the most beautiful.
The most true.
The most ancient.
It wasn’t made to be admired. It was made to be crossed.
A threshold.
A passage.
Around the basin, twelve vast encampnts stretched out.
Laid in a perfect circle, imnse, evenly spaced, like the petals of an ancient flower the world had forgotten... but not the mory of its peoples.
Each camp bore its own mark. Its own rhythm. Its own way of existing.
Tents sculpted from bone or glass. Pavilions embroidered with lightning or silence. Banners stirred by inner winds. Each space breathed the identity of a people, a culture, an ancient pride.
And they were populated — thousands of people, all silent, all in place, as if this theater had begun long before we arrived.
But what struck imdiately... was the separation.
Clear.
Uncrossable.
Silent.
No barrier. No wall.
But the distance was palpable. Instinctive.
Each remained in their sector. No steps beyond the invisible lines. No words cast from one circle to another. Not even a glance offered without cause.
No mingling. No exchanges.
Only presences. Upright. Wary. Anchored in their camps like one anchors in a wounded mory.
I slowly turned on myself.
And I understood.
These twelve camps...
It wasn’t a coincidence.
It was them.
The Twelve Races.
Gathered. But not united.
Present. But already poised for war.
The Twelve Races.
I recognized them, one by one, without even needing to get closer.
The humans, upright and organized, their banners too clean not to be hiding blood.
The elves, frozen in cold elegance, eyes turned toward a horizon no one else could see.
The dwarves, clustered around an invisible forge-fire, their weapons always ready, even when not fighting.
The vampires, calm, graceful, dangerous — and silent, as if they had rged with the night itself.
The demons, radiant, blazing, as if they refused to exist without burning.
The angels, aligned, almost too perfect, wings folded but never relaxed, as if their peace was only tightly held tension.
The giants, massive, immobile, alive like mountains forcibly moved.
The dryads, rged with the trees they seed to grow by re presence, their skin covered in moss and secrets.
The centaurs, noble, proud, hooves anchored in the earth like a declaration.
The beastn, more restless, more alert, eyes everywhere, fangs visible even in peace.
The trolls, imnse, slow, pale-eyed — perhaps the only ones not playing a role, or no longer knowing how.
And the goblins.
Clustered. Swarming. Too many, too alive, too unpredictable. Chaos breathed beneath their tents. And yet, not one crossed the line.
Twelve camps.
Twelve races.
Twelve silences.
I didn’t see their leaders.
But I felt their presence.
Like invisible mountains planted at the four corners of the circle — unmoving, silent... but ready to collapse at the slightest breath.
It wasn’t an aura of peace.
It was pressure.
Muted. Contained. As if each one held back their strength, not out of wisdom... but out of necessity.
Thousands of eyes stared at the crystal.
None turned to us.
We were nothing here.
Not yet.
Lysara, beside , observed for a long ti. Her face was calm, but her hands, crossed against her chest, betrayed a silent tension.
Then she spoke. Softly.
— So... this is our destination?
I nodded. Slowly.
— Yes. Look closely. Keep every face, every posture, every silence. Because any one of them could be an enemy tomorrow.
She didn’t reply right away.
Then:
— All right.
Simply. Like a pact.
I scanned the area. The atmosphere was taut like a string one no longer dares to touch. The slightest misplaced word, the smallest misstep... and this circle could beco an arena.
The paradise we had crossed...
Ended here.
At the gates of the sanctuary.
Here, it was sothing else.
Not a place of arrival.
Not yet a battlefield.
Just a fragile pause. A suspended mont. A golden cage where each race held its breath, frozen in an equilibrium too perfect to last.
And the strangest thing was — no one moved.
No discussions. No sudden gestures. Not a cry. Nothing.
Just camps frozen, as if petrified in waiting.
As if all were watching for the sa signal. The sa breath.
The Shifting Sovereign.
I raised my eyes to the center of the circle.
To where the living Temple rose.
It looked like nothing known. An organic mass, supple, its walls rippling slowly like a giant diaphragm breathing to the rhythm of the world. It had no angles, no visible doors — only shifting folds, slow, deep pulsations, almost hypnotic.
It was alive. It was there.
But it... did not co.
It did not look. It did not erge.
And yet, it held the twelve powers in check.
Without a word. Without a gesture.
Only by its presence. By its silence.
Because they all knew — and now I did too — that it was he, and he alone, who would open — or not — the path to the crystal.
And as my eyes moved from one face to another — of stone, of blood, of sap or of light — a thought imposed itself. Clear. Lucid. Inevitable.
Never would the Twelve Races, born of such different, ancient, and opposed lands, have coexisted like this, in silence, without a single conflict erupting...
Unless there was a force.
Unless there was an authority.
Unless a pact held by fear — or by faith.
And according to what Xagros had told . And what I had read. And seen.
There was only one being capable of that.
The Shifting Sovereign.
Lysara leaned toward , very gently, as if even a breath too loud might shatter the balance of this place.
She whispered, voice barely audible:
— It’s as if peace here holds by a single breath...
I looked at her without replying right away.
The Temple, still alive, pulsed slowly at the center of the circle. The twelve camps remained frozen, as if sculpted by waiting.
Then, in a low voice, almost to myself:
— And that breath... is not ours.
She nodded slowly, without another word.
And around us, silence beca king once more.
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