Lindarion’s eyes slowly lifted toward the fissure.
It widened—
a hair’s breadth—
as if smiling.
The fissure widened—
only slightly,
but enough that the air scread.
Not aloud.
Not in sound.
But in pressure—a ringing vibration felt in bone, like a bowstring pulled too far.
Ashwing scrambled behind Lindarion’s shoulder. "No. Nope. I don’t like that. I don’t like ANYTHING that smiles without a mouth."
Nysha didn’t answer.
Her jaw was clenched; her hand hovered above her blade, not drawn, not sheathed, as if the weapon itself couldn’t decide whether drawing it was bravery or suicide.
Lindarion took one step forward.
The fissure responded imdiately—
its edges twisting,
fraying like torn silk
woven with gold and violet threads.
The voice ca again.
Not from the desert.
Not from the fissure.
Inside their heads.
"You’re late, Eldorath’s child."
Nysha’s breath hitched. "That’s—no. That’s too clear. Voices that clear don’t co from fractures. They co from—"
"—sothing looking through," Lindarion finished.
He raised his hand.
The desert held its breath.
The fissure trembled, as if amused.
"Closer."
Ashwing grabbed Lindarion’s collar with tiny claws. "Do NOT get closer. What if it pulls you in? What if it eats you? What if it EATS THROUGH YOU?!"
Lindarion didn’t move another step.
Instead, he extended his aura—
thin, controlled, gold fading to white.
Not enough to provoke,
but enough to see.
The fissure reacted like fabric brushing against fla.
Golden light refracted off its edges, and suddenly—
for a fraction of a heartbeat—
the thing inside beca visible.
Nysha swore under her breath. "That’s... not mortal."
Its silhouette was tall, humanoid only in the vaguest sense.
Arms too long.
Ribs too many.
Eyes like inverted stars—black voids with burning white rings.
Symbols floated above its shoulders, orbiting like slow moons.
Not demonic.
Not divine.
Sothing older.
Lindarion’s system flared.
[Entity Detected: ???]
[Classification: Undefined]
[Threat Level: Impossible to Estimate]
[Warning: Fissure is NOT a barrier to this entity.]
[Recomndation: Retreat.]
The voice didn’t wait.
"You walk toward Dythrael."
Nysha stiffened.
Ashwing whined.
Lindarion’s gaze sharpened, all warmth gone. "How do you know that na?"
A sound like shifting bones echoed across the desert—
a laugh.
"Because I rember when he was born."
Lindarion’s breath faltered.
The desert dimd.
Even the mana dust froze in the air, suspended mid-fall.
Nysha whispered, "That’s impossible..."
"That’s older than the first epoch," Lindarion murmured.
"Older than your epochs,"
the voice agreed,
"and older than your fear."
The fissure widened again—
no longer hair-thin
but finger-thick.
The sand under their feet retreated, pulled toward it in a slow spiral.
Ashwing shrieked. "It’s DRINKING the desert! Stop it—stop it—Lindarion DO SOTHING!"
Lindarion didn’t panic.
He lifted one hand—
palm outward.
Calm.
Steady.
Focused.
The sa way he stopped the Sand Warden.
But this ti—
the fissure pulsed with laughter.
"You think will can bind ?"
Lindarion’s jaw tightened.
"I don’t need to bind you."
His aura shifted—gold igniting white, white streaked with shadow.
A tri-color pulse.
He struck the air.
Not the fissure.
The space around it.
The desert cracked.
Mana surged outward in concentric rings, briefly revealing the underlying web of this region’s aether—a tangled lattice, overloaded and unstable.
The fissure spasd.
The entity inside recoiled, its silhouette flickering like a candle about to gutter.
The voice sharpened.
"...you are not the Tree. You are not the blood who broke us."
Lindarion didn’t blink. "Then stop looking at ."
The entity went silent.
The desert held its breath again.
Then—
The fissure folded inward,
shrinking abruptly,
like sothing yanking it shut from the other side.
Before it vanished, a whisper slipped through.
Soft.
Expectant.
"Find when you break."
And then—
Silence.
The fissure vanished.
Not closed.
Gone.
The desert resud breathing.
Mana dust drifted again.
Heat-waves shimred.
Ashwing collapsed facefirst into Lindarion’s hood. "I hate this place. I HATE THIS PLACE. LET’S GO NORTH. CAN WE GO NORTH. LET’S JUST LIVE IN A CAVE."
Nysha exhaled shakily. "That thing... whatever it was... it knew Dythrael. And your ancestor. And it wasn’t lying."
Lindarion stared at the empty air where the fissure had been.
"I know."
"And you’re not running?" she asked.
He shook his head slowly.
"No. If it wanted to kill us, we’d be dead.
It wanted to warn us."
"Warn us of what?" Ashwing groaned.
Lindarion turned toward the south.
Toward the vast shimring dunes.
Toward where Luneth and his mother were imprisoned.
His eyes hardened.
"That Dythrael isn’t the only thing waiting there."
The desert changed.
Not gradually—
instantly.
One mont, dunes rolled endlessly under the white sun.
The next, the horizon bent sideways, warping like heat haze with a pulse behind it.
The sand shifted color—
from pale gold
to dull grey.
Nysha halted mid-step. "This... wasn’t here a second ago."
Ashwing peeked over Lindarion’s shoulder and imdiately squeaked. "Nope. Nope. This is corpse-colored sand. I don’t trust corpse-colored sand."
The wind carried no heat now.
No warmth.
Just a low, constant hum—
like breath through hollow bones.
Ahead lay a field of stone monoliths, half-buried and leaning at impossible angles.
So were cracked.
So had fallen.
So were untouched despite the erosion of ages.
But every one of them had been carved.
Nas.
Dates.
Symbols.
A graveyard.
Except—
Nysha crouched, brushing sand off the nearest monolith. "These inscriptions... they’re in high Sylvarion. But old. Like... pre-First Epoch old."
Lindarion knelt beside her.
The runes were faint, half-erased, but he recognized the shape of one symbol:
A serpent devouring its own tail.
Coiled twice.
Ashwing gulped. "Isn’t that Veyrath’s—"
"No," Lindarion said quietly. "But it’s from his era."
He placed his hand on the stone.
It thrumd weakly—
a trace of ancient mana,
too faint to be dangerous,
but too strange to be ignored.
Nysha walked between the tilted stones. "These aren’t graves. They’re markers."
"For what?" Ashwing asked.
She stopped at a jagged pillar half-swallowed by the earth. "For battles. These are battlefield morials. Look—"
She brushed more sand away.
More runes erged:
Here lies the battleground where the Demi-Human Host was consud by the Devourer of Dawn.
Let this stone mark the first fall of the Veil.
Ashwing blinked. "...Who’s the Devourer of Dawn?"
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