2025-12-17 09:44:34The bridge rose at the city’s edge, where the streets gave way to open, untended paths. Dust from the dry outskirts clung to the uneven stones, kicked up by the faint wind sweeping through the deserted evening. Beneath its arch, a thin boy crouched on the gritty sand, tracing tight, precise circles with his fingers. He murmured numbers in a soft, deliberate cadence, each syllable carrying a weight as if the figures themselves breathed.
The patterns, the crescent shapes beside the numbers, the sharp, looping strokes, matched Baasit’s handwriting exactly. He leaned closer, studying the symbols with tense focus. “Baasit,” he whispered, his voice careful, almost reverent. The boy didn’t look up. He muttered under his breath, counting in a rhythm that felt like a chant. His moderately long black-silver hair fell across his face, dust-laden, falling in thin strands, eyes hidden yet fixed on the ground. Mehrak’s shoulder pressed against Navir’s. “Does he …?” His voice trembled with a mixture of fear and disbelief. Navir held his position, leaning in just enough to study the crescent without disturbing it. His voice dropped, steady and tense. “No… I think he's connected.” The boy’s head snapped up, red eyes sharp and calculating. His whispered words sliced through the quiet, sending a shiver down Navir’s spine: “You’re next.” Before Navir could react, Nimi yanked him backward. Twilight deepened across the alley as shadows gathered beneath the weak flicker of a lantern. A figure stepped into view, short, slightly obese, his weight shifting unevenly with each step. A rough scar carved across his face, swallowing one eye entirely, turning it grey. The other, a sharp red, fixed on Navir with unsettling precision. “You’re late,” the man said, voice cracking, carrying a weight that pressed against Navir’s chest. The syllables slashed through the quiet, cold and unfamiliar. Navir froze for a heartbeat, recognizing nothing but danger in the man’s tone. His fingers clenched at his sides, veins taut. Then, as if propelled by instinct, he stepped faster, nearly breaking into a run, heart hammering against his ribs. Mehrak and Nimi kept pace silently, eyes darting over the shadows. The man’s harsh shout ripped after them, echoing off the alley walls: “They’ll come for you too!” Navir’s stomach twisted. Whoever “they” were, the threat felt immediate, unavoidable, and impossibly close. They turned onto a darker stretch of the street, the lanterns thinning until only a faint glow rimmed the path. Navir slowed first. A barefoot girl stood ahead, as if she had been waiting, silver-black hair falling in uneven strands around a still, pale face. Her wide red eyes locked onto Nimi with unnerving precision. “I know you,” she whispered. Nimi froze. Her breath hitched, shoulders tightening, every instinct recoiling even as her feet refused to move. The girl didn’t blink. She studied Nimi with a depth that felt invasive, as though seeing far beyond skin and memory. Nimi took a careful step backward. The girl moved faster. She lunged, cold fingers snapping around Nimi’s wrist with startling force. Nimi flinched, but before the grip tightened, Mehrak seized her arm and yanked her free. The trio bolted, the girl’s silhouette standing eerily still behind them, watching.
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Chapter 44 - Daughter of Two Shores
The clinic smelled of boiled water and antiseptic.“Next,” Samaveh said, steady gloved hands already reaching.Ravina shifted aside to make room, her lighter copper skin touched with a faint rosy warmth where the lamplight found it. Long black-silver hair, wavier than most Argathes’, fell in loose curls down her back, framing a face shaped by sharper cheekbones and a narrower nose softened by full Argathe lips. Her eyes, red, but gentled to an amber hue, held a quiet, practiced focus as her slender hands moved with a healer’s precision.“Sit,” she said, voice calm but firm. “Slowly.”A lean shirtless man lowered himself, copper skin dulled by travel, red eyes ringed with exhaustion. His gaze caught on Ravina and lingered.“Hold still,” she said gently, her hands firm as his body trembled under them.“Must’ve been a difficult journey.”“You mean life-threatening,” he murmured, the words dragged out thin with exhaustion.Samaveh pressed cloth to a wound. “Hold this.”Ravina tied the
Chapter 43 - Othmir's Invasion (Flashback IV)
Dawn fractured under iron fire.Cannons thundered from the misted flats, their recoil shuddering through wet earth. Mud-packed ramparts split open, stones leaping as if startled awake. Horns sounded too late. Argathe sentries loosed arrows in tight arcs, copper hands steady, red eyes sharp beneath braided helms.“Hold the line,” a captain shouted.Gunfire answered. Clean. Relentless. Shafts fell short, hissing into muck.Smoke crawled along the ground, pressed low by wind. Pale figures advanced through it, boots finding rhythm where paths should not exist. Fair faces flashed between metal plates. Blonde hair caught firelight. Blue and green eyes stayed fixed ahead.“Reload,” an Othmir officer called calmly.The second blast tore the inner wall apart.Argathe soldiers surged to meet them, steel ringing, banners snapping above crowned sigils. The monarchy’s colors still flew. The king’s crest. The elders’ seals.“Protect the gate,” came another cry.But the gate sagged under the overwhe
Chapter 42 - Our Government Sold us Out
The chamber doors sealed with a muted thud.Footsteps echoed across polished stone, measured and unhurried, carrying from the threshold to the long conference table. Shoes clicked once, twice, then stopped. Chairs shifted softly. Fabric whispered as bodies settled.Copper skin caught the low chamber light with a muted sheen. Silver-black hair was cut short or pulled neatly back, streaked with early gray earned in offices rather than battlefields. Their red eyes were sharp and controlled, trained not to linger, not to reveal.Tailored suits replaced tradition: dark fabric, crisp lines, state pins fixed at the lapel like quiet threats.At the head of the table sat Minister Halvek.He was lean, middle-aged, his copper complexion drawn tight over sharp cheekbones. His red eyes rested half-lidded, unreadable. Long fingers, clean and steady, folded together beneath the etched crest at the table’s center.The last echo faded.Halvek inclined his head a fraction.“Begin.”“The southern zones
Chapter 41 - The Rise of Southern Creek's Militia
Low tide peeled the wetlands open.Water clung to stilts and roots in slick, rainbow-sheened pools. The air carried a sharp, oily tang that burned the back of the throat. Children stood coughing near the walkways, faces wrapped in cloth that did little to help.“Don’t step there,” an elder warned. “That patch leaks.”A woman waded into the shallows anyway, panic cracking her voice. “My son, ”She dragged the boy out seconds later. Black oil streaked his calves. Blisters rose where the slick touched skin, angry and fast.“It burns,” he cried.“Don’t touch it,” another woman shouted. “It was clean last season,” the mother said, shaking. “We drank from it.”“We filed reports,” an old fisherman muttered. “They filed us away.”A government notice flapped loose from a post, ink already bleeding from damp air.Tax due.Relocation pending.Aid under review.Upstream, a low mechanical hum rolled through the reeds, steady and approaching.Someone whispered, “They’re back.”No one argued.____
Chapter 40 - What Walks Without Knowing
Silence lingered after Navir’s whisper.“Someone erased themselves.”Ardavan shifted first, breaking it. “That’s not possible,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction. “Memories don’t just… delete.”“Well, nothing's impossible,” Tarefin replied quietly.“Technically speaking.” Samaveh added.Navir turned to him. “What makes you say that?”Tarefin raised his head slightly, eyes gleaming. “I told you, the wasteland doesn't kill. It erases your consciousness.” He said, indignance etched in his tone.Samaveh’s arms folded tighter. “A mental annihilation.”“A ruthless one.” Tarefin saidArdavan dragged a hand down his face. “Then how did we come back?”“You were anchored,” Tarefin said. “By what?” he asked.Tarefin's red eyes lifted. “By pain. Names. By someone who refused to let go.”Navir frowned. “But I don’t remember anyone pulling me.”“That’s the cost,” Tarefin said. “If someone crosses too far to retrieve another, the wasteland demands balance.”Samaveh went still. “You mean?”
Chapter 39 - Rules of the Wasteland
Morning leaked through fractured skylights, dust turning light dull inside the abandoned mall, shuttered since the curfews. Concrete swallowed sound. Windows faced alleys, not streets. Safe enough.Navir said softly. “So that's how you got there. The Wasteland.”Tarefin’s back leaned against the pillar, head low, composed, hair reaching his napes. Bare chest visible beneath his white shirt. “It doesn't host the dead.”Samaveh nodded. “You said it watched.”“Yes,” Tarefin replied. “Pressure, heat, wind. As if alignment mattered more than life.”Navir’s brow lifted. “That sounds… supernatural.”Tarefin tilted his head up, blinking, genuinely puzzled. “I don’t follow.” Samaveh smiled, turning to Tarefin, gently. “It’s a genre in recent movies.”Turning to Navir, she said. “Tarefin here is a little old school.” Navir exhaled briefly.“Why you?” He said turning to Tarefin.“I asked the wrong questions,” Tarefin said. “At school. At home. Everywhere.”“And now?” Ardavan asked.Tarefin rem
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