No one spoke after Amazal’s words.
The wind moved first.
It slipped among them as if testing their resolve, stirring the dust around Jadigh’s sword, embedded in the stone. For a long moment, it stood there—silent, defiant.
Then Ikida stepped forward.
He gripped the hilt.
The blade did not respond easily.
It resisted the stone, as if refusing to surrender the last proof that something had stood against the darkness.
When it finally freed itself, the sound was not of metal.
It was wet.
A thin smear of black spread within the fissure where the blade had settled.
Not blood.
Not shadow.
Something that absorbed light instead of reflecting it.
Ikida said nothing.
He wiped the sword once with his cloak, then handed it to Amazal.
“We move.”
No rituals.
No grave.
No farewell.
There was nothing to bury.
They left without looking back.
Galzim did not lead them with confidence, only with direction.
His steps were measured, neither hurried nor hesitant, as if he were walking toward something that had always existed… waiting.
The darkness that fell on Tizra was not night.
It had arrived.
It did not come as familiar evening, nor a curtain gently drawn over the world, but as a heavy pressure settling in stone and breath alike.
The pale light trapped between the roots began to thin, then receded, as if the earth itself chose to turn its gaze away from what was coming. Shadows stretched where they ought not to be, boundaries of things warped, until the stone seemed to breathe slowly, invisibly.
They stopped.
It was not a declared decision, but a halt imposed by the place itself.
Ikida was the first to break the silence.
He did not raise his voice, nor glance at them all.
He said, as if placing a final stone over the grave of an idea:
“We do not move further.”
No one objected.
For in Tizra, darkness is not the world’s slumber…
but the time when it begins to listen.
They found shelter among ancient rock fractures, as if the mountain itself had opened one day and then forgotten to close its wound.
It was not a cave in the full sense, nor a comforting refuge, but a narrow void into which the wind entered with difficulty, where the sky could only be seen as a broken distant line.
They lit a small fire, barely worthy of being called one.
Its flickering flame seemed aware that it was unwelcome here.
The light it cast did not drive away the darkness, only drew temporary boundaries.
They sat in silence.
Fatigue was too deep to be discussed, and fear too heavy to be spoken.
Hours passed at an unnatural slowness.
They slept—or tried to.
But sleep in Tizra is not withdrawal from the world…
but facing it unarmed.
Vaelor woke several times, feeling watched.
No shadow, no movement—only the undeniable sense that his eyes were not the only ones open.
Cillian dreamt of roots stretching under her skin, neither painful nor restricting, but preventing movement.
Amazal did not dream at all… and worse, felt no need to.
Galzim did not sleep.
He sat at the shelter entrance, back to the fire, eyes fixed in the dark.
He did not guard them so much as watch the ground itself, as if it might move unexpectedly.
With the first gray thread of dawn—if it could be called dawn—they moved.
No one spoke of distance, no one asked: How far do we go?
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
For the real question was the last: How much of ourselves would remain?
They walked for hours.
Then hours more.
The land changed with insidious slowness.
The roots that had filled Tizra began to thin, then rarefy, then vanish completely.
The soil turned dark, smooth, leaving no trace of their steps.
Natural sounds—rustling, buzzing, creaking—faded one by one, until the echo of their breaths was the only proof that the world had not yet ended.
The grass became sparse.
The ground hardened beneath their feet.
By midday, the forest withdrew behind them like a living entity refusing to witness what lay ahead.
Cillian was the first to notice.
“There are no insects.”
Vaelor listened.
No buzzing. No rustling.
Even the wind seemed to pass without settling.
Galzim did not look back.
“It begins before you see it.”
And then they saw it.
The first stood between two rocks.
He did not hide.
He did not attack.
He was human—or something like it.
His skin gray and pale, eyes wide, staring into nothing.
He did not move as they passed, nor did he seem to see them at all.
Cillian tightened her cloak without realizing it.
Vaelor whispered, “Is this…?”
Galzim remained silent for a moment. Then, as one who speaks a truth itself, he said in a low but firm voice:
“These… are Nivare.”
They saw a second, then a third.
Some sat, some stood, some lay as if summoned by the earth itself.
No restraints, no visible wounds, no sign of struggle.
Yet all of them… were Nivare.
Ikida stopped.
He did not command. He did not lift his sword.
He only looked.
Amazal stepped forward cautiously, as if the earth itself might deceive him.
He stood before one.
A middle-aged man.
Features ordinary to the point of harshness.
Eyes open.
Amazal reached out… then paused before touching him.
“Can he hear us?” he asked, voice lower than intended.
No one answered.
Vaelor nudged the shoulder of one gently with his sword.
The body moved.
Slowly.
Not as one regaining consciousness.
Nor as a corpse dragged along.
But as something without resistance.
It returned to its place when the sword left it.
It did not blink.
It did not breathe clearly.
It did not resist.
Cillian’s voice came, broken and whispering:
“They… are alive.”
Galzim finally spoke.
“No.”
He turned to them. His eyes were not terrified, but ancient.
“Their bodies work… but what was inside them has been taken.”
The words fell like stones into still water.
Amazal stepped back, as if proximity had suddenly become dangerous.
There was no hostility in them.
No threat.
And that is what made them terrifying.
One of the Nivare turned his head slowly.
No aim in movement. No focus.
Only a mechanical glance toward the sound.
His eyes met Cillian’s.
She gasped.
There was no hatred, no pain, no plea for help.
There was no one behind the eyes.
Vaelor whispered, “If it were Jadigh…”
He did not finish.
Ikida clenched his sword.
For a moment, it seemed he would strike to end the twisted silence.
But he did not.
He lowered the blade.
“Do not touch them.”
Amazal kept staring.
He saw no enemies.
Only a warning.
He spoke slowly, as one realizing too late:
“If this is what he leaves…
what does he keep for himself?”
No one answered.
Far ahead, where the land dulled even more…
For the first time since they began their march…
They felt they were no longer crossing land.
But crossing boundaries.
He looked ahead—to the land where roots no longer grew, nor life was heard.
He asked, in a voice stripped of leadership, now human:
“How far?”
Galzim did not answer immediately.
He kept his gaze on the horizon, where the earth had begun losing its natural hue.
Then he said:
“Not a question of distance.”
He turned to them.
“From this point… the road is not measured in steps.”
Silence.
Then he added:
“It is measured by what we leave of ourselves behind.”
They continued.
And Tizra, around them, listened.
Amazal walked beside Galzim.
“To where, exactly?”
The answer was delayed.
Galzim gazed at the western horizon, where the earth began losing its natural color.
Then he said in a low voice, as if he did not wish even the air to hear:
“Tilas Nithar.”
They halted for a fraction of a second.
The name was unfamiliar.
“What is this?” asked Vaelor.
Galzim did not answer immediately.
His eyes stayed on the horizon.
Then he said:
“In the old tongue… it means the land that was devoured.”
Silence.
“Devoured by what?” asked Cillian.
Galzim moved his jaw slowly.
“That which does not belong to this world.”
Silence.
Even the wind seemed to stop, as if the earth itself held its breath.
The blackness ahead thickened, and the name Tilas Nithar trembled in the air, like a whisper before calamity.
