The path had not changed.

  Yet they felt themselves drawing closer.

  The ground grew flatter, harder.

  No roots. No fissures. No remnants of life.

  It was as if Tizra itself had chosen to stop here.

  Every step toward Tilas Nithar did not bring them nearer to a place…

  but to a state.

  Amazal whispered softly,

  “Do we feel this… or am I imagining it?”

  No one answered.

  Yet everyone felt it.

  An invisible pressure, not descending from above… but rising from within.

  Then the horizon bent.

  It was no optical illusion.

  But a shift in perception.

  The distance ahead seemed shorter than it ought to be.

  The earth lay unnaturally flat,

  as if something had wiped the terrain clean,

  remodeling it without concern for detail.

  Galzim stopped abruptly.

  He did not raise a hand.

  Did not warn them.

  He simply said,

  “Look.”

  They saw them.

  Not one.

  Not ten.

  But hundreds.

  Perhaps thousands.

  The Nivare.

  It was not a gradual appearance.

  It was a revelation.

  Amid the expanse of gray earth,

  the Nivare sat.

  Scattered across the wide blackened ground.

  Not in rows.

  Not in circles.

  Not in any pattern that could be reasoned.

  Just a dense congregation…

  as if the wind had gathered them, then forgotten them.

  Some stood.

  Some sat.

  Some knelt.

  Some lay as if surrendered to a sleep that would never come.

  They did not move.

  They did not speak.

  They did not turn.

  Their presence… changed nothing.

  Their absence… would change nothing.

  The wind passed among them without alteration.

  Dust did not swirl around them.

  Even shadows did not cling to their bodies.

  As if they were not part of the place’s equation.

  They were there.

  Yet the ground did not register them.

  They existed.

  As if Tilas Nithar itself did not acknowledge them.

  As if they were the shadow of something larger,

  the trace of a void that had passed through, leaving them standing.

  The earth around them had grown smoother,

  as if it had been long pounded until it lost its roughness.

  No stones.

  No scattered bones.

  No signs of struggle.

  As if the place had never been used.

  And yet

  it was filled with them.

  Nivare.

  But not a line.

  Nor a herd.

  Nor an army.

  Each one stood or sat at a strange distance from the others.

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  A distance that seemed neither random…

  nor understandable.

  As if something had placed them there carefully…

  then forgotten them.

  Vaelor whispered,

  “Are they waiting?”

  Galzim said quietly,

  “No.”

  “Then what are they doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  And that was the terror.

  Tizra showed no difference in their presence.

  The wind passed among them as it passed through stone columns.

  Ikida halted.

  He did not raise his sword.

  This was no threatening scene.

  But… an erasure.

  Amazal whispered,

  “They are not guards.”

  Galzim said, in an even softer tone,

  “Nor prisoners… they are a consequence.”

  They approached cautiously.

  Faces became visible.

  Faces devoid of expression.

  Eyes open.

  Yet following nothing.

  One stood, hands dangling like a body suspended by invisible threads.

  Another knelt, back unnaturally straight.

  A woman stared at a point on the ground as if seeing something no one else could.

  A light breeze passed.

  Their hair did not move.

  Their clothes did not flutter.

  Even the air hesitated to touch them.

  Another step.

  Now they were inside the gathering.

  No circle was broken.

  No head turned.

  Galzim passed between two of them.

  His shoulders nearly brushed theirs.

  They did not move.

  Did not draw away.

  Did not come closer.

  Amazal whispered barely audibly,

  “Are they alive?”

  Ikida did not answer.

  He reached out slowly…

  and stopped a hand’s width from touching one.

  He felt something.

  Not heat.

  Not cold.

  Emptiness.

  As if the Nivare’s body did not fully occupy its space.

  As if a part of it were missing.

  Vaelor leaned slightly toward one.

  He waved a hand before its eyes.

  No blink.

  For a very brief moment…

  the pupil shifted a hair’s breadth.

  Not toward him.

  But… through him.

  As if something beyond was more important.

  Cillian froze.

  Whispered,

  “Do not linger.”

  Something in the stillness was not neutrality.

  It was anticipation without direction.

  They had entered the heart of the gathering.

  They no longer saw its edges.

  The Nivare were all around.

  Faces without appeal.

  Eyes without request.

  Then

  Vaelor halted abruptly.

  He did not draw his sword.

  Did not whisper a warning.

  He simply… stared.

  Ikida followed his gaze.

  A few steps away,

  stood a Nivare, broad-shouldered, head slightly bowed.

  Nothing distinguished him from the others

  except the scar.

  A small scar beneath the left eye.

  Irregular…

  like a rusted knife strike.

  Ikida felt his heart drop.

  He whispered without thinking,

  “Erath…”

  The name came out dry.

  Vaelor stepped closer, eyes wide.

  “It cannot be.”

  Yet it was.

  The same scar he had received in a scuffle within the refuge.

  The night when hunger had been crueler than reason.

  The night Ikida intervened to end the quarrel.

  Erath had laughed afterward, saying:

  “At least I have something that marks me.”

  Now…

  he was marked indeed.

  But not as he had wanted.

  Ikida approached slowly.

  Each step heavy.

  The Nivare around them did not move.

  He reached a hand’s distance.

  Erath stood.

  Eyes open.

  No focus.

  No clear life.

  But his face

  was not twisted.

  Not angry.

  Just… hollow.

  Vaelor whispered in a broken voice,

  “We were three… before the others joined.”

  A small memory passed between them.

  Cold nights.

  The wind in the stone refuge.

  Erath secretly pocketed his share of food before anyone else… then left a tiny piece by the fire when he thought no one was looking.

  Ikida raised his hand slowly…

  and stopped before touching him.

  This time, his voice came clearer.

  “Erath.”

  A moment.

  So brief.

  Erath’s pupil twitched.

  No… not a twitch.

  A glow.

  A faint thread of light sparked within the depth of his gray eye.

  Neither white nor black.

  Something in-between.

  Alive.

  Vaelor froze.

  “He saw you.”

  The glow flared for a fraction of a second—

  as if something inside tried to reach out.

  As if the name had knocked on a rusted door.

  His lower lip trembled… barely.

  Then

  everything went dark.

  The light faded.

  The pupil stiffened.

  His face emptied again.

  Not a gradual fade.

  A closure.

  As if a door had been shut from within.

  Ikida did not move.

  His hand still hovered.

  His voice came this time almost as an admission:

  “He is here…”

  Vaelor did not look at him.

  He looked at Erath.

  “Or was.”

  A breeze passed among the bodies.

  Darun stepped forward.

  Not toward them.

  Not away.

  A random step.

  Then stopped.

  As if the moment that had ignited… was forbidden.

  Ikida lowered his hand slowly.

  Something in his chest broke.

  Not because Erath had changed.

  But because they had delayed.

  He said in a very low voice,

  “Call no one else.”

  Vaelor understood immediately.

  Because hope…

  was worse than loss here.

  And around them

  hundreds still stood.

  Silent.

  But now…

  the scene was no longer a phenomenon.

  It was a standing grave.

  Ikida lowered his hand slowly.

  He said no farewell.

  In Tizra…

  farewell was a luxury.

  Vaelor still stared at the scar.

  As if the mark alone tried to prove that this body had once been a friend.

  But Galzim broke the silence.

  His voice was not harsh…

  practical.

  “No time for mourning.”

  He did not look at them as he spoke.

  His eyes swept the plain, stretched between the standing bodies.

  “We must hide now.”

  Ikida finally raised his head.

  “They do not look at us.”

  Galzim replied calmly,

  “I do not mean them.”

  The air froze for a moment.

  Vaelor understood.

  The presence of this number in one place…

  was no coincidence.

  Something had gathered them.

  And something… passed among them.

  Cillian was the most unsettled.

  Her eyes darted between nearby faces.

  A step approached her more than it should.

  She whispered,

  “I do not like this.”

  Her voice was low but tense.

  “They are too close.”

  She stood beside one of the Nivare, barely a hand’s breadth away.

  Eyes open.

  Fixed.

  Yet she felt

  it knew she was there.

  Not because it looked at her.

  But because the distance itself was no longer safe.

  She stepped sideways.

  Bumped into another.

  It did not move.

  Did not recoil.

  She whispered this time more clearly,

  “It feels like walking among a pile of corpses… but they breathe.”

  No one answered.

  But the description struck them all.

  The air here did not move freely.

  Sound did not carry.

  Even their steps seemed absorbed.

  Galzim pointed toward a distant rocky edge where shadows were deeper.

  “There.”

  “We will disappear among the cracks.”

  Ikida cast one last glance at Erath.

  No longer did he see his friend.

  Just one among hundreds.

  He said coldly,

  “Move slowly. Touch no one.”

  And as they began withdrawing through the silent bodies

  Amazal felt something.

  Not a touch.

  Not a breath.

  But a subtle shift in rhythm.

  He paused.

  Looked around.

  Then whispered,

  “…Were they this many a moment ago?”

  No one answered.

  As they pulled back slowly among the Nivare,

  Galzim noticed something strange beneath his feet.

  The ground was not natural soil.

  Nor simple rock.

  Its surface unnaturally flat.

  Hard… polished in places.

  He knelt briefly, running his fingers across it.

  A straight line.

  A sharp angle.

  This was no natural formation.

  Vaelor whispered,

  “I thought it was a plain.”

  Galzim replied without lifting his eyes,

  “It was never a plain.”

  A light gust of wind passed,

  shifting a thin layer of dust near their feet.

  An engraving appeared.

  Worn.

  Interlocking circles…

  Repeating geometric forms.

  Cillian shivered.

  “A city.”

  No towering columns.

  No standing walls.

  Only… buried peaks.

  Square edges protruding from the earth.

  Broken corners of foundations like ancient bones.

  As if an entire civilization had been crushed,

  then buried under dust and centuries.

  Ikida looked around.

  The Nivare stood above it.

  Above what remained.

  Hundreds of silent bodies

  planted atop a dead city.

  Vaelor murmured,

  “He did this.”

  It was not a question.

  In the distance, between two half-buried slabs of stone,

  a clear fracture appeared.

  Part of the roof had collapsed long ago,

  leaving a black fissure among the foundations.

  Not a natural cave

  an entrance, broken-edged,

  as if something had emerged from it…

  and nothing could enter.

  Galzim pointed toward it:

  “There.”

  Cillian did not like the idea.

  “The Nivare do not approach it.”

  And she was right.

  In an unclear circle around the opening,

  no one stood.

  A void among the bodies.

  A measured distance.

  Amazal said coldly,

  “Because they remember.”

  Then they began moving toward the fissure.

  Each step took them farther from the light of the plain,

  and closer to the shadow of a civilization of which only fractured walls remained.

  And before they reached it

  something trembled beneath their feet.

  Not an earthquake.

  But a brief shudder…

  as if the earth itself drew a breath.

  The Nivare did not move.

  Yet

  a few of their heads

  tilted ever so slightly…

  toward the fissure.