Part V – The Step into Shadow
The wind caressed the ashes as if trying to gather them, to carry them away from that now empty place.
Alexander stood alone on the promontory overlooking the ruins of the Keep. His dark robes swayed gently under the moonlight as his gaze followed the line of the horizon. The shattered stone, the extinguished fires, the recent silence… all seemed to speak to him.
But he did not answer.
Something in the air had changed.
He had heard the reports. He had seen the bodies. He had listened to the whisper in the mana that permeated the world.
And there, among the cracks in the earth… he had sensed an imbalance. Weak, fragile… but real.
He stepped forward, as if to challenge the echo of the mountain.
> "That wasn't just magic."
His words scattered, as though they had been spoken for someone else. Perhaps for himself.
He knelt beside a fissure in the ground. He placed his hand on the still-warm stone.
> "Light, amidst shadow. But not the usual light. An unstable spark. A mask."
He remained silent for a long moment. Then he rose and pulled a worn fragment of parchment from an inner pocket. The lines drawn on it were faint, nearly invisible, but one area was clearly circled.
> "The mist moves… and with it, illusions."
He turned toward the northeast. A faint smile brushed his face.
> "A kingdom that dances with the false. Where every gaze hides a truth."
He didn't speak the name. He didn't need to.
But he knew it.
He took another step, leaving the Keep and its ghosts behind.
> "Where illusions hide… perhaps there also lies what could change everything."
And he vanished into the night.