The silence that came after the screams was strange, as if the desert had swallowed the sounds only to chew them slowly. The sand still trembled beneath the giant bodies of the felled worms, and the day's heat clung to faces, to hair, to torn clothes. Some students were on their knees, others stood with hands on their thighs, trying to remember how to breathe like human beings.
— Water, slowly — said Alexius. — Small sips. If you took a hard hit, sit, breathe, then stand.
Mia crouched beside Ichika, wiping a cut on her friend's arm with her sleeve.
— Does it hurt?
— It hurts… but I still have both arms — Ichika whispered, trying to laugh. — That counts?
— It counts — Mia said, smiling back.
Arthur stood, breathing deep. His chest rose and fell like a bellows, and his sword dripped the last of that dark blood the sand kept drinking. When he looked at the horses, he noticed a painful empty space: one animal lay dead, the saddle destroyed and the rein tangled around a piece of carapace.
— Whose was it? — he asked.
Sanzu raised a hand, displeased.
— Mine. He kicked till the last second… I should've jumped sooner.
— You're alive. He did his job — said Shirō, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. — Ride with me.
— I was going to say that — Kidero muttered, arms crossed. — But whatever. With me or with him, whatever.
— With Shirō is fine — Sanzu answered, not in the mood for hierarchies. He climbed up behind, adjusted his leg, and let out a muffled ow when his hip complained. — I need a new greave; mine split.
Arthur looked over the group. Most were whole enough to move on. Mia tightened the improvised bandage on Ichika's arm. Ayame tested her gloves, opening and closing her fists; the metalized plates of her boots scraped the ground with a short hiss. The class felt smaller than it was.
— Everyone hear me? — Alexius's voice cut through the heat. — Good first lesson. You are not the same people who left the Academy this morning. Now keep this: collective courage is worth more than a pretty strike. And don't fool yourselves… that was only a test.
Arthur met the Sensei's eyes. He knew. So did the desert.
Alexius then took a metallic device from inside his tunic. The small plate had a triangular display full of lines, symbols shifting places like a school of fish. Three bright points on the display's horizon flickered and went out, like beacons drowning in fog.
— We'll skirt northeast — he said, not putting the device away. — The ground is moving about two kilometers ahead. If we insist on going straight, they'll smell your fear.
— How much longer? — Kidero asked, adjusting the strap of his reinforced sword. The beaten leather of his black tunic had metal studs at the shoulders, and the wide guard of his weapon still held soot at the edges.
— An hour, maybe an hour and a half. Prefer to save time and lose your head? — Alexius stowed the device with a brisk motion. — Mount up. Keep the pace low for now.
They mounted. Shirō's horse snorted, getting used to the doubled weight. Sanzu gripped his friend's waist, ill-tempered.
— Don't even think about dropping me.
— If you fall, fall forward — said Shirō without turning. — I'll pretend it was on purpose.
— Both of you, quiet — Kidero cut in, drawing his mount to the front line beside Alexius. — Let's be done with this desert.
They set off. The sun was already past midday when the group traced the slow curve that would avoid the living tracks. The landscape insisted on the same color of sick earth: sand swells broken by bands of cracked ground, thin bones appearing now and then like fingers asking for help, and, from time to time, tall stones marked by cuts, as if giant blades had played there in a past no one wanted to remember.
— Look at that — Mia said, pointing to a set of toppled pillars. — Looks like… an entrance?
— Ancient — Arthur judged, slowing his horse to see. — And broken from the inside.
— Ruins of something that doesn't want us — Shirō murmured. — Better keep moving.
— Is this what we trained for? — Ichika was still shaking a little. — To walk… and almost die?
— No — Mia said, serious. — To not die when we have to walk.
They rode another fifteen minutes in silence, only the hooves making a hard music. The wind suddenly decided to return, carrying an old smell of iron and wet stone — but it didn't rain there. Alexius raised his hand and, without pulling the rein, made his horse slow. The students followed.
— Sensei? — Mia.
— Stay close — Alexius said, low.
He took out the device again. The lines were still. An almost inaudible hum tickled Arthur's ear; it didn't come from the device, it came from the ground. He felt it in the sole of his boot like someone feels a lie.
— Something wrong? — Sanzu asked, squeezing his grip around Shirō's torso.
— The ground… isn't shaking like before — Arthur said, and only when he said it did he hear how absurd it sounded.
— Not absurd — Alexius put the device away and looked toward an empty patch to the left, where the sand cast a shadow of its own without the sun asking it to. — It's something else.
The shadow changed shape. Slowly, like a drop of ink spreading on glass, it rose. First the outline, then a thickness that shouldn't exist. The heat seemed to withdraw. The sunlight turned a shade paler. Where there had been nothing, there was now a someone without a body, and yet still a someone. There were arms like threads, a narrowed head, and when it turned its face toward the group, the profile cut the light at a hard angle, revealing an elongated ear, sharp at the tips.
— Stay behind me — Alexius said, softly, but in a way everyone heard.
The thing advanced a footless step, gliding. The air grew heavy like the water of a deep well. Arthur felt the pressure inside: Dimensional Magic brushed him like an animal in heat. {No. Not yet.} His hand tingled; a lock of hair wanted to flare red. He breathed through his teeth.
— Wh… what the hell is that? — Ayame took one step forward, the contact plates on her gloves sparking the least bit. — I can… imbue onto blades… but that thing… if I miss…
— Don't miss — said Kidero, his voice lower than usual. The flame he called to his sword's tip was small, contained, like a campfire inside a cup. — Leave it to me.
— You're not alone — Shirō said, and the shadows around his feet seemed to thicken, tugging the light a little.
— Don't throw magic around — Alexius cut in, eyes fixed on the contour that breathed without lungs. — Against shadow, waste kills. Fire works. Light works. The rest… it eats.
The shadow moved a sightless head, as if sniffing. When Mia drew half a step back, it swiveled her way. It didn't run. It slid. Fast.
— MIA! — Arthur surged on reflex, and the ground between him and the shadow seemed to stretch a handspan, as if distance itself regretted existing. {No. I said no!} He bit his tongue, tasted metal. The space snapped back into place. — Behind me!
Alexius was faster than everyone. He slashed the air with his palm, and a line of clean fire opened as if someone had cut the day. It wasn't smoke; it was warm light. The shadow retreated, making a noise that didn't come from a throat; it was like the creak of something burning from the inside. It didn't flee. It slid sideways, looking for another angle, testing the edges, like a hunter studying a fence for a hole.
— It thinks — Mia said, her voice thinner than she wanted.
— It does — Alexius confirmed, without looking away. — And it isn't a monster. It's worse.
The shadow folded itself in an impossible way and reappeared three steps from Shirō's horse, so close that Sanzu yanked the rein hard and almost fell. The horse reared. The shadow extended an arm that was almost a filament; the tip brushed the animal's mane and the color went out there, for a second, as if night had bitten that spot.
— Back! — Shirō shouted, turning the horse around. — Sanzu, hold on!
Kidero crossed the path between the shadow and the group's flank in two long strides. The flames brought the smell of hot iron.
— Think you can touch my friends and walk away in one piece? — the arrogance was there, but something else ran beneath it: something he'd never admit.
He launched a Flame Bird, small, concentrated, almost wingless. The shadow angled its head and let the magic pass through without touching. The Bird exploded farther back, twisting the light for a second. The thing tilted its profile at Kidero, as if smiling without a mouth.
— You missed. — Ayame clenched her fists. — It moved at the last instant.
— I don't miss — Kidero growled, but the hand on his sword was steadier than it should have been.
— Drop the magic — Alexius ordered, and the dark shape halted its motion. — Let it look at me.
He raised an open hand and, when fire came, it didn't come in jets or beams. It came in circles. Three, concentric, like the rings of a lamp. The brightness wasn't a wound; it was a presence. The shadow made that noise again, only different now — angry. The outline grew denser at the sides, as if wanting to hug the rings without touching them. The head turned slowly toward Mia again, and Arthur felt his whole body react.
{If it touches her, I…} Dimensional Magic thumped a second time, begging. {I break the world.}
— Arthur — Alexius's voice came without looking, but it came firm, as if calling him by the name of his bone. — No. Not yet.
The shadow withdrew a scant step, tested the light, and then did something no one expected: it pointed. The thread-arm stretched for an instant toward Alexius, not in attack but as a gesture. A silent pointing. Then the same arm turned and pointed at the ground ahead, where the sand formed a depression for no reason. The wind filled the hollow; the sand sank a little more. The thing tilted its face, as if waiting for someone to understand. Then the outline dissolved, spreading into the sunlight itself, until nothing remained but the heat leaping from the stones again.
No one spoke for three breaths.
— Did it… indicate a place? — Mia asked.
— Or a trap — said Shirō
— Or a warning — Arthur answered, but the word hurt his tongue. He remembered the ownerless voice in the frozen air earlier. {Watch the ground.} The desert seemed to repeat the phrase along its edges.
Alexius dismounted. The horse huffed, grateful. He walked to the pointed depression without touching the sand. He studied the pattern of the cracks. He crouched. He set two fingers on the rim and pulled back quickly, like someone testing a pot's water.
— We're not going this way — he said, returning and swinging back into the saddle in one motion. — It didn't lie.
— How can you tell? — Kidero pressed, his sword still haloed in minimal flame.
— Because the air here is colder and the ground is drawing — Alexius replied without patience. — And because I've seen shadows feed sleeping worms.
— They… work together? — Ichika's eyes went wide.
— Is there enough of them left to call that "together"? — Shirō muttered, half to himself.
— Barrier northeast, one more bend — Alexius set off at a trot. — And listen: anyone whose magic produces light, even faint, keep it lit at eye level. Not to attack, to see when the light changes. Light that shifts with no clouds means danger that thinks.
— I'll keep one — said Mia, kindling a thread of bright wind, like pollen glowing. — I can sustain it without spending much.
— I can hold a small flame — Kidero admitted, trying not to lower his eyes to the blade.
— Me too — said Alexius. His flame wasn't flame; it was a polite little sun that didn't burn, only existed.
They went on like that, trimmed in timid gleams, like a procession of stubborn fireflies. Little by little, the scenery began to change: the cracked ground gave way to a firmer strip where dark stones rose aligned in curves, like the remains of an old road drawn for someone in no hurry. To the right, a broken arch showed symbols flayed by the wind. To the left, a fallen marker seemed to bear a recent cut, sharp, as if a giant blade had passed there last week.
— Physical skills classes, huh? — Sanzu grumbled, adjusting his hands at Shirō's belt not to lose balance. — I complained so much about running with weights.
— And remember push-ups with our hands on planks? — Shirō puffed a short laugh. — Hurt for three days.
— But today it saved our skins — Arthur joined in, loosening the air stuck in his chest. — Dodging, climbing the thing, falling and getting up… Without those classes, someone would have stayed behind.
— True — Mia nodded, still sustaining the dancing thread of light. — I never imagined I'd use so much of that "mobility without magic."
— The Academy pushes because it has to — Alexius said, and his voice changed temperature. — Many think it's overkill… until the day the body needs to know what to do when mana fails.
He cast a quick look at the students, then toward an uncomfortable point on the horizon. He took out the device a third time. The lines jumped to an unhappy rhythm, and two faint points blinked far and slow, like tired eyes.
{They're growing faster than they should} — he thought, without saying it. {The kingdom's barrier doesn't just protect… it accelerates. And they don't know. No one told them. Because it's useful they don't know.} The sun bit the side of his face; the memory of dead soldiers bit deeper. {And useful usually means costly.}
— Sensei — Mia broke the silence, noticing his gaze stuck to the plate. — Is it much farther?
— Three hours, maybe less if the terrain helps — he answered, putting the device away. — The researchers' village sits after a low hill and before a small canyon. When you see a mast with strips of blue cloth, we're close.
— Researchers outside the kingdom… why do they stay there? — Ichika asked, genuinely curious.
— Because some studies aren't welcome inside — Shirō said, dry.
— Because someone has to see what no one wants to see — Alexius finished, without irony. — And record it.
They rode another stretch. The wind brought a different smell — mint? No, it was a dry herb that insisted on sprouting between hot stones, breaking the brown with stubborn threads of green. From the crest of a rise, Arthur spotted a set of stakes in the distance. Something blue flapped there, timid, like the tongue of a tired flame.
— There? — he pointed.
— There — said Alexius, and for the first time his shoulder seemed to drop a centimeter.
— Do you think the… — Ayame searched for the word — …thing will follow us?
— It already knows we exist — Kidero answered, in a tone that tried to be firm and came out honest. — So it doesn't matter where we go.
— It matters — Alexius corrected. — What you saw today wasn't hunger. It was a test. And a test means… curiosity.
— Curiosity about what? — Mia.
— About who we are — said the Sensei. — And, perhaps, about who you are.
He didn't look at Arthur when he said it, but Arthur felt the Dimensional Magic brush him again, as if it wanted to listen up close. {I am not a monster,} he thought, unsure who he was telling it to. {I am not.}
Daylight began to turn old gold. Ahead, the little blue mast beat at the wind like something complaining. Around it, low houses of dark stone lay half-buried, roofs covered with pale plates to reflect the heat. Between the houses, figures in long mantles moved slowly; when they saw the group, two raised their hands, not in greeting but in a measuring gesture.
— We're here — said Alexius. — Slow steps, low voices. They like silence more than celebration.
— Finally — Sanzu sighed, carefully dismounting from Shirō's cantle. — If I spend another half hour glued to you, I'll turn into a shadow too.
— You don't have that talent — Shirō answered, this time laughing for real.
— Everyone — Mia called, with the voice of someone who wants to put a period on a day that insists on commas. — We made it. And we made it together.
Arthur looked at her. The thread of light in the wind was almost going out. He wanted to say thank you and couldn't; the words jammed in his throat. So he nodded, once, and stepped down from his horse.
Out of the corner of his eye, something moved. A leftover of shadow? No. Just the wind stirring one of the blue cloths. But memory keeps what it wants. And the shape with the tapered profile, the impossibly pointed ear, didn't leave.
{Did it point at the ground to spare us?} — Arthur thought later, while tying his rein to a simple stake. {Or did it want us to see that it could have… and chose not to?}
The answer didn't come. The village smelled of hot stone and dry herb. The sun finally decided to stop hitting so hard. And a man in a gray mantle, face covered by a light veil, walked toward the group with steps that made no sound.
— Welcome — he said, with no greeting, as if stating a fact. — Mount Arf is not kind. Come in. Speak little. Listen much.
Alexius inclined his head, accepting the house rules. Behind him, the students followed in a short file, their bodies still remembering worms, fire, shadow… and the step that avoided the abyss.