Centuries later...
Although the dunes did not mark time as mortals did—eternal cycles of storm and starlight blurring into one endless dusk. The world beyond whispered that Azar had vanished—a ghost swallowed by his own pride, his name fading from fireside tales. The tribes moved on, rebuilding, sealing the memory of his rebellion into forbidden texts, scrolls crumbling to dust in hidden vaults.
But within the Dunes, Azar did not fade.
He evolved.
He learned to weave shadow and light not as opposites, but as instruments in the same song—inky tendrils braiding golden threads into harmonious coils. His Aura no longer flared; it flowed, smooth as ink spilling across parchment, silent and inevitable. He could touch an Echo Beast's memory and rewrite it, spectral roars twisting to whispers at his command. He could still the wind with a breath, silence flame mid-crackle, and bend darkness into form—shadows solidifying into blades that hummed with stolen starlight.
His companion, Mbweha, became his mirror. The jackal's smoky body solidified, fur turning metallic black with clink-clink plates, eyes glowing faintly crimson like banked coals. It spoke now, its voice layered—part growl, part whisper, part echo of Azar's own, resonating in dual tones.
"They cast you out because they feared you," it said, circling with padded thud-thud.
"But even gods fear what they cannot control."
Together, they began to shape the Dunes into a kingdom—a place outside time.
Towers of black glass rose from the sand, spiraling like frozen storms—groooan-CRACK—their peaks piercing clouds in jagged thrusts. Rivers of molten shadow flowed between them, carrying fragments of ancient Aura in rippling veins of midnight oil. The air shimmered constantly, heavy with Veiled energy—haze distorting vision, bending starlight into prismatic halos.
This new realm became known as Mawingu ya Giza—the Shrouded Clouds.
It was both fortress and memory—a reflection of Azar's will etched into the bones of the desert, glass walls replaying battles in endless, silent loops. Here, he gathered the lost, the banished, and the broken—wanderers rejected by the tribes, their eyes hollow with scorn; hunters cursed by their own Echoes, pelts scarred with glowing runes; scholars who sought truth in silence, scrolls clutched like talismans.
They knelt before him, ragged robes pooling in the sand, calling him Mfalme wa Kivuli—the Shadow King—their voices a choral whisper-whisper.
The first of his followers came in dreams. They crossed the dunes guided by whispers, drawn by the faint glow of black fire on the horizon—flickering like dying embers against the void. When they found him, they found not a man, but a presence—eyes that burned without light, twin voids swallowing souls; voice that rippled through the soul, vibrations tingling in marrow.
He taught them the Veiled Breathing—the art of reversing Aura, of listening not to energy's hum, but to its silence—chests rising in hollow huff… pause… huff, misting air silver.
He called it Kuvunja Mwanga—"The Breaking of Light."
Through this, they learned to hide their Aura from the tribes' senses, cloaking presences like ghosts in daylight. To vanish in plain sight, forms dissolving into heat haze. To bend will instead of muscle, eyes compelling obedience with silver glints.
Soon, they built the Temples of Hollow Flame, shrines of glass and black crystal that shimmered under moonlight—tink-tinkle facets refracting stars into infinite voids. The cult grew—a secret brotherhood of those who believed the light was not a gift, but a chain—their chants a sibilant shhhh-Mfalme-shhhh.
They whispered Azar's name like prayer, lips brushing ash-smeared brows.
They painted Mbweha's sigil—a laughing jackal—on their foreheads in ash, gray streaks grinning eternally.
They carried his teachings across Ishara in shadows, whispers slithering through alleyways and dreams.
Meanwhile, in the lands beyond the dunes, the tribes began to purge his memory.
The Jua elders rewrote the scrolls, quills scratching out Azar's name, calling him a myth—golden ink fading to blank parchment.
The Imani priests declared his name taboo, lunar wards flaring at its utterance, silencing tongues mid-word.
The Kiroho sculptors shattered his statues, hammers CRASH splintering stone faces into rubble.
The Kivuli erased his chants from their archives, iron blades scraping runes from leather pages.
And the Zuberi warriors banned his sigil from the banners of battle, thunder-staffs burning jackal-eyes to ash.
Only the oldest among them remembered—and even they spoke of him in whispers, huddled by dying fires, calling him "The One Who Tried to Steal the Sun"—voices trembling like wind through reeds.
But though his name was erased, his influence remained.
Young Aura adepts across Ishara began to dream of black sand, of a voice calling them toward the horizon—silver eyes snapping awake in sweat-soaked beds.
The Obsidian Dunes became a wound that never healed—a living scar that pulsed whenever the tribes grew too proud, too bright—thrum-THRUM, sending shivers through distant roots and rivers.
Deep beneath Mawingu ya Giza, Azar sat on a throne carved from a single shard of obsidian, its edges gleaming faintly red in the dark like congealed blood. Around him, the shadows bent and shifted like ocean waves—inky swells lapping at his sandals. Mbweha lay at his feet, eyes half-closed, breathing in rhythm with the dunes—huff… pause… huff.
"They think they have peace," Mbweha murmured, tail flicking swish.
"But every dawn leaves a shadow behind."
Azar smiled, fingers tapping the armrest in a slow, deliberate rhythm—the same rhythm Nuru once taught to harmonize light—tap… pause… TAP.
"And when their brightest child is born," he whispered, silver eyes gleaming with prophetic fire,
"the shadow will finally find its match."
The dunes trembled, groooan, and for a moment—just a moment—the stars above flickered, as if bowing to something vast and unseen, their light dimming in synchronized blink-blink.
In the silence that followed, the legend of Azar ceased to be history.
It became prophecy.