The Tall Hills of Kresha rolled like green waves under the endless dusk, their grasses shimmering with a soft glow, as if trying to imitate daylight. Rami walked ahead, boots brushing through moss that clung to the ground. The air was warm and carried the scent of earth and distant rivers.

  Behind her, Naro adjusted the sword strapped across his back. He paused at the crest of a hill and looked up. Rami followed his gaze.

  A sunless dark-blue sky stretched overhead, studded with cold stars and a faint moon without its shine.

  At the center of it stretched The Scar, the place where The Devourer had torn through the heavens and swallowed the sun. The wound pulsed faintly like an old bruise.

  Naro exhaled softly.

  "It feels smaller than the stories made it sound."

  Rami tilted her head. "You mean the sun?"

  "Yeah. Everyone describes it like some enormous fire hanging above the world. Hard to imagine it was ever real."

  She stepped beside him, voice low.

  "My mother used to tell me what the ancients wrote. That sunlight felt warm on the skin. That the world had shadows instead of glow."

  She hesitated. "I don't know if I believe half of it."

  "Same." Naro lowered his hand. "Our world's been like this for a thousand years. Hard to picture anything else."

  Rami nudged him forward with a grin.

  "That's why we're out here, remember? To find answers. To get stronger. To understand what that creature really is."

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Naro glanced away, but the corner of his mouth lifted.

  "Right."

  They descended toward a valley where the grass hummed beneath their steps. Dusk-creatures drifted above the ridge, their wings scattering violet light. The land seemed peaceful, but nothing in Gaon was ever truly still.

  The ground carried faint tremors, reminders of the Guardian who once watched over these hills: Paro.

  Rami stopped beside a half-buried stone pillar. Moss swallowed most of its carvings.

  "Old markings," she murmured.

  "Warnings, maybe ." Naro stepped beside her with his sword in his right hand. his free hand brushed his chin as he thought."Or prayers ! People back then had a sun to pray under, after all !"

  He said with an excited smile

  Rami smiled, soft and sad. "Imagine that. People praying for who knows how long... only for their deity to get swallowed up..."

  Naro's expression dimmed. He rested the sword against the pillar. The runes shimmered, then sank into the blade as if the metal swallowed them.

  "Looks like that Snow Desert oracle was right," he said. "This sword's something else."

  Rami studied it closely.

  "Absorbing Runes, gaining strength, evolving with what it kills... If anything can fight the Devourer, it's that."

  Even with her certainty, Naro still watched the blade with restrained annoyance. Something about it unsettled him, though he never voiced why.

  He slid it back into its scabbard and walked alongside her. Their hands brushed lightly without quite holding.

  'There's no rush,' he thought.

  He had promised to marry her after everything was over.

  Maybe waiting made sense.

  Maybe he was just shy.

  Rami glanced at him with a small pout, then looked forward again.

  "Hey. Do you think the Devourer is watching us right now?"

  Naro didn't answer right away then shook his head. "it's in the red mountains apparently, quite far from us. so I don't think so..."

  Rami smiled "good. "She then took his hand without any hesitation.

  His face flushed red immediately though she pretended not to notice.

  She tugged him into a run towards the next ridge, where the valley glowed softly with moss-light.

  A good place to rest. A safe one. Their journey had only just begun.