There was no line, no fracture in the land to mark where Kazarich ended and the sand village began.
That absence alone felt wrong.
They had expected something: a boundary, a shift in the air. Anything .
Instead, when they woke, the world had simply… softened into sand.
Endless waves of it, pale gold under a bleached sky, rolling outward in every direction like a quiet sea.
Eva sat up slowly, the fabric of her clothes whispering against the dunes.
She scanned the horizon once, twice, her brow knitting.
"Maybe…" she said, hesitant. "Maybe there's a mistake."
Xylon was already on his feet.
He didn't answer her. Didn't look back.
He simply adjusted the strap at his shoulder, let the desert wind tug at his clothes, and started walking.
Straight ahead.
Eva stared at his back, at the certainty in his stride, too steady, too sure for a place that felt so profoundly empty.
"Xylon," she called softly.
Still, he didn't slow.
There was something different about him now.
