Decades had slipped by like sands through an hourglass, and the land of Ishara had transformed since the physical appearance of the Echo Beasts.
Valleys pulsed with residual Aura, their earthen walls glowing faintly with veins of sapphire light that throbbed like a hidden heartbeat. Forests had grown taller and thicker, their canopies a tangled cathedral of emerald and shadow, leaves whispering secrets in the breeze. Rivers sang a brighter, more complex melody of light and water—crystalline currents that shimmered with prismatic sparks, twisting through the earth like veins of liquid starfire.
Yet in the distance, the Savanna of Luma—home of the radiant Jua Tribe—shimmered beneath an uneasy sky, its golden grasses rippling like a sea of molten wheat under clouds that boiled with unspoken tension. Beyond its endless horizon, the Obsidian Dunes had begun to form: jagged black sands stretching into infinity, their razor edges swallowing every gleam of moonlight and sun, absorbing instead the world's raw energy in greedy, lightless gulps. Storm clouds churned above these barren plains, swirling in an uneasy rhythm that whispered of a power yet uncontrolled—thunder growling low, winds hissing like conspirators.
It was into this world of tension and potential that Azar came.
The moment was not quiet; it was electric with expectation, the air crackling like a bowstring drawn taut. Winds swirled across the savanna and dunes, carrying black sand and golden dust like smoke and flame intertwined—a storm of opposites meeting for the first time, gritty particles stinging the skin as they danced in furious spirals, painting the dawn in swirling veils of obsidian and amber.
His mother, a priestess of the Jua Tribe, cried out beneath the rising sun—a birth not of night, but of dawn. Her voice trembled like the wind through the grasslands, raw and piercing, carried across the plains on gusts that bent the acacia trees double. The air hummed with radiant energy, thick and tingling, as though the land itself held its breath, every blade of grass frozen in suspense.
Around her, tribesmen gathered in reverent silence, their bronzed faces bathed in sunlight that felt heavier, warmer, different—a weight pressing on their shoulders, heat seeping into their bones like molten honey.
Then, with a flash of blinding brilliance that burned gold across retinas before dimming to an inky black—Azar emerged, his tiny form slick with the dew of birth, cradled in the priestess's trembling arms.
His Aura was immediately different from anything the world had seen.
It shimmered with the dual rhythm of sun and shadow—the dawn and the dusk bound together in uneasy truce. The light around him flickered, not pure but fractured, bending like heat haze above molten glass, warping the air into rippling mirages of gold laced with veins of encroaching night.
The newborn's cry was not a sound but a vibration that rippled through the savanna—a wave of pressure that bent the grass in radiating circles, thousands of stalks bowing like supplicants, and sent flocks of birds scattering into the sky in explosive clouds of feathers, their wings beating frantic silhouettes against the dawn.
Even the Echo Beasts stirred.
From the depths of the forest, Tembo's great form trembled, his colossal stone bulk shuddering through the undergrowth, sending tremors that rustled leaves for miles. Ndege, the Sky Phoenix, circled the heavens above, her fiery feathers dimming to cautious embers that trailed sparks like falling stars. And far beyond, in the still shadows of the Dunes, Mbweha, the Trickster Jackal, stirred for the first time—its laughter faint on the wind, a sly, rasping heh-heh slithering through the black sands like a secret shared.
Those present swore that the sun paused for a heartbeat that day, hanging swollen and silent at the horizon's edge, as if the sky itself blinked in astonishment. The priests of Jua saw it as a sign—the birth of a Sunblood child, one chosen to master the rhythms of light itself. But some whispered of imbalance: the shadow in his glow, the cold undertone in his warmth, their voices low as they glanced at the darkening dunes.
His eyes, bright gold at first, flickered faintly red at the edges—a subtle corruption that no one yet understood, like embers smoldering beneath a veil of sunlight.
The savanna itself seemed to bow to him. The light bent where he looked, rays curving in obedient arcs toward his gaze; shadows gathered protectively near his cradle, pooling like ink around the woven grass, deeper and cooler than any dusk. As the midwives lifted him toward the light, the infant's tiny hand reached up—and for a moment, the sun dimmed behind drifting clouds, casting the world in twilight, the golden plains plunged into a hush of purple-gray where colors bled into one another.
The elders called it an omen, their lined faces creasing with furrowed brows as they murmured over sacred beads. The mother called it destiny, her exhausted smile radiant as she pressed him to her chest, feeling the fractured warmth pulse against her skin.
But somewhere beyond the horizon, in the black dunes where no human dared tread, the wind began to laugh softly—the distant, echoing chuckle of Mbweha, the Trickster, rolling like dry bones across the sands. It had felt something familiar—a mind it could play with, sharp and bendable as a reed in the storm.
That night, when the tribe celebrated beneath torchlight, the flames bent toward the infant instead of the sky, their orange tongues leaning like courtiers, casting flickering shadows that danced attendance on his cradle. His presence absorbed their heat without burning, feeding on their glow—the fire dimming slightly as golden motes swirled into his Aura, leaving the air cooler, hungrier.
His mother smiled with pride, her eyes shining with fierce joy. The elders whispered in concern, their glances darting to the horizon where stars vanished into the dunes' maw.
For the first time, the world of Ishara shivered with the birth of someone who might not only channel the sun—but command it, his tiny fists clenching as if grasping the dawn itself. The world had given birth to a new kind of power—radiant, fractured, and bound to both dawn and dusk.
And though the people sang of hope, their voices rising in triumphant harmony around the fire, the Dunes beyond the horizon whispered a different truth:
"The silence has found its voice."