The sound of clashing metal.
Screams.
Crossbows firing. Chanting in dead languages. Beasts roaring in the smoke.
There was fire everywhere—orange light crawling up the palace walls, dancing across the mosaics and gold inlays. Outside, the royal courtyard had become a battlefield.
And in a narrow hallway, behind the carved wood of a servant's door, a child watched.
Arin.
Six years old.
His hands clutched the doorframe. His breathing was silent. His wide eyes stared through a thin crack at a scene that would stay with him forever.
His mother—graceful even in chaos—was standing at the center of the hall, blade drawn, her gown streaked with ash. His father beside her, armor half-buckled, shouting commands to loyal guards.
But it wasn't enough.
Flames licked through shattered stained-glass. One of the family's bonded beasts—a great white lion—roared as it was struck down by cursed arrows.
A hooded figure stepped forward from the smoke, chanting words twisted in sound and shape. Arin saw his mother lunge.
Saw her fall.
His father followed.
And then—
A crash from the other side of the corridor.
Arin turned.
Arovan.
Twelve years old, trying to drag himself toward their parents. His legs were soaked in blood, one twisted unnaturally.
"Don't look!" Arovan shouted.
But Arin couldn't stop looking.
Guards came. One of them grabbed Arin, threw a cloak over him. The last thing he saw through the fabric was his brother being lifted, screaming, and fire pouring down from the ceiling.
Arin jolted upright.
His breath caught in his throat, sweat beading across his brow despite the chill of desert night. For a moment, he didn't know where he was—only that the fire was gone, the smoke had cleared, and the sounds of death had faded.
'It was a bad dream' Arin thought to himself grinding his teeth.
Vel tore another strip of meat from the spit with his teeth and let out a satisfied grunt.
"Boss, the cayotte meat's actually good," he said, licking grease from his fingers. "Tastes like smoked bird, but with kick. You should try some."
Arin shook his head. "No need. I already had fish earlier."
Vel blinked. "Where'd you get fish in a desert?"
Arin gave a faint smile, then pointed toward the oasis pool. "That's not just an ordinary spring. The water's cold and moving. Kiln was right—it's flowing. Which means this isn't a closed pool."
Leran raised an eyebrow. "You're saying it's a river?"
"Underground," Arin replied. "Probably old. And deep. My guess is it runs all the way to the coast. Might even connect to the sea."
The others paused, glancing toward the dark water. The fire cracked quietly.
"That would explain the fish," Kiln murmured. "And the strange shimmer in the sand. The flow beneath... it's altering the land."
"Or something in it is," Arin added.
For a moment, no one spoke.
The compass lay beside Leran's bedroll, still pointed toward the water, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
The moon had risen, silver and sharp, casting fractured reflections on the oasis pool.
Leran tightened the strap on the compass tube across his chest. "You sure about this?"
"No," Arin said, holding up the crystal lamp. It glowed softly with a pale blue light, its mana gently pulsing between his fingers. "But I want to see what's down there."
He tied the lamp to a loop on his wrist. "We stay close. If the current's too strong, we pull out."
Leran gave a small nod. "Understood."
Then, without another word, the two of them stepped into the water.
It was freezing.
Colder than any desert pool had a right to be. The surface gave way silently, and within seconds they were beneath—sinking into dark liquid silence, the only light coming from Arin's lamp and the dim bronze pulse of the compass.
The current wasn't strong at first.
But ten feet down, it caught them.
Not violently—but insistently. Like hands pushing gently at their backs. Dragging them forward. Pulling them deeper.
Arin twisted mid-current, eyes narrowing.
The lamp illuminated something vast below—a shape, too wide to be stone, too gnarled to be coral.
A tree.
An enormous, pale tree growing underwater. Its branches flowed like kelp, its bark etched in ancient glowing runes. Roots the size of towers vanished into the trench beyond.
This shouldn't exist...
Then the compass shook.
Twitching furiously toward the tree's core.
Arin looked at Leran, and saw it in his face too.
The Crysil is near.
---
Javy the crown: Inside the palace
Aravon sat on his grand whitewood wheelchair, carved with the crests of old kings and inlaid with obsidian threads. Behind him, the golden curtains swayed faintly, though no wind entered the hall.
Before him, pacing like a storm in a cage, was Yagir — the White-Golden Tiger of the Gajavyaghra bloodline.
Each of Yagir's steps sent soft ripples through the air, as if the beast walked atop time itself. His fur glowed faintly under the mana crystals embedded in the pillars, and the floor beneath him groaned with an ancient pressure.
Aravon rubbed his temples.
"Uncle," he said softly, eyes closed. "Please. Stop pacing. I'm getting dizzy."
Yagir paused but didn't sit. His eyes, slitted and burning with celestial light, narrowed.
"I can't feel him," the tiger growled.
"But the Life Stone still glows," Aravon replied, opening his palm. The polished stone in his hand shimmered a bright, steady green. "Stronger than usual."
Yagir exhaled through his nose. The ripple of magic in the room trembled.
"Did you contact Ajwa?" Yagir asked. "What did they say?"
"They replied," Aravon said after a pause, "but they do not know his exact location. Something is interfering."
Yagir's tail flicked with impatience staring at the glowing Life Stone"If anything happens to him—"
Aravon cut him off. "Nothing will. This stone wouldn't lie."
But his fingers clenched tighter around it.