The world had changed.

  And Darius was not part of it.

  The vilge carried on as if Solmaria had never been.

  The Skyfury Sovereigns rode through the nd as if they had never sworn allegiance to its throne.

  But Darius knew the truth. He had seen the city fall. He had watched its people fade into nothing. And yet, the world continued as if it had always been this way. So where were the others?

  Darius walked the outskirts of the vilge, his thoughts sharp and unrelenting.

  If Solmaria was erased...If its people were gone...If history had rewritten itself to erase its existence...

  Then why was he still here? And if he had survived, could there be others? Somewhere, hidden in the cracks of reality—those who were not meant to remain. He needed to find them. Before they were erased, too.

  He moved through the tavern, through the merchant halls, through the back alleys—searching.

  Listening. Waiting. But no one spoke of Solmaria. No one even questioned why it had never existed. Until— A whisper. Not from the people. Not from the air. From somewhere deeper. A voice, distant and raw. A single name. "Alden."

  Darius' blood turned to ice.

  He turned sharply. The voice was gone.

  But he had heard it.

  And Alden—his knight, his friend—had been erased with Solmaria.

  And yet, somehow, his name had survived. Someone else remembered. And now, Darius had a trail to follow.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The Forgotten Town

  The road stretched endlessly.

  But Darius followed the voice—the only lead he had.

  Days passed.

  He moved through nameless vilges, through cities that should not exist. Through pces where Solmaria had been erased, and something else had been written in its pce. But the name Alden whispered through the cracks. And it led him to a town that should not have existed. A pce he had never seen before. A pce that had not been there before Solmaria fell. It had been rewritten into history.

  But it did not belong.

  And deep inside, Darius knew—something was waiting for him there. Something that still remembered. Something that should have been forgotten.

  But as he neared the town, a cold wave washed over him.

  Not fear. Not dread. Something worse. The sensation of being watched. Not by men. Not by gods. But by something outside of time. A single thought pced itself in his mind. "You were not meant to find them." Darius gritted his teeth.

  No.

  He had come too far. He would not stop now. He took a breath—and stepped into the town. And the next phase of the unraveling began.