Date: April 26, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
He had been walking for eight days. Eight days of white light, white earth, white silence that pressed on his ears harder than any sound. Rosh Varey — half-blood, half-sylvan, half-human — had long since stopped counting the zones he had passed. He simply walked where his hand led him. A faint, barely perceptible glow on the back of his left hand pulsed in time with something vast, ancient, that lived in the heart of this mad world.
The Tree. He knew it was called the Tree. Knew it had summoned him. Knew that inside it were answers. Or power. Or death. He didn't care.
Eight days. Forty-seven leaves. They lay in a special sack on his back — thin, silver, they tinkled softly with each step, and the sound irritated him, but he endured. Rosh endured much. His dual nature — too human for the sylvan, too sylvan for humans. His loneliness — eternal, deep, like this white emptiness.
Today he had entered a zone his mark designated as a "high concentration area." There were at least three leaves here, and they glowed so brightly that even through the white haze, their reflections were visible. Rosh quickened his pace. His long silver hair, tied in a low ponytail, streamed behind him, and his eyes — one green, like forest moss, the other brown, almost black — scanned the space for threats.
The threat found him itself.
They emerged from the white haze soundlessly — huge, white, with wingspans that blotted out the sky. Eagles. White eagles, their feathers hard as steel, their claws long as daggers. There were about twenty of them. They circled above him, and their cries, piercing, sharp, cut through the silence like knives.
"Guardians," Rosh said calmly. "Finally. I missed the movement."
The first eagle dove like a stone, its claws aimed at Rosh's head. The half-blood didn't even flinch. He simply raised his right hand and turned his wrist slightly.
The eagle, which should have sunk its claws into Rosh's skull, suddenly veered aside, crashed into a cliff, and dissolved into a cloud of white dust. Rosh didn't even look at it.
The second, third, and fourth attacked simultaneously. Rosh stepped back and traced a circle with his hands. His fingers moved quickly, precisely, drawing invisible lines in the air. The birds flying towards him from different directions suddenly changed trajectories — one crashed into another, a third struck a cliff with its wing, the fourth and fifth collided head-on and scattered into white feathers.
"Boring," he said.
The remaining eagles, realizing a frontal assault wouldn't work, changed tactics. They scattered across the sky, approaching from different sides, their cries growing louder, more insistent. Rosh sighed. He was tired of this. He wanted to move on, collect leaves, find a way out of this white labyrinth.
He raised both hands, and his fingers moved faster, tracing complex patterns in the air. The invisible lines of force that permeated all the space around him came into motion. Rosh didn't just evade. He changed the very geometry of the attack.
The eagles diving towards him suddenly flew upward. Those circling left found themselves on the right. Their attacks, their cries, their feathers — all of it obeyed his will. He wasted no unnecessary movements. Every gesture, every turn of his wrist was precise and measured.
"Enough," he said, and abruptly spread his arms.
All twenty eagles that had been attacking him from different sides a second ago suddenly froze in midair, then with a thunderous crack collided in a single point. A cloud of white dust rose to the sky, and when it dispersed, nothing remained on the ground — only a handful of silver feathers, which slowly melted, turning into light.
Rosh lowered his hands. No fatigue. No strain. Twenty guardians — twenty flicks of his fingers. He was a Pillar. He was stronger than this place. Stronger than these white shadows the Tree threw at his feet.
He walked to the pedestal standing in the center of the zone. On it lay a leaf — just like the others. Silver, pulsing, alive. Rosh took it without even glancing, and tossed it into the sack on his back. Forty-eighth.
"Forty-eight," he said, patting the sack. "How many more? Fifty? A hundred? Tree, you ask too much."
He looked around. The white zone where he stood was empty. Only cliffs, only white earth, only the light flowing from everywhere. But the mark on his left hand pulsed faster, indicating that leaves were near. Many leaves. Perhaps ten. Perhaps twenty.
Rosh walked forward, his steps silent as a predator's. He was in no hurry. Time meant nothing here.
He rounded a cliff and emerged into a small valley. White sand, white stones, and in the center — another pedestal. And beside it, on the ground, someone was sitting. Rosh couldn't make out the face — the figure was hidden in the shadow of an overhanging cliff, and the light here was strange, diffused, not casting clear outlines. He saw only a silhouette — short, hunched, in a long cloak that hid its body.
Human? Or a guardian? Or someone else the Tree had summoned into its domain?
The figure didn't move. Sat with its knees drawn up, and seemed to be staring at the silver leaf in its hand. Rosh stopped at the edge of the valley, listening. Silence. Only the quiet singing of the leaves in his sack, only the Tree's pulse echoing in his chest.
He took a step forward. Then another. The sand beneath his boots didn't crunch, didn't squeak — only settled softly, making no sound. The figure didn't turn. Didn't move. Just sat, and in its stillness was something strange, almost unnatural.
Rosh stopped ten paces away. The wind, which never blew here, suddenly stirred his hair, and he smiled. Coldly, predatorily, like a wolf seeing prey that didn't know it had already lost.
"Well, well," he said quietly, his voice low, with a slight rasp, echoing through the white valley. "I wasn't expecting guests."
He stepped forward, and his long, thin shadow fell on the white sand between them.
"But that's even better. Won't have to search for leaves one by one."
The figure didn't answer. Only the silver leaf in its hand flared brighter for a moment, and the silence closed over the valley, dense, heavy, like water at depth.
Rosh waited. He had nowhere to hurry. He was here, in this strange world, and time had lost meaning for him. And the one sitting in the shadow of the cliff could wait. A little longer.
Just a little.