The child returned by death ( part II )

something shattered within her.

had once called home.

And among the crowds…

those same faces.

The same cold eyes.

The same men.

As though they had been watching her for her entire life.

A sharp pain exploded inside her skull.

Images flashed before her eyes.

Whispers.

Fearful glances.

The elders’ uneasy expressions whenever they looked at her.

And suddenly, everything became clear.

The deaths of her loved ones had never been accidents.

They had never been random.

From the very beginning, there had been people who feared her existence.

People who believed she should never have been allowed to live.

The wind roared across the mountain.

The trees groaned violently.

One of the mages glanced around nervously.

“Did you feel that?”

No one answered.

The air had become unnaturally cold.

Then the mist appeared.

At first it was only a thin veil creeping across the ground.

But within moments, darkness poured from every direction.

A black fog.

Thick.

Silent.

Alive.

In seconds, it swallowed the entire mountainside.

The mages immediately raised their staffs.

“Light barrier!”

Brilliant spells erupted around them.

Yet the fog continued advancing.

It devoured the light itself.

Panic spread through their ranks.

“What is this?!”

“This isn’t natural!”

The darkness thickened.

Then someone screamed.

A figure stood within the mist.

A little girl.

Motionless.

Watching them.

Nysera.

No one had seen her approach.

No one had heard a single footstep.

One mage blinked.

The girl vanished.

A second later she appeared behind them.

Another blink.

She stood among the trees.

Then atop a boulder.

Then somewhere deeper in the fog.

Everywhere.

And nowhere.

The mages’ courage shattered.

They ran.

But the mountain itself seemed to betray them.

Paths twisted into unfamiliar directions.

Landmarks disappeared.

Shadows stretched unnaturally across the earth.

Voices whispered from the darkness.

Voices speaking words no living person should know.

One by one, the mages disappeared into the black mist.

Their screams echoed through the mountains.

Then gradually faded.

Until silence remained.

Complete silence.

⸻

That very same night, disaster struck Nysera’s birthplace.

An enormous fire consumed the village.

The flames burned for hours.

When dawn arrived, nothing remained but ashes.

There were no survivors.

Not a single one.

Yet among the few witnesses who observed the catastrophe from afar, strange rumors spread.

Several swore they had seen a figure standing within the sea of flames.

A child.

Perfectly still.

Unmoving.

Watching.

A little girl with glowing eyes.

A little girl who looked exactly like Nysera.

But such a thing should have been impossible.

At that time, Nysera was supposed to be hundreds of kilometers away, hidden within the mountains beside her grandfather.

So who had they seen?

And why did everyone who seemed to know the truth eventually disappear?

The questions remained unanswered.

Years passed.

The mystery became legend.

And the legend became fear.

⸻

After the destruction of the village and the strange events upon the mountain, the people of neighboring lands abandoned the old names of the region.

No one wished to be reminded of what had happened there.

Over time, a new name emerged.

Nyvaris.

Few remembered where the word came from.

Fewer still knew its true meaning.

In a language lost to history, Nyvaris meant:

“The Shadow Born from Suffering.”

Storytellers claimed that an immeasurable sorrow had taken root in those lands.

A sorrow so profound that it had transformed into hatred.

And hatred that had eventually become vengeance.

Since then, no traveler willingly crossed Nyvaris after sunset.

For some claimed that when the mountain winds blew through the valleys, they carried a voice.

The voice of a child.

A child who had lost everything.

A child who still wandered between grief and darkness.

And on certain nights, beneath the pale glow of the full moon, the wind seemed to whisper a single name.

Nysera.

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