The mist floated over the village like a heavy veil, hiding the earth and poplars, and even familiar paths became strange. He felt its breath, cold and damp, sliding across his skin as if Death itself had chosen to spare no warning. His steps were quiet, almost imperceptible, yet his inner instinct whispered: something… or someone… was here. Ozar walked slowly, guided by an inexplicable sensation. “Go… Go forward,” the wind whispered. Each inhalation filled his lungs with the damp scent of grass and soil. He heard the voices of the dead gods, the whisper of their faint breath through centuries-old bark and mold-covered bones. Their remains lay nearby, and he felt their presence like a pulsing threat: bones, decayed to the point of crunching, immense, as if the gods themselves could rise and crush the village with a single step.

Ozar touched one of the bones, mentally feeling the power of those who could no longer influence the living, yet whose memory of strength lingered here—in the earth, in the air, in the mist. Then, without uttering a word, he took another step, letting his thoughts intertwine with the breath of the ancient place and the presence of a foreign life. He stopped. Dark eyes scanned the silhouettes: the fingers of the bones were bent, as if still clutching the world of the living. The sorcerer heard their silent pleas and threats simultaneously, feeling the ancient wrath that had slowly frozen in this place. And all of it—the whisper that would never cease—was destined, in the end, to become a loud voice, a will, a protection against the mist and the unclean.

The mist rustled, and through it emerged a figure. A girl. She appeared like a ghost, gliding through the gray veils, and for a moment Ozar’s heart tightened—not with fear, but with… interest. A stranger. No sane villager would ever enter the mist of their own accord. Her presence disrupted the usual rhythm of the gods’ breath, and even the whisper of the bones slowed, as if they too were watching. The sorcerer tilted his head slowly, appraising, as if studying an ancient text; every sound in the mist he counted and calculated, as though predicting the intentions of a living being in the damp, impenetrable haze.

His fingers barely touched the scar on his chest—the sensation that always connected him to the gods intensified. The power of visions trembled within him, drawing streams of images toward her, but he restrained his thoughts, refusing to lose control. Ozar stepped forward, quiet and deliberate.

"The one who comes from the mist does not belong here."

He paused, letting the silence weigh down the air around them. Each moment stretched into eternity, and in it he heard the voice of the gods—the whisper of an ancientness that needed no humans to exist.