Chapter 84 — Nessis, From the Inside**
The village was not what Steve had expected.
He didn't exactly know what he had expected—something more imposing, perhaps, something more in keeping with the scale of civilization that the architecture at the entrance had promised. But Nessis on the inside was quiet in the way places are quiet when they don't need to make noise to prove they exist. The streets were wide without being empty, paved with cream-toned stone that captured the golden light and gave it back gently warmed, as if each slab had learned over the centuries to be part of the illumination rather than just the ground. The buildings lined up with that kind of order that isn't planned in months but cultivated over generations—each door, each window, each arch exactly where someone with enough time had realized it should be.
Steve walked while looking at all of it and searching for an exit at the same time.
High window on the left—opened onto an inner courtyard, no visibility to the outside. Secondary street on the right—ended against a stone wall. Corridor between two buildings farther ahead—too narrow, too obvious.
He glanced back.
Dagon was exactly four meters behind, with that posture of someone who wasn't running but who would never fall behind, his brown eyes fixed on Steve with the specific quality of attention that wasn't hostile surveillance but was surveillance all the same.
Steve looked forward again.
*There has to be something.*
---
Then he heard it.
First as sound—quick footsteps, multiple, the kind of steps that don't calculate the weight they make when landing. Then as impact—three small bodies arriving from somewhere on the left at a speed their scale didn't justify, rounding Orzun who opened his arms by reflex and was completely ignored, passing Jelim who shifted her body with that automatic grace of someone used to dodging things.
They reached Yelra.
Three children—perhaps six, perhaps eight years old in appearance, with that age ambiguity of beings Steve quickly realized probably didn't measure years the same way he did—dressed in pure white, with hair, skin, and eyes that were variations of what Yelra was, as if someone had taken the same fundamental traits and distributed them slightly differently in each one. They hugged her with that specific strength of a child's hug that has no self-control and therefore uses everything.
"Big sister!" The word came out in imperfect unison, with that quality of a rehearsed choir that was nevertheless completely spontaneous. "You're back!"
Yelra lowered herself to their level with a movement that seemed to take less time than it should, her arms receiving the three bodies with the ease of someone who had performed this gesture enough times for it to be muscle memory. Her face changed—not dramatically, not with the kind of transformation that announces itself, just that specific relaxation of expression that happens when someone arrives at a place where they don't need to be on guard.
Steve stopped to watch without realizing he had stopped.
The moment had that quality of something real that doesn't ask to be observed. The three children speaking at the same time, Yelra's hands in each of their hair in brief but present gestures, the sound of voices overlapping without any trying to dominate the others.
And then, from somewhere beneath the observation, something else arrived.
The living room in Mozambique. The door opening. His younger siblings who still hadn't learned to moderate their enthusiasm running down the hallway with that speed of small feet against cement floor. Hands grabbing the shopping bags before he could even set them down—not to help, but to be part of the return, to be included in the moment of arriving.
The smile came out before any decision to smile.
"Don't get attached, kid."
Dagon's voice came over his shoulder, low enough not to reach Yelra and the children.
"After all, it's only a matter of time until you disappear from this world."
The smile vanished.
Steve lowered his head. The anger arrived with that specific speed of anger that was already present and only needed a trigger.
"I know that well enough," he said, his voice coming out controlled in a way that cost him. "You don't need to bother reminding me."
"I'm just pulling you out of the clouds."
"Enough, Dagon."
Keara's voice came from behind, with that tone that wasn't an order but carried the firmness of something that wasn't going to be withdrawn.
Dagon didn't reply. The sound of his footsteps continued forward.
Keara approached Steve. Steve felt her approach before he saw her—the specific warmth of a close presence, the different quality of the air when someone who wants to say something is one step away.
"Steve—"
"Thanks for saying that," he said without turning his face. His voice came out more tired than he intended, without the hardness that would have been easier to use. "But I don't want anything to do with you right now."
A second of silence.
"I understand," Keara said, very quietly.
Her footsteps moved away.
Steve remained still for a moment, staring at the cream-colored stone pavement, feeling the specific weight of words spoken that could not be undone—words that were true and still hurt.
*She confirmed you were bait. She said 'yes, Steve, it's all true' with that gentle voice. As if gentleness made it easier to swallow.*
It didn't.
Farther back, much farther, Jelim's voice didn't arrive as audible sound. It arrived as a thought that wasn't his—with that quality of mental presence he was learning to recognize as different from his own thoughts.
*The mood really changed.*
It wasn't meant for him. It was for herself. Steve realized this from the way it arrived—not communication, just an internal state that had slipped out without intention. Jelim registering that the group that had been a group was no longer exactly that, and that this change had a specific texture she recognized but probably wouldn't name out loud for anyone.
---
Steve walked over to where Yelra was with the children.
He crouched down to their level—not with Yelra's fluidity, but with the squat of someone trying to find a more honest scale for conversation.
"Hello," he said.
The three children turned to him in unison. Three pairs of green eyes with that faint, constant luminosity. Three expressions of genuine assessment, the kind children make before they've learned to hide that they're assessing.
The one in the middle—the smallest, with the shortest hair—tilted her head toward Yelra.
"Is he your boyfriend?"
Steve felt heat rising up his neck.
Yelra lifted her chin with that specific expression of superiority Steve was starting to recognize as a defensive posture disguised as attack.
"Not exactly like that." A calculated pause. "He is completely smitten with me, yes."
Steve looked at her.
"But I'm not," Yelra added, in the tone of someone making an incontestable factual statement. "After all, he's just a baby to me."
The look Yelra gave him had that specific quality of mockery that doesn't need a full smile to communicate everything it wants to communicate.
Steve reached out and gave her a light flick on the head.
Not hard. Just enough.
Yelra let out an *ow* that had more surprise than pain, her body tilting slightly to the side before she recovered, the expression of superiority replaced by something that was simultaneously indignation and confusion about how to react to having been tapped on the head by someone she had just met.
The three children looked at Steve.
Then at Yelra.
Then at Steve again.
The one in the middle said, in the factual tone of someone registering an important observation:
"Her boyfriend is mean."
Steve didn't answer. He figured it was safer not to answer.
---
The elder appeared along the main path with the walk of someone who has centuries of practice in not wasting movement.
He was tall—not in the sense of abnormal height, but with that specific presence of something that has stood for long enough to have solidity. His hair was completely white, not from age but from the same pure tone Steve had seen in Yelra before the changes in light, like snow that doesn't melt because it didn't come from temperature but from another reason. His eyes had that more intense green luminosity—not faint and constant like Yelra's, but present in a way that made it difficult to look directly without recalibrating what the eyes expected to find.
"Welcome to our village."
The voice had that quality of something that had been used for a very long time to say important things and had therefore learned it didn't need volume to carry weight.
Dagon stepped forward from the group with the naturalness of a leader who knows when it's his turn to speak.
"Forgive the intrusion." His voice was different from the one he used with Steve—more formal, with that specific consideration of a man who recognizes equivalent authority. "We are here because of something that connects someone from your people to someone in our group."
The elder looked at Yelra for a moment. Then at Steve. Then at Yelra again.
"Follow me."
---
The elder's house was not larger than the others.
That was what Steve noticed first—the absence of architectural hierarchy that in the real world and in any human civilization he knew would have placed the leader's dwelling at the top of something, bigger, more visible, more assertive of importance. It was a simple house with that quality of space organized by someone who had lived in it long enough for every object to be exactly where it was for a reason that didn't need explaining.
They sat.
The elder remained standing, but without the quality of standing that wants to establish hierarchy. Just the standing of someone more comfortable that way.
"Tell me what I owe to your visit."
Dagon explained directly, without ornament. The fight at the Temple of the Death Cult. The two entities on the thrones. The essence transfer. Steve's Percentile System and what happened when he activated it.
The elder listened without interrupting. When Dagon finished, he turned his gaze to Yelra.
"Is it true?"
"Yes, great elder." Yelra's voice had a different tone here—not submission, but genuine respect from someone who recognizes they are before someone with real weight. "It happened when I went to confront Yerris in the Great Forest."
"Yerris."
The name left the elder differently from the other words—not with more deliberate weight, but with that involuntary quality of a name that carries a long history and therefore cannot be said the same way as normal words.
"Yes," said Yelra.
The elder remained silent for a moment. Not the silence of someone thinking about what to say—the silence of someone who already knows what to say and is finding the right way to say it.
"As for the curse," he said finally, "we have nothing we can do. The beings above us passed this power to us, and we have no control over the Chaos it contains." A pause. "But your companion has not died yet for a specific reason."
Everyone looked at Steve.
Steve tried not to look uncomfortable at being looked at like a problem under analysis.
"His essence is now the same as Yelra's." The elder chose his words with that precision of someone who has learned that imprecise words cost more than the time they save. "And the essence of our people is the strongest that exists among all the races of this world."
"Why?" asked Dagon.
"Because we possess the power of Order." Simple. Factual. "Chaos and Order are absolute opposites. When they mix in the correct proportions, they remain in balance. That is why we believe the beings above us cursed us with Chaos—not out of cruelty, but because we were the only ones who could contain it without being destroyed by it. Because we had its opposite within us."
Silence in the room.
Steve was processing. One thousand and seventeen years of Yelra. The power of Order. The power of Chaos. The curse as a mechanism of balance rather than punishment.
"Your companion is not in immediate danger because he possesses this essence," the elder continued. His tone changed—not louder, but with that quality of weight that comes before information that will change what everyone present knows about the situation. "However."
The word hung alone in the air for a second.
"Now that you share the same essence," he said, "the link is complete. Irreversible."
He looked at Steve. Then at Yelra.
"If Yelra dies, he dies." A pause. "And if he dies—"
He didn't finish immediately.
The pause had that specific length of someone giving time for those present to complete the sentence before confirming it. So the weight would arrive before the words.
"Yelra dies as well."
---
The silence that followed was not one of shock.
It was the specific silence of information that was too large to have an immediate adequate reaction and therefore remained without reaction for the seconds necessary for each person's brain to begin processing what it implied.
Steve turned his gaze to Yelra.
Yelra was sitting with that posture she had had since Steve met her—back straight, calm gaze, hands in her lap with that stillness of someone who doesn't use nervous gestures because nervous gestures require a nervous system calibrated to human time scales. No surprise on her face. No anxiety. Absolutely nothing that corresponded to the weight of what had just been said.
As if she already knew.
As if she had known even before entering that room.
The elder looked at Dagon.
"If possible, I ask that your friend stay here with us. We cannot risk their lives. Not for him—for Yelra."
Dagon remained silent for the time he needed to process the information as a strategist rather than as a person.
"We will do that," he said.
---
Outside, the golden light of Nessis continued with that specific indifference of light that has existed long enough to have no opinion about what happens inside it.
Dagon stopped two steps from Steve.
"You heard," he said. Not a question. "So don't come with any ideas of running away and putting her life at risk."
Steve looked at him for a moment.
"I know," he said. Just that.
Dagon looked at him for an additional second—evaluating, calculating, reaching some conclusion he didn't verbalize.
"Good." He turned to the group. "Let's get to know the village. We'll meet later."
The footsteps moved away. Keara followed without looking back. Orzun hesitated, looked at Steve with that expression of a young orc who wanted to say something but hadn't found the right phrase, and followed. Jelim floated in the same direction without making a sound.
Steve and Yelra remained.
---
Steve turned.
And stopped.
Yelra had a knife in her hand—not large, not elaborate, just a short metal blade that shone with the quality of a well-cared-for object—and was positioning it in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.
"You crazy woman."
Steve reached her in two steps and snatched the knife away with a speed that surprised them both.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Yelra looked at her own empty hand with the expression of someone who had been interrupted in the middle of a task and was genuinely confused about the reason for the interruption.
"I was anxious," she said, in the tone of someone explaining something obvious, "to finally experience the sensation of death."
Steve stared at her.
One thousand and seventeen years. This woman has one thousand and seventeen years and is looking at him with the expression of a child who had her toy taken away.
"What are you saying," Steve said slowly.
"Do you know why we don't age?" Yelra's voice changed tone—not dramatically, just differently, with that quality of a subject that had been stored for long enough to have settled. "Because we are few. Because we haven't been able to have more children since we left the islands. Those children, the elder, all the people you saw—they are the same ones who left with us for this continent. None were born here. None will be born."
She looked at her hands.
"The curse included immortality. Not as a gift." A pause. "As a punishment."
Steve remained silent.
Yelra raised her gaze.
"So yes," she said, and there was in her voice something that wasn't performative sadness but the quiet version of something that has existed long enough to have lost the capacity to surprise but not the capacity to weigh. "I am anxious. See?" The corner of her mouth moved slightly, without the full humor it would have had in another context. "I'm young, beautiful, cute—"
"You've already said too much."
"—adored, beloved—"
"Yelra."
She stopped.
Looked at him.
"I'm sorry," Steve said. Simple. Without elaboration. "Truly."
The silence that followed was different from the previous silences they had shared. Not discomfort. Not tension. Just two beings occupying the same space with the weight of shared information that didn't need more immediate words.
Then Yelra said, in a voice that had recovered its usual tone but still carried something quieter underneath:
"It's okay. It's reason to celebrate—because with you this wait will finally come to an end."
"I still can't die now."
Steve hadn't planned to say that. It came out with that quality of truth that exists before any decision to verbalize it.
The image arrived unbidden—the hospital bed. The machines. His mother's hand cold in a way a living person's hand shouldn't be cold. And the empty kitchen with his siblings around the table with that specific patience of children who have learned to wait without exactly knowing what for.
"I have family," he said. "Who are waiting for me to come back."
Yelra remained silent for a moment.
"I know," she said finally. And her voice had that quality of someone who isn't just acknowledging a fact but who understands the weight behind it. "I saw."
A pause.
"You will return to them."
It wasn't a solemn promise. It was the kind of declaration Yelra made—simple, direct, without ornament.
Steve didn't answer immediately.
Then he said:
"And the plan for me to get out of here. Are you still thinking about it?"
"I am." Yelra tilted her head with that specific way of someone organizing thoughts that have more layers than fit in a simple answer. "It will be more complicated now that the elder asked for you to stay. But it's possible. We need to—"
"You two intend to run away from Dagon and the others?"
The voice came from behind.
Steve turned.
Orzun was six meters away, with that posture of a young orc who wasn't exactly hiding but who clearly hadn't announced his presence deliberately, and who now had in his eyes that mixture of having heard more than he intended and of being genuinely interested in what he had heard.
"I have an idea," he said. "I can help you."
---
**[SILVANO: UNDERWORLD — DECREASING DISTANCE]**