When I first laid eyes on the sword stuck in that stone slab, I thought maybe it was my way forward. But no matter how hard I pulled, the thing wouldn’t move. A waste of precious strength, but I couldn’t help myself. The markings on the hilt were strange, too—looked a lot like the ones I had seen back in the labyrinth. If I had been able to read those markings, I might have found my way back to the doorway and out of the wasteland I found myself in.
With no other choice, I left it behind and pressed on, wandering through that barren wasteland. The moon cast just enough light to throw long, twisted shadows over the cracked ground, but the stars… they were different. The same stars that had guided me across countless seas were nowhere to be found. For a brief moment, I almost wished I had been back in that cursed maze. At least there, the walls gave me something to fight against. Out here, it had been nothing but emptiness and silence.
I knew I needed water. My throat was parched, lips split, and each step felt heavier than the last. That desolate hell was as far from the sea as a man like me could get. No breeze, no salt air, just dry, hot wind. I had been close to giving up.
I tripped over a jagged rock, nearly face-first into the dirt. As I lay there, ready to surrender to that blasted place, something caught my eye. A light, faint but there, gleaming in the distance.
I couldn’t be sure if it had been real or just a trick of the mind. After days of wandering, I thought it might’ve been a hallucination for all I knew. Dream or not, that light had been the only hope I had left.
So I got up. One last push. Whatever it had been, I had to reach it.
