Date: October 14, 542, from the Fall of Zandra the Dishonorable.
Sobra stepped out of the tower, and the white world greeted him with its familiar silence.
The sand, the cliffs, the sky—all of it was the same as it had been a month and a half ago, when they first crossed the threshold of the Tree. Yet something had changed. Or perhaps it only seemed that way. The bear didn't know. He simply stood at the entrance, inhaling the cold, dry air, his silver stripes pulsing in time with his heart—steadily, calmly.
Behind him, within the white walls, remained Datuk, Ulvia, and Rosh. Datuk, trying not to show his worry, but whose eyes were too serious. Ulvia, who had stroked his neck and said, "You'll manage." Rosh, who had simply nodded.
*A week,* Sobra thought, taking his first step.
He couldn't count days the way humans did. But he felt time differently—by the way his body tired, how wounds healed, how the light changed. He had instinct. And now, that instinct told him the journey would be long.
---
He walked unhurriedly. White zones replaced one another—deserts, hills, rocky ridges. He recognized some of the places where they had fought with the squad before finding the tower. Others he saw for the first time.
Sobra was not searching for leaves. He was not searching for guardians. He simply walked, his broad, soft paws stepping almost soundlessly on the white sand.
*Where to?* he asked himself, and there was no answer.
But his instincts—ancient, animal—urged him forward. Do not turn aside. Do not stop.
---
He had walked for perhaps two hours when he felt it.
Something in the fur on the back of his neck, where he had hidden the compass. The one Shaman Krogan had given them before they left Krag-Mhor. The one that had stopped working even before they entered the Tree.
Sobra stopped. He lowered his head and twisted his shoulders, trying to reach the spot with his nose. Awkward. Very awkward. He spent several minutes squirming like an eel, cursing—in his bearlike way, without words, but very expressively—his own clumsiness.
Finally, the compass slipped from his fur and fell onto the sand.
Sobra looked at it.
It lay on the white surface, and its needle—which had been frozen for months—was now trembling. A fine, rapid quiver, as if listening to something. Then it jerked and stopped, pointing in one direction.
East.
Sobra tilted his head. He nudged the compass with his paw—it didn't budge. He picked it up in his teeth, turned it over, and placed it back down. The needle jerked again and once more pointed east.
*It's working,* the bear realized, and a chill ran down his spine.
He didn't know why the compass had come to life now. He didn't know what it was pointing to—perhaps a concentration of leaves, perhaps an exit from the Tree, perhaps something else entirely. But his instincts—the ones that had never failed him in the forest—whispered: *Go.*
Sobra picked up the compass in his teeth, carefully, so as not to damage it, and tucked it back into the fur on his neck. The device nestled comfortably between his shoulder blades, and its faint warmth, barely perceptible, radiated into his back, soothing him.
*Go,* instinct repeated.
And Sobra went.
---
He headed east, and the white world around him began to change.
First came cliffs—tall, sharp, reaching for the sky. Their long, cold shadows fell upon the sand, creating strange patterns. Sobra skirted them, not risking a climb—the rocks were slippery, and one wrong move could cost him a limb.
Then the cliffs gave way to a wasteland—flat, endless, dotted with sparse bushes of white, almost transparent grass. Here, the wind—almost absent in other zones—blew stronger. Its cold, biting gusts made his fur stand on end.
Sobra kept walking. The compass on his neck pulsed weakly but steadily, and that rhythm, that call, led him onward.
He didn't know how much time passed. An hour, maybe three. The sun—if one could call it that in this world—stood at its zenith, and the even, diffuse light flooded the wasteland, casting no shadows.
And then he saw the lake.
---
It appeared suddenly—a silvery expanse shimmering in the white light, like a mirror reflecting the sky. The water was motionless and smooth. No steam rose from it, unlike the hot springs they had found a month ago. It was cold. Dead. And yet, at the same time—alive.
Sobra stopped at the shore. His paws sank into the soft, damp sand. Small, barely perceptible waves lapped at his claws, leaving silvery droplets on them.
The lake was vast—so large the opposite shore was lost in a white haze. The water was clear, and in the shallows, where the sand was visible through its depth, strange, glowing plants grew. They reached for the surface, their slender stems swaying to an invisible current.
And in the center of the lake, on a small, barely noticeable rise, lay a white islet.
It was tiny—perhaps ten paces long and as many wide. Upon it, on smooth white stone, rested something that made Sobra's heart beat faster.
He didn't know what it was. He couldn't see from this distance. But his instincts—the ones that had never failed him—screamed: *There. That is what you seek.*
Sobra sniffed the air. The water smelled of ozone and cold metal, like everything in this world. But beneath that scent, thin and barely perceptible, was something else. Something living. Warm. Real.
*Leaves?* he wondered. *Or something more?*
He looked at the compass. The needle, which had been pointing east, now trembled, turning right and left before freezing, aimed directly at the islet.
*That way, then.*
---
Sobra stood on the shore of the white lake and stared at the islet.
The water was cold—he could feel it even through the tips of his claws touching the damp sand. The swim would be long. Very long. And he didn't know what lurked beneath that smooth, silvery surface. Perhaps guardians waited in the depths. Perhaps traps. Perhaps death.
But the compass called. Instinct called. And Sobra, who had always trusted his gut more than his reason, could not ignore them.
He took a step into the water.
Cold seared his paws, rising higher—to his knees, to his thighs. Sobra paused, acclimating. His silver-striped fur grew wet and heavy, but he did not retreat.
*Must swim,* he thought.
He looked back at the shore he was leaving behind. White sand, sparse bushes of transparent grass, cliffs on the horizon—all familiar, almost home. And ahead—the islet. The unknown. And what awaited him there.
Sobra took another step. The water rose to his chest. He felt its pressure, felt the cold seeping through his fur to his skin. But he did not stop.
*Swim,* he told himself. *Just swim.*
He pushed off the bottom and began to swim.
His powerful paws worked steadily, rhythmically. The water parted before him. The shore slowly disappeared behind him, while the islet grew closer.
He swam on, and the white lake stretched before him. Its smooth, silvery surface reflected the empty sky. Somewhere in its center, the islet awaited. And on the islet—something worth swimming for.
*I'll make it,* Sobra thought, his paws paddling faster.
The water whispered around him, and that soft, soothing sound was the only noise in this white, silent world.