Blood of Numidia

The night had spread its cloak over the mountains until the shadows swallowed the last thread of light. Nothing remained in the sky except a pale moon hiding behind scattered clouds, as though even the light feared revealing what this land concealed. In a small village clinging to the slopes of the Aurès Mountains, the stone houses lay buried beneath a heavy silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind slipping through the narrow alleys, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and wild juniper. Inside one of those houses… A young man awoke. His thick black hair fell carelessly across his forehead in the familiar disarray he had worn since childhood. His features were unusually calm, yet they still bore the mysterious exhaustion of someone who had not known true sleep for years. His wide, night-colored eyes held something impossible to define—something suspended between sorrow and anticipation, as if they were waiting for an event that had not yet happened, yet somehow already knew it was inevitable. He sat slowly on the edge of his bed, covering his face with both hands as he struggled to steady his uneven breathing. It was not a nightmare that had awakened him… It was the dream itself. The same dream had returned to him for years, unchanged and untouched by time, as though preserved somewhere beyond its reach. Every time, it began the same way. A magnificent city gleamed beneath a sun he did not recognize. Towering columns were carved with strange symbols. Black banners fluttered above the walls. In the distance stood a man whose face could not be seen. Without speaking, the man raised a hand toward him, silently beckoning him closer. The moment he took a single step… He always woke up. Always at that exact step. And always with his heart pounding so violently that he could almost hear it echoing through the room. He lifted his gaze toward the window. The moon was still there. But something else caught his attention. The dogs. Since the day he was born, there had never been a single night without the constant sound of their barking. Tonight… There was nothing. A silence unlike the peace of night—a silence that felt like the world itself was waiting for something no one could name. He walked toward the window. The moment he pulled the curtain aside, a chill ran through his body. Everything outside looked the same. The trees. The dirt road. The stone houses. Yet an invisible instinct whispered that something had changed. He felt that someone was standing outside… Watching his window. He closed his eyes for a few seconds before looking again. No one was there. A faint, mocking smile crossed his lips. “Looks like I’m finally starting to believe my own delusions.” He put on his wool jacket and stepped into the small courtyard. The icy air brushed against his face, but instead of waking him, it stirred that familiar feeling deep inside him— The feeling that he was not alone. He stood still for several moments, listening. Nothing. No wind. No insects. No sounds of the night. It was as though the entire world had stopped breathing. Then… He heard the whisper. It came from neither in front of him nor behind him. It came from somewhere no sound should ever come from— Inside his own mind. A single whisper. Brief. Mysterious. Yet enough to freeze the blood in his veins. “You are late.” His eyes widened. He spun around. No one. Only the moon. The silence. And the mountains that had watched him for thousands of years. At that moment, he had no idea that the name everyone had called him since birth was nothing more than a passing name. The true name that had been waiting for him for centuries… He had not heard it yet. And that young man was called Iyas