Chapter 15: The Road to Twilight

The sea had turned black.

Not from storm, nor shadow — but from something older. Something deeper. The water bore no reflection, no shimmer of moonlight, no glimmer of day. It was as if the ocean itself had forgotten how to shine.

Raizen stood at the helm of the Stormwake, eyes fixed on the horizon. Or rather, where the horizon should've been. Ahead lay the Twilight Expanse — a region whispered in tavern tales and banned from every map. A place where compasses spun wild, light was swallowed whole, and even the stars abandoned their watchers.

But that was where they had to go.

The Hollow Throne wasn't behind them — not truly. The ruins Raizen had visited had been just a chamber of echoes, a decoy built atop myth. The real throne, the original seat of fate and dominion, still waited — and every clue pointed here, to the Twilight Expanse, the last blank page of the world.

His crew was quieter than usual. Not from fear — they had faced fear — but from the weight of uncertainty. What lay ahead was beyond logic, beyond maps, beyond even myth.

Korra muttered to herself at the wheel, plotting a course that no stars guided. She had tied a blindfold over her eyes, relying only on instinct and memory.

Zuri stood at the bow, her blades already drawn, as though she expected shadows to rise from the sea at any moment. Her stance was tense, unreadable. The fractures from before still hadn't healed.

Kaidan hadn't spoken since their argument two nights ago. But he hadn't left either. That, Raizen clung to as hope.

Below deck, the artifact — the Keystone of Accord — had begun to pulse with a strange rhythm. Like a heartbeat. Like it, too, sensed what was coming.

As the ship passed into the veil, day died completely.

Not just light — time. The sun no longer rose or set. The winds moaned without direction. The crew started marking hours by candle burn and the number of meals they'd eaten. One sailor claimed he had seen his own memories walking across the water. Another swore the stars whispered names only he knew.

Then the hallucinations began.

Raizen saw shadows moving on deck when no one was there. Korra dreamed of falling into a skyless ocean and woke with salt on her lips. Zuri's blades grew colder the deeper they sailed, as if reacting to an ancient enemy.

But turning back was not an option.

They passed wreckage of ships centuries old, untouched by decay. Ghost sails drifting without masts. And then they found it — a beacon, not of light, but of absence. A tear in the ocean's fabric. A spiral of void that descended straight into the unknown.

The Gate of Twilight.

Raizen knew — somehow — that the throne lay beyond it.

But he also knew something waited there.

Not just truth.

Not just power.

Something watching.

That night, he gathered his crew.

"This place will test more than our strength," he said. "It will test our will, our pasts, our reasons for standing together."

He looked at them — fractured but present. Still with him.

"We've crossed the world. We've faced gods, tyrants, and the truth itself. What waits beyond may be worse. But if we don't go forward…"

He let the silence speak the rest.

Zuri nodded first. Then Korra. Then even Kaidan, who met his gaze with a flicker of old trust.

The ship tilted forward — drawn by unseen currents toward the Gate.

As they crossed its edge, all sound died. Light vanished.

And the Road to Twilight opened beneath them.

They sailed into nothing.

Into everything.

END OF THE CHAPTER15