Dark
I'm kneeling.
The ground beneath me ripples like water—black, endless. Cold sinks into my bones.
I'm not moving. I can't.
There's someone in my arms… a girl?
I can't see her face. Only her hair—long, silver strands fanned across my trembling arms like spilled moonlight.
She's still. Too still.
Maybe I'm not alone after all.
A voice calls out—not loud, not near, but from everywhere at once.
"Remember."
It isn't one voice. It's many. Overlapping. Echoing. Ancient. Each syllable presses down with a weight that makes my chest tighten, my breath stutter.
"I must remember."
Another voice, softer—right behind me. Different.
"See you later."
Suddenly, I'm no longer kneeling.
A figure stands in the ashes, tall and thin, cloaked in smoke. Its eyes glow—golden—too bright, too ancient. It doesn't blink.
I try to speak, but my throat locks.
The figure raises its hand, and the world bends. I'm pulled forward—no, drawn—toward it like gravity. The air thickens.
Behind the figure, flames rise—twin pillars of fire reaching toward the sky. In them, I see… people. Us. Me, Matt, El. Fighting. Running. Screaming. The image is fleeting.
The image vanishes like smoke in the wind.
Then the fire shifts—and I see her.
A girl in white. Eyes like dusk. Hair like starlight.
Reaching toward me from within the fire, lips forming a single word I cannot hear.
I reach back.
Then—
A scream. Not mine. Hers.
The vision collapses. The flame devours her whole.
Everything shatters.
And I fall—hard—backward into—
Light.
My eyes snapped open.
I gasped—lungs clawing for air like I'd just surfaced from the bottom of a deep ocean. The canopy of trees spun above me in a dizzy blur, fractured light filtering through the leaves.
Voices. Distant. Warped.
"Leo!"
Tavon's voice, sharp and urgent, echoed somewhere behind the rush in my ears.
Then a face came into view—upside down, framed by the soft glow of firelight.
"El."
Her brows were pinched in concern, but her voice was gentle.
"You're back."
I tried to sit up, but my body felt like lead. My heart pounded. Not from exhaustion—but from something deeper. A fear I couldn't name.
Because something was wrong.
That dream—no, it wasn't a dream.
It was too vivid. Too real.
The cold. The voice. The girl in my arms…
I didn't just see her. I knew her.
And worse—I knew that place. The darkness. The fire. The weight of that word whispered from nowhere:
Remember.
But remember what?
I stared past El, into the trees, as if the answer might be hiding there. But all I felt was the ache in my chest and the unsettling truth blooming behind my ribs.
Matthew gripped both my shoulders as I sat up, his face hovering close, eyes wide with concern.
"Are you alright? Do you feel anything?" he asked, his voice almost frantic—like a mother who just watched her kid trip down the stairs.
I blinked at him, trying to steady my breath. "I'm good," I muttered, scratching the back of my head. "What... what happened?"
"You passed out," he said. "Right after you turned that tiny flame into a freakin' fireball."
It came rushing back—the fire, the essence, the primal command.
Ah. Right. I was still in the middle of the Domarus Trial.
I groaned and rubbed my temples. "It felt like... like cramming for an exam all night. Like my brain got hit with a freight train of information."
He tilted his head. "So, a headache?"
"Yeah," I said, exhaling sharply. "But the magical kind."
The morning sun spilled through the trees, warm and dappled, casting golden light across the clearing. Dew still clung to the grass, and the soft hum of insects buzzed in the air. We had just finished the trial, but Old Man Tavon hadn't let us rest for long.
He stood with his hands behind his back, staring out past the trees like he was seeing something much older than the forest itself.
"There's something you need to understand," he began, turning to face us. His voice, calm as ever, held a subtle gravity that made us fall silent. "What you and Matt just felt—that wave of dizziness, that sharp headache—it's not just fatigue. It's the toll of grasping something ancient. Something forbidden."
He crouched, fingers brushing through the soft soil, sketching slow lines as if drawing from memory. "True Names," he said, "are remnants of a law long buried—language never meant to be spoken by mortal tongues, at least not anymore. When you speak one, your mind strains to hold something vast, something that was supposed to stay hidden."
I glanced at Matt. He was quiet now, a hand resting near his temple like he still felt the echo of it.
"It's like trying to cram centuries of knowledge into a single moment," Tavon continued. "Some minds can handle more than others—like students studying through the night. Some retain everything. Others burnout in an hour. The cost always varies. But make no mistake—everyone pays it."
I nodded slowly. It really had felt like an overload—like my head was too full to hold even one more thought.
"The lucky ones," Tavon added, his voice softer now, "are the ones who forget. The unlucky ones… go mad."
A quiet breeze stirred the leaves. Sunlight gleamed off the dew on El's boots.
"But Domari," he said, standing upright now, "is not just knowledge. It's action. Domari is the action of command—the primal tongue. It's how we shape the world with will, not just thought."
He walked toward the stick still rooted in the ground from earlier, the soot-blackened tip of the flame long since cooled. "Domari requires precision. Tone. Clarity. Mispronounce it, and nothing happens. Or worse—something happens, but it's not what you meant."
I remembered how the fire had grown… how it had nearly overwhelmed me.
"And then," he said, "there's your essence. Your spirit essence is your authority. Without it, you're a child barking orders at kings. You can try to command the elements—but they'll ignore you. Or laugh."
He looked at me as he said it, not unkindly.
"But with enough essence… they listen. They obey. The bigger your presence, the more power you can draw forth. It's not about shouting louder—it's about deserving to be heard."
He turned his gaze to all of us now, his expression unreadable in the morning light.
"Domari isn't just magic. It's balanced. Command without discipline leads to ruin. And power without understanding?" He shook his head. "That's how the old world fell."
He let the silence hang there for a moment before finally turning away, letting the moment settle.
We stayed another night in the Jurra Forest. The morning sun had barely warmed the mist off the ground when we realized Old Man Tavon was gone.
Like always, the day before had been spent honing our sword forms and hunting for dinner. Routine. Familiar. But that night… something changed.
When we woke, his spot by the fire was empty—bedroll cold, gear gone. In his place, carved into the dirt with the tip of a stick, were a few rough words:
"You can go back home on your own."
Beneath it, another line:
"P.S. But don't come back without a Saberfang."
There was a long pause. Only the wind responded.
El knelt down beside the scrawled message and let out a deep, weary sigh.
"Uh… what's a Saberfang?" Matt asked, scratching the back of his head, still half-asleep.
El stood slowly. "It's a Lesser Monster."
Matt blinked. "A lesser monster? So… easy, then?"
I turned to her, hopeful. "Right?"
She didn't answer immediately. Just stared out into the trees, like calculating something behind her eyes. Then finally, she exhaled. Long and slow.
"Depends on the rank… and how many there are."
She strapped her pack over her shoulder, jaw set.
"Let's go," she said. "We've got monsters to hunt."
There wasn't much more to say. Matt and I exchanged glances, then silently began packing. Belts tightened. Blades checked. Water flasks filled.
By the time the sun broke fully through the trees, we were already moving—deeper into Jurra, where the forest grew darker, the air heavier, and the silence less forgiving.
No more training dummies. No more practice swings.
This time, it was real.