The arena did not erupt into panic.
That was the most terrifying part.
The Watchers did not shout. The guards did not rush forward. The scholars did not scramble for countermeasures. They watched in frozen silence as the chains around the Lyrake trembled, glowing symbols stuttering like dying stars.
Kairn stood at the center of it all, his heart hammering so violently he was certain the beast could hear it.
No myth had ever spoken during binding.
The rule was absolute: myths responded only to structure, to narrative pressure, to the slow reshaping of belief. They were vast, ancient things—but mute once caught in the lattice of rewritten story.
Yet the Lyrake's eyes burned with awareness.
"You have told this lie too many times," it said inside Kairn's skull. "You almost believe it yourself."
Pain flared along Kairn's marked arm. He gasped, dropping to one knee as the sigil burned brighter, its edges cracking like overheated stone. He tasted copper.
"Hold the verse," commanded a Watcher. "Do not break cadence."
Kairn forced the words through clenched teeth, reciting the Binding Verse again, slower this time, reinforcing the altered myth: You are not the end of rulers. You are the guardian of order. You serve the crown.
The chains tightened.
For a moment, it worked.
The Lyrake's massive body sagged, its breath coming in heavy, scorched huffs. The symbols in its mane dimmed, rearranging themselves into more familiar, controllable patterns.
Relief washed through Kairn.
Then the beast lifted its head and smiled.
"You do not know what a crown is anymore," it said. "You replaced them with systems and called them safer."
The chains exploded outward.
Stone shattered. The shockwave hurled Kairn backward, slamming him hard against the arena wall. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, and stars burst across his vision.
Alarms finally screamed.
Guards surged forward, activating emergency suppression glyphs etched into the arena floor. Light flared, intersecting lines forming a containment grid that slammed down around the beast.
The Lyrake roared—not in pain, but in laughter.
Its voice carried through the arena, through the mountain, through the city beyond.
"Listen to me, children of forgetting," it thundered. "You did not tame us. You starved us."
Kairn struggled to his feet, vision swimming. Blood ran down his temple. His mark throbbed like a second heart.
"What does that mean?" he shouted, though he wasn't sure whether he was speaking to the beast or to himself.
The Lyrake's eyes locked onto him alone.
"You cut away the parts of the story that frightened you," it said. "You fed us obedience and called it balance. But a myth denied its truth does not die."
The containment grid began to flicker.
Watchers shouted orders now—desperate, overlapping. Reinforce the lattice. Increase narrative pressure. Prepare memory anchors.
"This has never happened," one of them whispered. "Not like this."
Kairn felt something shift inside him. A realization as sharp as a blade.
The beast wasn't resisting because it was stronger.
It was resisting because it remembered more.
"What happens if you break free?" Kairn asked, ignoring the Watchers' frantic gestures for him to retreat.
The Lyrake leaned forward as far as the grid allowed. Its breath washed over him, hot and heavy with the scent of ash and old blood.
"We remind the world who it tried to bury."
The grid shattered.
The blast threw bodies across the arena. Stone pillars cracked. The Watchers' seats splintered, and screams filled the air as scholars and officials scrambled to escape falling debris.
The Lyrake did not attack.
It stepped backward—then dissolved.
Not vanished.
Unwound.
Its massive form collapsed inward, symbols unraveling into threads of light that streamed upward, vanishing into the sky like embers carried by a forgotten wind.
Silence fell.
The beast was gone.
So were the chains.
Kairn collapsed to his knees, shaking.
Guards surrounded him, hauling him upright, voices blurring together. Accusations flew. Questions followed. None of them made sense.
But one thing was clear.
The myth had escaped.
Hours later, Kairn sat alone in a cold stone chamber beneath the arena, his injuries bound but his thoughts raw. A single torch burned on the wall, its flame unsteady.
An old woman entered without announcement.
She wore no insignia. No Watcher's mark. Her eyes were sharp, unnervingly alert.
"You heard it speak," she said calmly.
Kairn looked up. "Yes."
"Good," she replied. "Then you're already compromised."
She sat across from him, folding her hands.
"My name is Athelyn," she continued. "I remember the world before taming."
Kairn's breath caught. "That's impossible."
She smiled thinly. "So they told you."
She leaned closer.
"The myths are waking up," she said. "And some of them no longer believe the stories we forced onto them."
Kairn swallowed.
"What happens now?"
Athelyn's smile faded.
"Now," she said softly, "the Age of Beasts begins again."