Kairn did not sleep.
He lay on the narrow bench beneath the unblinking light, staring at the smooth stone ceiling while fragments of the stranger's words repeated themselves in his mind.
Not all chains are visible.
The thought burrowed deep, uncomfortable and persistent. He had spent his life learning how to recognize bindings—glyphs, marks, verses, enforced narratives. Those chains were easy to identify. They glowed. They burned. They obeyed rules.
The invisible ones were harder.
At some point—he could not say when—the door to his chamber opened without sound.
Kairn sat up instantly, heart racing.
The stranger from before stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the corridor's dimmer light. No guards accompanied them.
"You shouldn't be here," Kairn said.
The stranger stepped inside and closed the door behind them. "Neither should you," they replied calmly.
They gestured toward the bench. "Come. We don't have much time."
Kairn hesitated only a moment before standing. His arm still ached, but the pain had dulled into something steady, manageable. He followed the stranger through a series of narrow corridors, each less polished than the last, until the stone walls gave way to older masonry—rougher, darker, etched with symbols he did not recognize.
"These tunnels predate the arena," the stranger said as they walked. "Before myth taming became doctrine."
"Who are you?" Kairn asked quietly.
The stranger paused. "I was once called a Tamer. Now I am called a problem."
They stopped before a sealed archway. The stone there was different—layered with carvings worn smooth by time. Figures of humans and beasts stood side by side, neither dominant, neither bound.
"This is where the Listeners trained," the stranger said.
Kairn stared. "Listeners are a myth."
The stranger smiled. "Of course they are."
They placed a hand against the stone and spoke—not a verse, not a command, but a single, carefully shaped phrase.
The archway opened.
Beyond it lay a circular chamber lit by faint blue crystal veins running through the walls. The air felt heavier, charged, as if sound itself lingered longer here.
In the center of the room stood a basin carved from black stone.
"This place doesn't rewrite," the stranger said. "It remembers."
Kairn stepped closer, drawn despite himself. The mark on his arm pulsed softly—not burning, not resisting, but reacting.
"What happens here?" he asked.
"You listen," the stranger replied. "And the myth decides whether to answer."
Kairn swallowed. "That's dangerous."
"Yes," the stranger agreed. "That's why it was forbidden."
They motioned to the basin. "Touch it."
Kairn hesitated. Every lesson he had ever learned screamed against it. Unauthorized contact with unfiltered mythic memory could fracture the mind. Corrupt the mark. Rewrite the self.
He touched the stone.
The world fell away.
Sound vanished first, then light. Kairn felt himself suspended in something vast and wordless. Images surged—not visions imposed, but memories offered.
Cities crushed beneath claw and flame. Humans fleeing, fighting, bargaining. Beasts towering, terrible, yet wounded in ways no weapon could inflict. Fear. Worship. Rage. Grief.
Then something unexpected.
Listening.
Humans sitting at the feet of myths, not as servants, not as masters, but as witnesses. Recording stories. Carrying names. Promising remembrance in exchange for survival.
We were never gods, a presence murmured. We were meanings.
Kairn gasped, stumbling back as sensation returned. He collapsed to his knees, breath ragged.
The stranger knelt beside him. "You heard it."
"Yes," Kairn whispered. His hands shook. "They weren't conquerors. They were… anchors."
"They were what the world feared becoming irrelevant," the stranger said softly. "So it silenced them."
Footsteps echoed in the corridor.
The stranger stiffened. "They're coming."
"Who?" Kairn asked.
"The Watchers. And worse."
They pulled Kairn to his feet. "You have a choice now. Stay, forget what you've felt, and become the kind of Tamer they need."
"And the other choice?"
The stranger met his gaze. "Walk the Listeners' path. Help myths remember themselves. And accept that the world will call you a traitor."
The chamber shook. Cracks spidered across the walls as alarms blared faintly above.
Kairn looked at the basin one last time, then at the stranger.
"I can't unhear them," he said.
The stranger smiled grimly. "Then welcome to the beginning of the real Age of Beasts."
They turned and ran as the archway began to collapse behind them, ancient stone groaning as if awakening from a long, uneasy sleep.
Above them, in the city, stories were already shifting.
And somewhere beyond human walls, forgotten myths stirred—no longer waiting to be tamed.