Dark
He was kneeling.
The ground beneath him rippled like water—black and endless. Cold seeped into his bones.
Leo couldn't move. Couldn't will his limbs to respond.
There was someone in his arms… a girl?
Her face was hidden, but he saw her hair long, silver strands fanned across his trembling arms like spilled moonlight.
She was still. Far too still.
Maybe he wasn't alone.
A voice echoed not loud, not near, but from everywhere at once.
"Remember."
It wasn't one voice. There were many. Overlapping. Echoing. Ancient. Each syllable weighed down on him, squeezing his chest until his breath came in ragged stutters.
"I must remember," Leo whispered.
Another voice—softer, gentler—whispered just behind him.
"See you later."
Suddenly, he wasn't kneeling anymore.
A figure stood in the ashes, tall and thin, wreathed in smoke. Its eyes glowed gold ancient, unblinking.
Leo tried to speak, but his throat locked.
The figure raised a hand, and the world bent. Gravity twisted. He was pulled toward it not dragged, but drawn, like a leaf caught in a tide. The air thickened around him.
Behind the figure, two great pillars of fire surged upward. Within them, Leo saw flashes and glimpses of people. Himself, Matthew, El. Fighting. Running. Screaming. The vision flickered, brief and haunting.
Then it was gone, vanished like smoke in the wind.
The flames shifted.
He saw her.
A girl in white. Eyes like dusk. Hair like starlight.
She reached out to him from within the fire, her lips forming a word he couldn't hear.
He reached back.
Then—
A scream. Not his. Hers.
The vision shattered. The flames consumed her.
Everything collapsed.
And he fell—hard—into—
Light.
Leo's eyes snapped open.
He gasped, lungs clawing for air as though he'd just surfaced from the depths of an ocean. The canopy above him spun, trees and sunlight fractured in dizzying patterns. Leaves rustled gently above, filtering fragmented rays of morning.
Voices called out. Distant. Warped.
"Leo!"
Tavon's voice echoed sharply behind the ringing in his ears.
Then a face leaned over him—upside down and haloed in a firelight.
"El."
Her brows were drawn tight in concern, though her voice remained gentle.
"You're back."
He tried to sit, but his limbs felt like stone. His heart pounded—not from exertion, but something else. Something deeper.
Something is wrong.
The dream, if it was even a dream, still clung to his senses like cold mist. It had been vivid, searing. Too real.
The cold. The voices. The girl in his arms…
He didn't just see her but he know It's her again.
'Remember'
But remember what?
He stared past El into the trees, searching for something—anything—to anchor the sensation. But all he felt was the gnawing ache behind his ribs and the unsettling bloom of truth he couldn't name.
Matthew knelt beside him, gripping his shoulders. His face hovered close, eyes wide.
"Are you alright? Do you feel anything?" Matt's voice wavered, nearly frantic.
Leo blinked, trying to steady his breath. "I'm good," he murmured, rubbing the back of his head. "What... what happened?"
"You passed out," Matt replied. "Right after you turned that tiny flame into a freakin' fireball."
Memory came rushing back. The fire. The essence. The overwhelming surge.
Ah. The Domarus Trial.
Leo groaned, fingers pressing into his temples. "It felt like cramming for an exam all night. Like my brain got hit by a freight train of knowledge."
Matt tilted his head. "So, a headache?"
"Yeah," Leo sighed. "But the magical kind."
The morning sun filtered gently through the canopy, casting golden light across the clearing. Dew clung to the grass. Insects hummed softly in the background. The trial was over—but rest was not something Tavon allowed for long.
The old man stood with his hands behind his back, gazing past the treetops as if seeing through time itself.
"There's something you need to understand," Tavon began, his voice low but firm. "What you and Matt just felt, that dizziness, that piercing headache, it's not mere fatigue. It's the toll of grasping something ancient. Forbidden."
He crouched, tracing lines into the soil with slow, thoughtful strokes.
"True Names," he said, "are remnants of a law long buried. A language never meant for mortal tongues not anymore. Speaking one forces the mind to grasp something vast. Something meant to remain hidden."
Leo glanced at Matt. The other boy sat quietly, one hand against his temple.
"It's like trying to cram centuries of knowledge into a single second," Tavon continued. "Some minds absorb more. Others burn out faster. But no one escapes the cost."
Leo nodded slowly. It had felt like a flood—like his thoughts were stretched to the brink.
"The lucky ones forget," Tavon murmured. "The unlucky ones… go mad."
A quiet breeze stirred the leaves. Sunlight glinted off the dew on El's boots.
"But Domari isn't just knowledge. It's action," Tavon continued. "The language of command. The primal tongue. It shapes the world through will."
He walked toward the soot-blackened stick embedded in the ground.
"Domari requires precision. Tone. Clarity. Mispronounce it and… nothing. Or worse—something unintended. Dangerous."
Leo remembered the fire. How it had surged out of control.
"And then there's essence," Tavon said. "Your spirit essence is your authority. Without it, you're a child barking orders at kings. The elements will ignore you—or laugh."
He looked at Leo, gaze steady but not unkind.
"With enough essence, though… they listen. They obey. Power comes not from shouting louder, but from deserving to be heard."
Then he looked at all of them.
"Domari isn't just magic. It's balance. Command without discipline leads to ruin. Power without understanding…" He shook his head. "That's how the old world fell."
Silence settled in.
The group spent another night in Jurra Forest. When dawn came, the mist still clung low and cold to the earth.
Old Man Tavon was gone.
His bedroll was cold. His gear, missing. All he left was a message scratched into the dirt:
"You can go back home on your own."
Below it, a second line:
"P.S. But don't come back without a Saberfang."
They stared.
El knelt beside the message, exhaling a deep, tired sigh.
"Uh… what's a Saberfang?" Matt mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
El rose slowly. "It's a Lesser Monster."
Matt blinked. "A lesser monster? So… easy, right?"
Leo looked at her, hopeful. "Right?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her gaze drifted into the trees, thoughtful, calculating. Then finally, she exhaled.
"Depends on the rank… and how many there are."
She tightened her pack, determination firming her expression.
"Let's go," she said. "We've got monsters to hunt."
There was little else to say. Matt and Leo exchanged a look, then silently got to work. Belts buckled. Blades checked. Flasks filled.
And as the sun broke fully through the trees, the three of them moved—deeper into Jurra Forest, where the woods grew darker, the air heavier, and silence hung like a threat.
No more training dummies. No more practice swings.
This time, it was real.