Snow whispered against the glass as night fell over the Caspian estate. In his bed, Lysander turned, the covers pulled up to his chin, eyes half-lidded. He had grown in body and skill, but tonight, sleep came with a pull deeper than exhaustion. It was not rest. It was a summons.
In the silence between two heartbeats, he was no longer in his room.
---
A world unfolded.
Not built from earth or sky or logic, but something stranger. The ground was soft, yet solid. A gentle fog coiled along the edges of an invisible horizon. Above, constellations twisted into foreign shapes. Reality itself trembled on the verge of melting.
And then, it emerged.
The mythical beast.
It walked in silence, every step making no sound. Its form was feline, larger than a horse, sleek as moonlight on steel. Midnight-black fur shimmered with streaks of violet and deep crimson, as if galaxies had been spun into its coat. Muscles rippled beneath its skin, its movement too graceful to be natural.
Its eyes were the hardest part to meet.
Not just glowing—they pulsed with awareness. Each glance suggested it knew more about Lysander than he ever would. That it had watched him longer than he had lived. That it had waited.
Its tail, long and smoke-like, curled and twisted behind it like a living wisp. Horns—two, curved and sharp—jutted back from its skull, glinting like obsidian. Yet the face remained striking. Regal. Symmetrical. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Its presence filled the dream-realm. Not as an invader, but as if it had always belonged.
Lysander stood still.
The beast spoke.
Not aloud. Not exactly. The words formed in his mind like thunderclouds.
"You are ready to remember."
---
"Why did you seal my powers?" Lysander asked. The words echoed around them, swallowed and distorted by the dream.
The beast blinked slowly.
"Because your understanding of power was a child's mimicry. And you would have broken under its weight."
"That doesn't answer it," Lysander snapped. "You talk in riddles. Just say it. Why? Why me? Why then? Why now?"
The beast lowered its head slightly, eyes locking on him. The tone of its thought-speech shifted. Not angry. Not amused. Just... patient.
"The human mind is not a passive observer of reality but an architect of narratives."
"It seeks order where there is chaos, patterns where there may be none, and meaning in even the most indifferent corners of existence. In this quest for internal coherence—for a worldview that feels whole and digestible—the mind becomes less a mirror and more a sculptor."
"It reshapes reality, not necessarily to reflect what is, but to support what must be, according to its needs."
Lysander frowned. "You're saying I can't be trusted to see things clearly?"
"I am saying that no one can. Not fully."
The beast circled him slowly. "Facts are not absorbed as raw, immutable truths. They are filtered. Twisted. Muted or magnified. And this is not due to deceit. It is survival. To embrace contradiction invites instability. Dread."
"So the mind bends the world inward. Shapes it like clay. Turns the unbearable into the understandable."
"In sealing your powers, I spared you from that dissonance. You saw your enemies. You fought. You survived. But if your full potential had awakened then—"
It stopped walking. "You would have become not a person, but a belief. And beliefs, when untethered by understanding, destroy more than they protect."
Lysander breathed slowly. The dream-realm thickened. Gravity bent. Time pulsed.
He asked the next question carefully. "Then why now?"
The beast's eyes flared.
"Because belief is no longer optional. The world is shifting. Cracks are forming in the stories people tell themselves. The lies they wrapped in flags, gods, and names."
"You must remember what you are. Not the version others crafted for you. Not the mask of duty. Not the shell of family. The you that watches when no one else is there. That is the one I need."
Lysander clenched his fists. His voice cracked. "And what if I don't want to be your chosen anything?"
The beast was silent for a long moment. Then:
"Then I will let you go. But truth will find you either way. And when it does, you will either be its sculptor... or its casualty."
The fog thickened.
The stars flickered.
The beast stepped forward and touched his forehead with its own. A cold fire lit inside Lysander's skull. Memories—blurred, fragmented, ancient—stirred beneath the surface.
The beast's final words echoed as everything faded:
"Wake, and remember."
---
Lysander gasped as he sat up in bed.
The snow still whispered outside.
But everything was different now.
The beast had returned.
And it had spoken.