Sleep should have been a refuge.
But for Riel, it was a sentence.
He felt it the moment his eyes closed — that familiar pull, that sinking weight in his chest. The world fell away before he could fight it, and when he opened his eyes again—
He was back.
The forest greeted him with silence.
No wind. No movement. Just the faint shimmer of dark mist receding between the trees.
The black fog that had once hemmed him in was gone.
Riel stood there for a long time, breath trembling, waiting for the world to shift, for the illusion to break.
It didn't.
He laughed — once, sharp and brittle. Then his knees gave out.
Tears spilled freely down his cheeks, hot against the cold air. "No…" His voice cracked, raw. "No, not again. I beat it. I beat you."
He pounded the dirt with his fist until his knuckles stung. "It's over!"
But the forest only listened.
It always listened.
He stayed there, shaking, until the crying stopped. Then he wiped his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. The silence pressed down like a hand on his throat.
"Fine," he said hoarsely. "Fine. If you won't end, then I'll find out why."
He walked. The trees stretched endlessly, gnarled silhouettes clawing at the pale sky. His footsteps left shallow imprints in the damp soil, and each one seemed to echo longer than it should have.
After what felt like hours, he saw it — the trees giving way to a vast swamp.
The water was black and still, thick with a faint silver sheen that reminded him of oil. Strange shapes drifted just beneath the surface — too blurred to make out, too steady to be reflections.
A low hum pulsed through the air.
Riel froze, scanning the waterline. Nothing. Just the rippling surface.
Then he saw them, faint white lights, like distant eyes, floating deep within the mire. They blinked once. Slowly.
Something inside him whispered don't move.
Another part, the part that had grown too tired to listen, whispered go.
He stepped forward.
The water rippled beneath his boot. The surface split, revealing a flash of pale movement below—
Then everything went black.
No sound. No scream.
Just pain — sharp, overwhelming, final.
He didn't drown. He didn't struggle. One heartbeat he existed, the next he didn't.
And then—
Riel's eyes flew open.
He was back in his bed. The dorm ceiling loomed above him, the faint glow of lanternlight spilling across his sheets. His body jolted as if struck by lightning, lungs heaving, heart clawing at his ribs.
Sweat drenched his clothes. His hands trembled uncontrollably.
He pressed a palm to his chest, no wound. No pain. But he remembered dying. Every detail of it.
"What…" he gasped, voice barely more than a breath. "What was that?"
He staggered out of bed, gripping the edge of the table for balance. His knees buckled. He felt sick, cold, hollow.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror across the room.
The mark beneath his eye flickered faintly, like something alive beneath the skin.
He stared at it — at himself — and whispered, "Why can't you leave me alone?"
His breath came fast, ragged.
He sank to the floor, pressing his forehead to his knees.
The nightmare wasn't done. The fog had lifted for a reason.
There was more waiting for him, something in that swamp.
And he had to go back.
He didn't know why.
But he knew.
No matter how many times he woke,
the nightmare would keep calling.
Riel didn't know how long he sat there on the cold floor.
His mind felt splintered, part of him still trapped in the swamp, another clinging to the present.
The door creaked open.
"Riel."
Professor Daen's voice. Calm. Controlled. But underneath, a low note of restrained irritation.
Riel turned slowly. The crimson-robed instructor stood in the doorway, one hand still on the frame. His eyes took in the scene, Riel trembling, drenched in sweat, the faint gleam of the mark under his eye.
"You didn't come when I called for you after class," Daen said quietly. "And now I find you pale as bone and shaking in your quarters."
"I—" Riel tried, but the word broke apart. His throat was too dry.
Daen stepped closer, crouching down so they were level. "Whatever it is that troubles boy you must learn to defeat the cradle is here to teach not coddle."
Riel flinched at the words, his nails digging into his palms. "I didn't mean to… It just—"
"I know," Daen said. His tone softened, though his gaze didn't. "Control is not born in calm waters, Riel. It's forged in the storm. You have two choices — either learn to master what's inside you, or let it consume you like every other failure who mistook fear for strength."
Riel's mouth trembled. "How?"
Daen stood, his cloak whispering against the floor. "The Cradle has meditation halls beneath the southern bridge, quiet places meant for communion and restraint. Go there. Stay until you can breathe without trembling."
He turned to leave but paused at the door. "And Riel—"
The young man looked up.
"Whatever haunts you, stop running from it. You can't cage a monster by pretending it isn't there."
Then Daen left. The door shut softly behind him.
For a long moment, Riel didn't move. Then he rose, wiping at his face, and forced himself toward the door. The hallway outside was empty, moonlight spilling across polished stone like a trail of glass.
He walked. Slowly. Each step heavy.
The Cradle at night was never truly silent, the wind hummed through the hollow spires, the wards etched into the walls whispering faintly as they breathed in magic. But tonight felt different.
Too still.
Too aware.
As he passed the library courtyard, he saw it — movement in the corner of his eye.
He froze.
Between two columns, a shape shifted. Long-limbed. Bent wrong. Its body was a suggestion more than a form , smoke threaded through skin, eyes gleaming like pale lanterns in the dark.
Riel walked.
He forced himself forward, heartbeat hammering in his throat. But every corridor seemed longer now. The shadows too deep.
Another whisper. Behind him this time.
He turned.
Something crawled along the ceiling, a silhouette, spindly and human-shaped but dragging something behind it that scraped like chains across the stone.
He kept walking.
By the time he reached the southern bridge, the night had turned almost silver. The moon hung low over the horizon, half-swallowed by drifting clouds. The meditation halls sat carved into the cliffs below, low doors of black oak, surrounded by runes that pulsed faintly with life.
As he descended the steps, the air grew colder. The quiet thicker. The scent of incense lingered faint, metallic, as though mixed with blood.
Riel stepped inside.
The chamber was circular, walls etched with faintly glowing sigils. At its center was a shallow pool reflecting the moonlight through a narrow slit in the ceiling.
He knelt by the edge, breathing hard, his reflection trembling in the water.
The mark beneath his eye burned again, faint but insistent, as if reacting to the stillness.
He closed his eyes.
Daen's words echoed in his mind: You can't cage a monster by pretending it isn't there.
So Riel stopped pretending.
He let himself remember the swamp. The cold. The pain. The thing beneath the water that had ended him before he could even see it.
He forced himself to feel the fear. The helplessness. The loss.
And slowly, beneath all that noise, he felt something else stir, a thread of light, coiled deep within his chest, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
The same sensation he'd felt when the dagger appeared.
Alive. Ancient. Watching.
He reached for it.
The world shifted.
The air rippled like disturbed water, the reflection in the pool twisting. For an instant, he saw himself not as he was but as something vast, burning, and bound.
The image vanished before he could grasp it.
Riel collapsed forward, gasping. The pool stilled. The glow of the runes dimmed.
His body shook, but his mind was clear. The fear was still there, but it was sharper now, focused.
His soul was stirring.
And nothing nightmare, god, or human could stop it.