The sound of tick became lost to me as I wondered in a shadowy desert of endless sand. This wasteland wore Braxmond's bones. Streets stripped of bricks, factories gutted, chimneys jutted like the ruins that remained from the Calamity. Smoke no longer rose from them—only streams of glowing stardust. It piled against my feet, spackled my bare skin, coated my tongue until every breath tasted of brass and dust.
And when I looked around, nobody was in sight until I noticed two figures on the horizon.
The first—a figure clothed in a robe of shifting blue and gold, woven from clouds that seemed to breathe, unravel, and re-form with each moment. Sand swirled about him, drifting upward instead of falling, as if even gravity bent to his will. His face mirrored mine in subtle ways—yet softened, calmer, a reflection of myself stripped of doubt, with the faintest echo of Father's austere complexion.
In his hand rested an hourglass of radiant craftsmanship, its frame gleaming like hammered sunlight, the glass alive with streams of golden sand. Each grain fell in silence, but the silence was music—every drop a bead of tranquil ambiance filling the emptiness below. His presence warmed the air, soothing, steady, majestic. I felt my breathing slow, as though all the weight of waking life could be lifted if I only let the sand take me.
The second—a hooded silhouette emerged, bound in chains that writhed like serpents, every link alive with a hunger I could feel beneath my skin. Its face bore no features—no eyes, no nose—only a mouth, grinning wide with jagged metallic shards that grated as they gnashed. Cloaked in tattered crimson and black, it moved with dreadful inevitability, as if no force in the waking world could resist its approach.
In its hands it carried an hourglass—but this one was broken, its glass cracked and bleeding. The brass frame sagged, melted, warped into grotesque angles. From within, no sand fell—only thick, black dust that oozed like blood from a dying beast. It dripped, it hissed, and where it touched the dream, the world itself seemed to rot. Its voice was not a voice, but a murmur threaded between heartbeats—promises I could not quite catch, yet which felt already bound to me. It was dreadful, deviant, inevitable.
The realm between waking and sleep clung to me like a silken web as I drifted deeper into this dreamscape. Each footfall was a muted echo on the barren land, crushed by the weight of anticipation that hung over me. The celestial powder beneath my feet bore no trace of my passage, no proof I had traversed this space, and from the distant edge—the luminous figure addressed me. His words reached me as though he stood mere inches away, yet my eyes confirmed he remained far off on the horizon.
"Come closer," the clouded figure called, his voice a gentle breeze, somehow familiar yet not my own, like a half-remembered passage spoken aloud. "Do not fear what your heart seeks."
My steps caught in the sugary dust, hesitant. I searched his face, an echo of mine refracted through some mystical lens. "Who are you?"
He appeared to dissolve into the celestial expanse above, yet in an instant, his command reverberated with a graceful fluidity, nearly otherworldly. "You must not gaze directly at the divine, my child… it may shatter your mind, and we still have a need for you." I shut my eyes as swiftly as I could when the warmth enveloping me intensified, and even through my closed eyelids, the cosmic realm I found myself within had grown brighter—his voice disrupted the tranquility. "The question is, who are you?"
The question pierced my soul, unsettling in its precision. "Rhylorin Gregor Kuznetsov," I managed, though my voice wavered. "Heir to a legacy I never asked for."
"Rhylorin," he pondered, as though savoring the name for its authenticity. "Are you certain that is your true self? Maybe it is… maybe it isn't… but only time shall reveal, will it not?"
Before a response, my skin grew frigid, chilling me to the bone and bringing a pit of pain in my heart that almost made me cry in anguish. I dared not open my eyes but knew the familiar grinning mouth drew closer, chains now a rattling symphony, shadows creeping into my mind. Its presence suffused the air into despair, and I found myself wishing to awake.
"Embrace what angers" it urged, the words curling through the silence like smoke, twisting into taunting propositions I dared not trust. "Free yourself of the ruler who has total power over your life.. free yourself of the suppression… free the brass and blood!"
The ground writhed beneath me, the hourglass motif stretching into infinite impossibility, each grain suspended against time's tide. My heart beat the seconds, each one louder, heavier, than the last. Then, I drifted into a memory I had of my father—so long ago with him teaching me to read. How different he seemed then, I thought, and yet why did he become so cold to me? Just the two of us in the main workshop of Kuznetsov Industries—the heart of the Exhibition Hall. Laughter, happiness in his steely grey eyes, but the room falls quiet like a graveyard and with it ushered in a shrewd elderly man.
It was my grandfather dressed in his black-and-gold military-style coat; hands stained with coal dust despite wealth, but something was off about him. Lord Mikhail's image appears cracked, like stone corroding and chipped away by time. This couldn't be real—I was barely a child when he died. No words came from him, but my mother rushed me out of the workshop with my father standing low near his father. Yet here he stands in my dreams, watching me with those silver-grey eyes that never softened.
"You belong to neither of us," the fractured hourglass bearer rasped. Breaking me from the memory. "Or perhaps... to one."
I open my eyes to find both figures on the horizon once more, warmth cresting over me like a sunrise through fog. Yet beneath that warmth hid a demand—an unyielding adherence to a fate still clouded. "Do you not wish to dream, Rhylorin?"
"Dreams turn so easily into nightmares," I whispered, feeling the tremor move through me. "And everyone is trapped while they sleep with whatever may come."
I awoke to golden threads of sunlight streaming through the curtains, painting patterns across my quilt. The room absorbed its warmth, dispelling shadows that had lingered too long in the corners of my mind.
For a moment, all burdens dissolved. There was no shivering chill of nightmares, only soft pillows and the sweet promise of morning. I sat up, the realization creeping in—that I hadn't felt this kind of serenity in days, if not weeks. My chamber, with its intricate woodwork and the subtle scent of chamomile wafting from the drying herbs, seemed almost strangely inviting now.
I glanced at the pocket watch, its engravings quivering in light. Instead of unease, I felt ready—it might hold answers rather than threats. The thought drew a chuckle; sleep and waking had ceased their war. I dressed methodically, each button grounding me. My attire blended aristocratic formality with vibrant mix of cream—representing my duality. While dreams sought to fracture identity, this amalgamation made me whole.
Kuznetsov Manor's corridors appear brighter. I strode through halls echoing with servants' steps. Breakfast smells lingered—coffee, spicy sausages, herb-lined bread. Entering the dining room, Mother looked up, eyes gentle and knowing. She smiled; conspiracy twinkled between silent understanding only we could sense.
"Good morning, Rhylorin," she said, pouring tea into her cup with a steady hand.
"Morning," I replied, reaching for a roll, the motion as fluid as the calm within.
My father's absence was both a relief and a hint of something off about how I felt during the meal. I could hear the tick of the kitchen clock, pacing the passage of time. Yet today it carried a rhythm that seemed to suggest hope, opportunity, maybe a beginning. Even in this spindle of silence, I knew the essence of last night's dream had opened a realm to me that assured me I was not going mad with everything happening to me. Rather, some cosmic forces had grown an interest in me was all.