Mira's dreamwalking
The chamber had no windows. No torchlight. No echoes.
Only silence.
Mira sat cross-legged in the heart of the Circle of Stillwater, her hands resting lightly on her knees, fingers drawn into slow, spiraling sigils. Chalk lines curved beneath her feet—silver-threaded runes carved deep into the obsidian floor. The circle hadn't been used in over two decades. Not since the old wars. It hummed with buried memory.
Alaric stood at the edge, arms crossed, his eyes shadowed. He had summoned her without words. No council, no witnesses. Just a look, and she understood. Whatever truth Verik had taken into death, it could not remain buried. It had to be drawn out—ripped from the skin of dreams.
Mira had dreamwalked into many minds. Shivering soldiers. Dying wolves. Men broken by madness. But the dead were different. Their thoughts did not flow—they echoed. What remained was a tangle of instincts, obsessions, pain, and hunger. No past or future. Only residue. And if you weren't careful, it could consume you. Latch onto your fears. Speak to them.
"Ready?" Alaric asked.
She didn't open her eyes.
"No. But I'm going."
She took the vial of grave-bloom—petals soaked in lunar oil—and crushed it between her palms. The scent hit like snow and bone. Her breath slowed. Her mind loosened.
She let herself fall.
The Circle swallowed her.
And then—
She was inside.
Not in Verik's body—but in what remained of his mind. The place was not a memory. Not exactly. It was a labyrinth. The air shimmered with fractured thoughts. Walls flickered. Words whispered from behind doors that didn't exist.
She stood in a corridor made of bone and parchment, endless pages whispering from the walls. Each bore a version of Verik's name—some written in blood, others burned, others scratched out entirely. His sense of identity was shattered. Fragmented by guilt and faith.
She walked carefully, her dreamform clothed in grey fire. Her steps left no mark.
Verik appeared ahead.
Not truly him—an imprint. A younger version, pacing before a throne made of iron teeth. He spoke, not to her, but to the memory of another:
"They don't understand. Alaric is strong, yes—but blind. He doesn't see the chain he's reforging. We must end it before the old blood binds again."
Mira moved closer. The throne hissed. A shadow sat upon it, faceless and vast. It pulsed when Verik spoke, fed by his words.
"Who are you?" she asked it.
The shadow turned. No face. Just a mouth, slow and smiling.
"The First Moonless," it said.
Its voice was not one voice. It was all voices. Children weeping. Wolves snarling. Wind through broken glass.
"You took him," Mira said. "You made him betray his kin."
It laughed. Not cruel. Not joyful. Just… inevitable.
"He was already mine. I merely gave him purpose. All those who walk with doubt eventually kneel."
Mira gritted her teeth. "You won't take Alaric."
"Alaric already walks with fire in one hand and shadow in the other. His howl splits the moon. Even now he is becoming. Soon, he'll either break… or open."
Mira stepped forward, weaving sigils in the air. Runes of binding, of truth, of unraveling.
But the shadow didn't flinch.
"You're not real," she whispered. "You're a projection of Verik's madness."
"No," the shadow said. "I am what remains when loyalty dies. I am the oathbreaker's god. And I am listening."
The dreamworld shook.
The corridor split open. Screams spilled from the cracks. Not Verik's. Others. Dozens. Hundreds. Mira saw flashes—wolves hung by iron chains, children with their tongues burned to silence, runes carved into the backs of fallen kings. This wasn't memory.
This was vision.
"This is what you offer?" she asked. "Pain? Devotion through fear?"
"No," the First Moonless said. "We offer choice. Alaric binds his kin to duty. We offer freedom. His order demands unity. We teach them to stand alone. Your path leads to war. Ours to peace—through silence, through solitude."
"You twist meanings."
"We restore balance."
Mira spun the dreamspace, ripping the seams of illusion. "I see you now. You're old. Hungry. You feed on lost things."
The shadow dimmed.
But something worse emerged.
A second voice. Smaller. Feminine. Soft.
"Mira," it said.
Mira turned—and froze.
It was her mother.
Her eyes gone pale. Her skin grey and hollow. But her voice—the same lullaby whisper that used to pull Mira from night terrors as a child.
"I didn't die," the illusion said. "You left me. You closed the door. You told the healers to stop trying."
Mira's breath hitched. She stepped back.
"It's not real," she whispered. "This is not her. You're not her."
The illusion wept. "You were afraid of what you saw in me. Of the same gift. You buried me to bury it."
Mira screamed, flung her runes like blades. The dream shattered—but not before she saw the look of sorrow remain on the false mother's face. Not hatred. Not accusation.
Just grief.
And Mira knew the First Moonless had cut deep. Not with lies, but with truths twisted just enough.
She ran. Through the tunnels of Verik's mind. Through ash and blood and bone. The further she went, the less of him remained. His final thoughts were not of guilt, or fear, or shame.
They were of hope.
For a world where wolves would bow no longer.
And Mira realized something chilling.
Verik hadn't thought he was destroying Ironfang.
He thought he was saving it.
That was the power of the First Moonless. Not to command—but to persuade.
She reached the center of the dreamscape. A well. Deep and endless.
There, she saw a pulsing glyph etched into the floor—an anchor Verik had left behind. A final message.
Not words.
A name.
"Caelen."
Mira's pulse froze. Caelen had been gone for years. Thought dead. Alaric's older brother. The one who'd led the first rebellion against the Ironfang Elders.
Verik had been speaking to him.
Or for him.
Mira took the name. Burned it into her memory. Drew it into her palm with dream-fire.
And then she tore herself free.
She woke screaming.
Alaric caught her before she hit the floor. She was trembling, her eyes silvered over.
"What did you see?" he asked.
She looked up at him, breathing like she'd run a hundred miles.
"Your brother," she whispered. "He's alive."
Alaric went still.
And in the corners of the chamber, shadows shivered.
Because if that was true—if Caelen still lived—then Verik had not been the disease.
He had been a symptom.
And the rot went deeper still.