The city breathed differently that morning.
Not in sighs of relief, or in the hum of ordinary life. It was subtle, almost imperceptible—but the people could feel it, even if they did not yet know why. Names lingered in their minds longer. Memories of myths—the stories their parents had told them as children—returned with sharper edges, as if waking from a long slumber.
Kairn walked through the streets, unseen, unrecorded by the systems that had once mapped his every move. The mark on his arm pulsed softly, a constant reminder of what he had touched, of what he had heard, and of the choice he had made beneath the ancient stone chamber.
He had chosen the Listeners' path.
Not the safety of obedience. Not the certainty of control. He had chosen to let the myths remember themselves.
The city looked the same. Streets, markets, and towers filled the horizon. But Kairn could see the cracks. Fissures of memory running through the minds of the populace. Some children spoke to shadows as if the stories were alive. Merchants hesitated mid-sentence, remembering legends they could not name. Soldiers stumbled over orders that no longer made sense without context.
And in those gaps, the myths waited.
Kairn reached the river that ran through the city, its waters still and reflective. The Lyrake's echo lingered in his mind. We are not enemies. We are mirrors.
He knelt at the edge and pressed a hand to the water. Ripples radiated outward, and in the reflection, he saw more than himself. Faces shifted: a child's laughter from centuries past, a warrior kneeling before a dragon, a woman holding a name no one else remembered. The river had become a ledger of memory, unbound, alive.
He had been warned that following the Listeners' path would make him irrelevant to human systems. That the Watchers would hunt him, claim him, or erase him entirely if discovered. He did not care.
Because relevance had always been a cage.
Footsteps approached. Kairn did not flinch. The figure that emerged from the shadows was the stranger—gray-haired, wiry, eyes bright with the same energy that had first brought him to the chamber.
"You survived the initial observation," the stranger said. "Few do."
Kairn shrugged. "I didn't survive it. I chose it."
The stranger nodded. "The Listeners do not survive in the way humans expect. They endure because the stories themselves carry them forward."
"Are the myths truly free?" Kairn asked. "Or just… wandering?"
"Some are free," the stranger replied. "Some are learning to remember what they were. And some… will take what they've learned and change the world."
Kairn's gaze drifted to the sky. A faint shimmer, impossible to describe, streaked the clouds. Symbols? Light? Or simply the echo of stories finally being seen? It moved with intent, deliberate, as though the myths themselves had grown impatient.
"Is it dangerous?" Kairn asked.
"Everything is," the stranger said. "The Age of Beasts has begun—not because the myths return, but because humans can no longer pretend they are the only ones who write reality."
Kairn breathed deeply, letting the river's chill sink into him. Every lesson, every binding verse, every mark on his arm had led here. And now, for the first time, he understood the truth of myth-taming.
It was never about control.
It was about listening.
A subtle vibration passed through the ground beneath their feet. Not earthquake, not explosion. Something alive. Massive. Conscious. Waiting.
"Are they aware of us?" Kairn whispered.
The stranger's eyes glinted. "They have always been aware. Only now, you are too."
A figure emerged from the shimmering edge of the city, colossal yet impossibly graceful. Its mane was not hair but words and stories, flowing like liquid light. The Lyrake—reformed, untamed, remembered. Its eyes met Kairn's, not with threat, but with recognition.
"You have chosen well," the Lyrake said, its voice carrying across the city. "We remember ourselves because you remembered us."
Kairn fell to his knees. Relief, fear, awe—all mingled. "I didn't know if it could work," he admitted.
"You never could," the Lyrake replied. "You only had to choose."
The stranger knelt beside Kairn, whispering, "This is the beginning. The myths will teach those who will listen, and they will protect those who do not."
Kairn looked at the river again. Names, faces, legends—all flowing outward, merging with the city. The world felt wider, older, more dangerous, but impossibly alive.
He rose, feeling the mark on his arm settle into a dull, steady pulse. It no longer demanded obedience. It reminded him instead: you are witness. You are Listener. You are storykeeper.
Above, the sky shimmered with the rise of countless myths, each returning to the fabric of the world.
Kairn smiled faintly.
The Age of Beasts had not ended.
It had only begun.
And for the first time, humanity—and the myths—would have to coexist. Not in chains. Not in fear. But in the shared memory of what truly existed.
He stepped forward into the city, unseen, unrecorded, and yet entirely present.
The stories would follow him.
And he would follow them.