Chapter 14: The Fractured Dream
The world swam back into focus slowly, the lingering terror of Leander's loss of control clinging to him like a shroud. The rest of the day's training had passed in a blur of exhausted, half-hearted attempts. Kaelen had dismissed them with a final, weighted look at Leander, his silence more damning than any lecture.
That night, sleep offered no refuge. It began not with a nightmare, but with a profound sense of peace.
"Leander? Are you awake?"
The voice was soft, familiar. He opened his eyes to find Elpis standing over his cot in the dim barracks, her face etched with gentle concern. The memory of the morning's failure felt distant, blurred at the edges, like a bad dream already fading.
"You were thrashing in your sleep," she said, her hand cool on his forehead. "I was worried."
He sat up, rubbing the grit from his eyes. The phantom pressure of Kaelen's grip was gone. "I'm alright. Just... bad dreams."
"We all have them," she replied, offering a small, understanding smile. It was the most normal interaction he'd had in days. "Come on. Roric managed to trade for some honey with a scavenger party. He's making tea near the east wall."
The offer was so mundane, so comforting, he could only nod and follow her out. The city of Last-Hope was bathed in a surprisingly warm, golden dawn. People moved through the streets with a purpose he hadn't seen in weeks, their faces no longer etched with the constant, grinding fear of imminent death. A woman laughed, the sound sharp and clear in the morning air. Had their small victory over Pythios truly granted them so much peace so quickly?
He found Roric and Orion by a small, crackling fire, a dented pot steaming between them. Roric handed him a chipped clay cup. "Drink up. You look like you haven't slept in a week."
The tea was warm and sweet. Too sweet. The honeyed taste clung to his tongue, cloying and slightly unnatural. He took a cautious sip, and as he looked at Roric over the rim of the cup, the guardsman's face seemed to shift for a fleeting second, his eyes hardening into something cold and calculating.
"You need to be stronger, Leander," Roric said, his voice taking on a strange, echoing quality that didn't belong to him. "We can't afford your weakness. This city can't afford it."
Leander blinked, and the moment passed. Roric was just Roric, sipping his own tea, his expression neutral.
"You're quiet," Elpis noted, settling beside him on a rough-hewn bench.
"I'm just tired," he mumbled, setting the cup down, the sweet taste now turning his stomach. The world around him felt... thin. Like a beautifully painted curtain, and if he looked too hard, he might see the empty space behind it.
The day unfolded with an unsettling, seamless smoothness. Captain Vorlik praised their progress in a public address, his usual gruffness replaced by avuncular pride. The reported food stores were suddenly, inexplicably abundant. There were no arguments in the ration lines, no fearful glances toward the walls, no underlying tension humming in the air. It was a perfect, peaceful reality, and with every passing moment, Leander's sense of dread grew. This wasn't peace. This was sedation. A beautiful, smiling lie.
That night, the dream returned, sharp and vicious.
He stood on the high walls of Last-Hope, looking out at a peaceful, starlit landscape. The demon-tainted forests were gone, replaced by rolling, moonlit hills. Elpis stood beside him, her hand comfortably in his.
"It's over, Leander," she said, her voice a soothing balm that sank into his very bones. "We won. He's gone. We can finally rest. We can build a life."
He wanted to believe it. He ached for it with every fiber of his being. But the starlight above seemed to pulse with a faint, sickly rhythm, and the deep shadows between the distant trees writhed subtly, like maggots in a corpse.
"Something's wrong," he whispered, his grip on her hand tightening.
"Nothing is wrong," she insisted, her own grip becoming almost painfully firm. "This is what we fought for. This is our future. Our home."
She turned to face him fully, her features soft in the moonlight. But then her eyes changed. The warm, familiar brown melted away, replaced by pools of shimmering, molten gold.
*"This is the future you can have,"* Pythios's voice, slick as oil, slithered from her lips. *"No more struggle. No more fear. No more watching your friends die for your weakness. Just... peace. All you have to do is stop fighting. Let go."*
He recoiled, snatching his hand back as if burned. "You're not her!"
The illusion shattered like glass. The peaceful night vanished, replaced by a roiling, blood-red sky that throbbed with malevolent energy. Elpis's form melted and stretched, revealing Pythios standing before him, his elegant features arranged in a smile of pure, cruel amusement.
*"A crude trick, I admit,"* the Corruptor purred directly into his mind. *"But effective. You cling to them so desperately. They are your strength, little spark, and thus they are your greatest vulnerability. They will be the hooks I use to tear you apart."*
The scene shifted again, violently. He was in the archives, the smell of dust and old parchment thick in the air. Roric and Orion stood over him, but their faces were contorted with a mixture of fear and rage he had never seen before.
"He's turning," Orion snarled, his fists already glowing with deadly, focused force. "Just like Kaelen said he would. Look at his eyes! He's becoming one of *them*!"
"We can't take the risk," Roric said, his voice thick with a grief that sounded horribly genuine. A shimmering sword of condensed light formed in his hand. "For the good of everyone, for Last-Hope... I'm sorry, Leander."
The blade, radiant and pure, came down in a perfect, merciless arc.
Leander screamed. It was a raw, desperate sound torn from the depths of his soul. He wasn't screaming from fear of the blade, but from the utter, soul-crushing horror of their betrayal. It felt real. It felt true. It felt like the inevitable conclusion he had always feared.
He threw up his hands, not with light, not with hope, but with the only thing that felt powerful enough to stop them—the chilling, numbing darkness he had inherited. A wave of void energy, cold and absolute, erupted from him, its sole intent to unmake the threat before it could destroy him.
"LEANDER!"
A different voice, sharp and real, cut through the fabric of the nightmare. A physical force slammed into him, knocking him sideways off his cot.
He gasped, his eyes flying open. He was on the cold, hard floor of the barracks, tangled in his rough woolen blanket. Roric was pinning him down, his face a mask of alarm and pain. A fresh, blackened burn seared the flesh of his forearm where Leander's dark energy had grazed him. Orion and Elpis stood nearby, their faces pale with shock and a dawning, terrible fear.
There was no sword. No betrayal. Only the aftermath of his own, uncontrolled power, turned against his best friend.
The horror on Roric's face wasn't from an imaginary threat. It was from the very real, sizzling wound on his arm, and the wild, desperate look in Leander's eyes that, for a moment, had held nothing but destructive intent.
The enemy wasn't just at the gate. He was in the bed next to them. And Leander had just proven, beyond any doubt, how easily he could become the very monster they all feared.
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**Author's Note:** The enemy's psychological warfare begins in earnest, using Leander's deepest fears and loves against him. The line between nightmare and reality blurs, culminating in a devastating moment where Leander's power physically harms one of his closest friends, shattering the group's fragile trust.