Chapter 15: The Scars We Carry
Silence. It was a living, suffocating entity in the cramped barracks, thick enough to choke on. Leander could only stare, his mind a numb, frozen wasteland, at the angry, blackened burn marring Roric's forearm. The vivid horror of the dream—the searing betrayal, the desperate, destructive lash of power—was already fading, leaving behind only the cold, hard evidence of his failure. The smell of ozone and charred flesh hung in the air, a sickening testament to what he had done.
Roric was the first to move, pulling his arm back with a sharp, involuntary hiss. He held it close to his chest, his face a carefully constructed mask of neutrality, but the pain was bright in his eyes. "It's fine," he said, his voice tight and controlled. "It's just a graze. Didn't even get to the muscle."
It wasn't fine. The slight flinch as he moved, the way he held the injured limb protectively, the flicker of something wounded deep in his gaze—it all screamed that it wasn't fine.
Orion stood between them, his large frame a wall of tense, conflicted muscle. His gaze darted from the ugly burn on Roric's arm to Leander's ashen, horrified face. He didn't speak, but the question in his eyes was a physical blow: *What did you do?*
Elpis was the first to find her purpose. She moved to the water basin, her movements jerky, and fetched a clean cloth. She began to clean the wound with a quiet, methodical efficiency, but her hands trembled, betraying the storm of emotion beneath her calm exterior. The water in the bowl turned a faint, murky pink.
Kaelen stepped fully into the room, his presence a cold, grounding anchor in the storm of unspoken accusations. His ancient eyes took in the scene—the wound, the fear, the guilt—in a single, comprehensive glance. "Look at him," he commanded Leander, his voice devoid of judgment yet filled with a brutal, clinical truth that was somehow worse. "Look at what you have done. Not in your dream. Here. In this room. On his skin."
Leander forced his eyes away from the floor, meeting Roric's gaze. The guardsman held it for a moment, a complex history of shared battles and trust passing between them, before his eyes dropped to his own injured arm, a muscle twitching in his jaw. The unshakeable trust that had been their bedrock was now cracked, and the fissure was bleeding.
"This was Pythios's work," Kaelen stated, folding his arms. "A classic, yet potent, manipulation. He crafted a reality where your deepest loyalty became your greatest threat, knowing your power would instinctively lash out to defend you. He is learning how you think. He is mapping the cracks in your mind, and he will hammer wedges into each one."
"He used *us*," Elpis whispered, her voice thick with a mixture of horror and rising anger. She looked from Roric's wound to Leander's shattered expression. "He used what we are to each other as the weapon."
"He will do so again," Kaelen said, his tone flat and certain. "And again. He will play on every insecurity, every private fear, every cherished memory, until the bond between you is so fractured, it provides no defense at all." He focused his intense gaze back on Leander. "Your grief, your guilt—these are weapons he has now placed in your hands. If you let them consume you, you will become your own jailer, and he will have won this battle without his demons firing a single shot."
Leander felt hollowed out, scraped clean. The weight of his nature, of Azhoroth's legacy, felt like a millstone around his neck, dragging him down into the dark. "How do I stop it?" The question was a raw plea. "I can't... I can't tell what's real anymore. It felt so real."
"You build a foundation that cannot be shaken," Kaelen replied, his voice unwavering. "You find an absolute truth, no matter how small, and you cling to it. For now, that truth is this room. These people. The wound on Roric's arm is real. Your remorse is real. Their fear is real. Anchor yourself to this reality, to the physical, tangible evidence of your senses, no matter what phantom terrors your mind screams at you."
He then turned his attention to the others, his gaze sweeping over Orion's defensive posture and Elpis's trembling hands. "And you. You must do the same. Your doubt, your hesitation, your fear of him—these are the chisels he will use to break him. You must choose, here and now, in the wake of this pain, to see the friend and not the potential monster. If you cannot, if this breach is too wide, then tell me now. I will take him from this place before his struggle destroys you all."
The challenge hung in the air, stark and uncompromising. It was a line drawn in the sand of their shared history.
Orion was the first to break the silence. He let out a long, slow breath, the formidable tension draining from his shoulders. He walked over to Leander, his movements deliberate, and offered a calloused hand, pulling him to his feet. "We've all got demons," he grunted, his voice low and rough. "Yours are just... louder. And they talk back."
Roric looked up, meeting Leander's eyes again. This time, he didn't look away. He took a deep breath, mastering his own pain and fear. "It was a dream," he said, his voice firmer now, laced with a hard-won resolve. "He got inside my head once, too, made me see things that weren't there. Remember? We don't let him win. We don't let him turn us against each other." He managed a wry, pained smile and gestured to his bandaged arm with his good hand. "Consider us even for the time I accidentally clipped you with my shield during drills."
A fragile, trembling bridge of trust was rebuilt in that moment, its foundations forged in shared pain and a conscious choice. It was weaker than before, marked by a visible scar, but it was there.
Elpis finished tying the bandage, her touch gentle. "He wants us to be afraid of each other," she said, her voice gaining a steely edge. "So we won't be." She looked directly at Leander, her gaze fierce and unwavering. "We'll be angry. We'll be so united it makes him sick."
Kaelen gave a slow, approving nod. "Good. Anger can be a shield. Unity, a fortress. Remember this feeling. This is your first true lesson in mental defense. It is not about building walls to keep him out. It is about knowing what is so precious on the inside that you would tear down any illusion to protect it."
He looked toward the window, where the first hints of true dawn were beginning to lighten the sky. "The attack has failed. For now. He has revealed his strategy. We will be ready for the next one."
But as Leander looked at the clean, white bandage wrapped around Roric's arm—a permanent scar of his failure, a constant reminder of the darkness within—he knew the real battle had just begun. The enemy had a direct line into his mind, and the next nightmare might not end with a burn. It might end with a corpse.
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**Author's Note:** In the devastating aftermath of the psychic attack, the group is forced to confront a new enemy: the fear of each other. Leander is wracked with guilt, while his friends must consciously choose to see the person they know over the power they fear. Kaelen forces them to forge a new, more resilient unity from the fractures, but the cost is a visible, permanent scar on their trust.