In the Deep Foundation, the rest descended like a balm.
The moment Kael had left the Dream Realm, the resonance of his presence in the physical world had drastically diminished, nearly to the point of extinction. For the Silent Ones, their primary target – Kael's dream soul – had vanished, like a trace washed away by rain.
And with his disappearance, the need for Anya's Silent Guardian also ceased.
Anya, as soon as she felt Kael's energy withdraw from the Dream Realm, collapsed into a deep, well-deserved sleep. Her dream body settled onto the woven rug of the Hall of Breathing, her face still marked by days of tension and the weight of the penalty of consciousness.
The veil of mist that had blurred her eyes began to slowly dissipate, replaced by a calmness she hadn't felt in a long time. Lyra knelt beside her, gently passing a hand over her forehead. "Rest, Anya," she whispered, her voice filled with affection and relief. "You more than deserve it."
Master Elian observed the two young Guardians with a pensive expression, but also with a glimmer of satisfaction. "The deception worked," he murmured more to himself than to Lyra. "Their perseverance has been repaid." They retreated to one of the smaller chambers of the Foundation, where the flow of dream energy was fainter, to allow for a deeper rest. Lyra let herself fall onto a soft bed, her dream armor dissolving into lightness. Even she, strong and resilient as she was, had felt the burden of the vigil and the worry. The silence in the Foundation was now complete, a quiet that was a rare luxury in times of Ash. Elian, for his part, did not give in to sleep.
While the two young women rested, he moved with studied calm among the ancient scrolls and the dream crystal spheres in his personal library. Kael's solution, though brilliant, was temporary.
The Ash would not give up.
He had to find a way to protect Kael when he returned to sleep, a way to support Anya in the future, making the deception not only more durable but also more effective. He meditated on the complex schematics of dream connection, on the pathways through which energy could be shared and amplified without overwhelming a single individual.
The Master's ancient mind worked tirelessly, already projecting onto the next move in their invisible war. Time passed, measured only by the faint breathing of the two Guardians. Anya, in the depths of her sleep, was recovering at a surprising rate. Her dream essence, freed from the burdensome task of sustaining the Silent Guardian, was mending. The fog that had enveloped her consciousness was fully dissolving, and her sleep, for the first time in ages, was serene and effortless.
Her empathic ability, her gift of connecting with the resonances of others, began to amplify again, clearer and more defined than ever.
Lyra, for her part, regained her usual energy, her dream body vibrating with new strength. This truce, though brief, was crucial. It allowed the Guardians to regenerate, to sharpen their minds and spirits, unaware that in the meantime, within the Ash's vast and amorphous thought, a new evaluation, a new, unexpected deception, was already brewing. In the vast, amorphous collective unconscious that was the Ash, the "disappearance" of Kael's resonance from the waking world was an event that generated an unexpected reaction.
The powerful resonance it had sensed from Aris – first from the sleeping Kael, then from the Silent Guardian – had vanished. The "beacon" it had pursued for days had simply... disappeared.
For the Ash, which processed information in terms of energy flows and resistances, this meant one thing: the resonances it had perceived were, after all, only temporary phenomena, not the beginning of an organized resistance or the manifestation of a single, persistent individual to be nullified.
It was like a field of forces that had stirred for a moment, only to return to its relative stasis.
This conclusion, though completely wrong from the Guardians' perspective, was perfectly logical for the simple, expansion-oriented mind of the Ash. It had invested resources – diverting its attention from Solara, and consequently slightly reducing the Whispering One's strength – to pursue what turned out to be a "false trail."
A useless expenditure. A wave of what, for the Ash, was the equivalent of "disappointment" or "annoyance" propagated through its vast essence. This was not how assimilation worked; resistance had to be constant, not intermittent.
This "intermittence" led it to reconsider its priorities.
The Whispering One, the Ash's closest emissary in the lower Dream Realm, perceived this change of "mood" and the new directive. It was a non-verbal, yet unequivocal command: withdraw.
The resources the Whispering One was pursuing had been declassified.
It was no longer worth the effort to continue a hunt that did not lead to an immediate result. Its "attention" had to be redirected toward more promising targets, toward areas of the Dream Realm that showed more constant resistance or greater vulnerability.
In the waking world, the Silent Ones, who had wandered aimlessly for hours after the dissolution of the Silent Guardian, received a new impulse. Their movements became less determined, their pace slowed. The Whispering One was recalling its extensions.
The hooded figures turned, not towards Aris, but towards more distant directions, towards the darker edges of the forests and wastes where the Ash already held a stronger grip. Their hunting mission had been interrupted; their energy had been redefined.
The threat, for the moment, had withdrawn from Aris.
The village, and Kael's body in particular, were temporarily safe. Anya's strategy, her sacrifice, and Kael's brilliant insight had led to an unthinkable result: not just a truce, but a genuinely successful deception that had convinced the Ash to divert its attention.
It was a breath of fresh air, but the war was far from over. The Ash had just updated its threat map, continuing its expansion plans.
How long would that momentary victory last?