Leontis's POV - The Dream

The transition happened without warning.

One moment Leontis was reaching for the Codex, fingers brushing worn leather. The next, he wasn't in his room anymore.

He stood in a military camp that stank of wood smoke, unwashed bodies, and the particular exhaustion that came from fighting wars too long. Tents stretched in ordered rows across trampled grass, their canvas stained with road dust and old blood. Evening settled over everything like a shroud, painting the world in shades of amber and shadow.

I'm dreaming. This is a memory. Aldric's memory.

But it didn't feel like a dream. The cold bit through his—Aldric's—thin tunic with teeth sharp enough to make him shiver. The smoke burned his eyes. Someone nearby was cooking something that smelled like meat and desperation, and his stomach growled in response.

Real. Too real.

He tried to move, to control the body he inhabited, but his limbs responded to someone else's will. Aldric's will. All Leontis could do was observe, a passenger in someone else's past.

"—telling you, the reports don't match." A voice cut through the camp's ambient noise. Deep, tired, carrying the kind of authority that came from making impossible choices and living with them. "Three separate accounts of the same battle. Three completely different casualty numbers."

Aldric's head turned toward the voice. Two figures stood beside a command tent maybe thirty paces away, silhouetted against firelight. One tall and broad-shouldered, the other leaner but no less imposing.

Aldric moved closer, keeping to shadows between tents. Not sneaking, exactly. Just... observing. The way a bard learned to observe, collecting stories like other men collected scars.

The figures resolved into clarity as Aldric crept nearer.

The first man wore armor that had seen better decades. Dark hair pulled back in a practical tail, face shadowed but posture speaking volumes about exhaustion. His hands moved as he talked, gesturing at maps spread across a makeshift table. A red sword rested against the command table beside him—crimson blade that seemed to drink in the firelight rather than reflect it.

Beside him stood a man who gleamed even in dim light.

Golden hair catching firelight like a halo. Perfect features that artists would spend years trying to capture. Armor so pristine it looked freshly polished despite weeks in the field. The kind of man who made "hero" seem like an understatement.

But both their expressions held only weariness.

"Commander!" A soldier jogged up to the tent, saluting sharply. "Commander D, sir. The western scouts just returned. No enemy movement detected."

The dark-haired man nodded without looking up from his maps. "Good. Tell them to rest. Double watch tonight anyway."

"Yes sir!" The soldier saluted again, then turned to the golden-haired man. "Saint Vaerin, the Church delegation asked when you'll meet with them. Something about blessing the new recruits?"

"Tomorrow morning," the Saint replied, voice tired. "Tell them I need a few hours of sleep first, or they'll get a very irritable blessing."

The soldier grinned and hurried off.

Aldric's breath caught in his chest. Leontis felt the shock ripple through the memory.

Commander D. Saint Vaerin. Together. Friendly.

The two greatest figures of the war, standing side by side like brothers-in-arms. Not enemies. Not corruption and purity facing off. Just two exhausted men trying to finish a war neither of them wanted to keep fighting.

This isn't what the histories say. They were enemies. Commander D became the Demon King. Vaerin stopped him. They had to be enemies.

"The Church scribes are... optimistic in their accounting," Vaerin said, returning to their conversation. "They believe higher casualty numbers on the enemy side make victories seem more impressive."

"They believe lying makes my soldiers' deaths matter more." Commander D's voice went flat. Dangerous. "I lost forty-three men at Thornwood. Not twenty. Not the 'handful' your scribes reported. Forty-three. I knew their names. Their families. Where they came from."

"I know." Vaerin's hand went to his companion's shoulder—a gesture of friendship, not hierarchy. "I've been trying to get them to report accurately. But the Church wants heroes, not accountants."

"Heroes." Commander D laughed, short and bitter. "You know what makes a hero, Vaerin? Being too stupid to die when you should."

"Or too stubborn."

"Same thing."

They stood in silence for a moment, two men who'd fought too long and seen too much. Friends, Leontis realized with dawning horror. Not just allies. Not just soldiers serving the same cause. These were men who trusted each other, who'd bled together, who understood the weight both carried.

The Church had lied. About everything.

"It's almost over," Vaerin said quietly. "The main force is broken. Just mopping up stragglers now. Maybe another month, two at most."

"And then what?" Commander D gestured at the camp around them. "These men have been fighting for twelve years. Some of them don't remember what peace looks like. What happens to soldiers when the war ends?"

"They go home. Rebuild."

"Do they?" Commander D's voice carried something dark. "Or do they bring the war home with them? Teach their sons to kill the way we taught them? Start the cycle over?"

"That's bleak."

"That's realistic." He rubbed his face, the gesture speaking to exhaustion that went bone-deep. "I'm tired, Vaerin. Not battle-tired. Soul-tired. The kind that doesn't go away with sleep."

"I know. I feel it too." Vaerin looked toward the eastern horizon, where dawn would eventually come. "But we're almost done. The Demon King's forces are scattered. We've won."

Something in Commander D's posture shifted. "Have we?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing. Just..." He shook his head. "Never mind. Exhaustion talking."

Vaerin studied his friend with sharp eyes. "Dex. If something's wrong—"

"Everything's wrong. But it's the kind of wrong we can live with." Commander D—Dex—straightened his shoulders, shaking off whatever darkness had gripped him. "Go get some sleep. I'll finish the casualty reports. Accurate ones."

"You need sleep too."

"I'll sleep when the war's over." Dex's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Probably for five hundred years straight."

"I'll hold you to that." Vaerin clasped his shoulder again, then turned and walked away, his perfect armor catching firelight as he disappeared between tents.

Dex stood alone for a moment, staring at maps that showed a war almost won. Then he laughed—quiet, bitter, broken.

"Soul-tired," he whispered to himself. "Fuck, that doesn't even begin to cover it."

He gathered the maps, tucked them under his arm, and reached for the red sword. The blade seemed to pulse faintly as he lifted it, settling across his back with the ease of long familiarity. Then he walked in the opposite direction from Vaerin.

Aldric followed at a distance, curiosity overriding caution.

But Commander D moved with the practiced ease of someone who knew how to disappear. One moment he was visible between tents, the next he'd melted into shadows. Gone like smoke.

Aldric stopped, frustrated. Then reality shifted.

The camp didn't change—same tents, same fires, same exhausted soldiers. But suddenly Aldric stood in a different part of it, watching from behind a supply wagon as Saint Vaerin emerged from his personal tent.

The Saint looked around carefully, checking for observers. Then, apparently satisfied he was alone, he raised his right hand.

Power gathered. Not mana—Aldric knew mana, had studied it, could feel its patterns. Not aura either, though he recognized that flavor from watching warriors train.

This was something else. Something that made Aldric's teeth ache and his skin crawl. Divine power, yes, but wrong. Too strong. Too dense. Like trying to fit an ocean into a teacup and having the edges leak through reality itself.

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The energy coalesced around Vaerin's hand, and through Aldric's eyes—through Leontis experiencing Aldric's memory—they watched as the Saint pulled up his left sleeve.

His skin was cracking.

Not like dry skin. Not like wounds. Like porcelain pushed beyond its limits, fine fractures spreading across his forearm in spiderweb patterns. The cracks glowed with that same wrong energy, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.

Light leaked through. Not holy light. Not the warm gold of divine blessing. This was harsh, brilliant, alien—the kind of light that burned shadows into stone and made eyes water just from proximity.

Vaerin's face twisted with something between pain and concentration. He raised his right hand—the one gathering that wrong power—and pressed it against the cracks.

The spell he wove was delicate, intricate, nothing like the bold magic of combat. This was maintenance. Patchwork. Like a man trying to hold together a dam with his bare hands while the water pressure kept building.

The cracks slowly sealed. The light dimmed. Vaerin's skin smoothed over, returning to its perfect, unblemished state.

But Leontis felt it—felt what Aldric had felt five hundred years ago. That power wasn't going away. It was just being contained. Compressed. Shoved back into a vessel that couldn't properly hold it.

What is he?

The question burned through the memory. Not Leontis's question. Aldric's. The bard who'd witnessed this moment and understood immediately that something was terribly, fundamentally wrong with the man the Church called their greatest Saint.

Vaerin rolled his sleeve back down, adjusting his armor to cover any evidence. His breathing was labored, face pale. For a moment, just a moment, his perfect features seemed to slip—like a mask that didn't quite fit right anymore.

Then he straightened, composed himself, and the moment passed. Saint Vaerin stood perfect and golden once more, ready to be the hero everyone needed him to be.

"What are you doing over there?"

The shout made Aldric jolt, spinning to find a soldier staring at him with suspicious eyes.

"Just checking supplies!" Aldric called back, forcing his voice steady, reaching for his lute to sell the illusion of a wandering bard. "Making sure we have enough—"

Reality shattered.

The Awakening

Leontis's eyes snapped open.

He lay in his bed, morning light painting his room in shades of gold. The Codex rested on his desk where he'd left it before sleep claimed him. His lute leaned against the wall, exactly where it belonged.

But something was different.

He felt... calm. Rested. Not the manic energy of previous revelations, not the terror of memories that didn't belong to him. Just peaceful clarity, like waking from the best sleep of his life.

The dream lingered with crystal precision. Every detail. Every word. Every crack in Vaerin's skin and pulse of that wrong power.

And that red sword. Something about it tugged at Leontis's mind now, viewing the memory from the safety of his own time. Familiar, somehow. Like a melody he'd heard recently but couldn't quite place.

Leontis sat up slowly, noting the absence of panic. His hands were steady. His breathing even. The memories were still there—Aldric's memories, now his—but they didn't overwhelm. They just... existed. Part of him now, integrated into his understanding of the world.

I should be terrified. I just watched Saint Vaerin—the Saint Vaerin—barely holding himself together. Containing power that shouldn't exist in mortal flesh.

But fear felt distant. Remote. What he felt instead was purpose.

He stood, moved to his desk, and opened the Codex.

The pages glowed faintly in morning light, filled with Aldric's cramped handwriting. But now Leontis could read not just the words but the meaning beneath them. The observations coded in musical notation. The truths hidden between spell diagrams.

He read.

Hours passed. The sun climbed higher, painting his room in changing light. Outside, the Academy woke to another day of barely-contained chaos. Students hurried to classes. Church Knights patrolled. The machinery of education and politics ground forward.

Leontis read, and understood, and felt pieces clicking into place like a puzzle he hadn't known he was solving.

The sensitivity to mana he'd developed from working with the Codex—from channeling its resonance, from experiencing Aldric's memories—let him parse what he'd witnessed. That energy around Vaerin's hand, leaking through his cracks, too powerful for mortal flesh...

Not regular mana. Not aura. Not even standard divine power, the kind priests channeled when blessing crops or healing injuries.

This was something far older. Far stronger. Far more wrong.

Divine power, yes. But concentrated beyond what any mortal should contain. Like trying to fit a god into human skin and having the edges split from the pressure.

What was Vaerin becoming?

A knock interrupted his reading.

"Enter, but know that the protagonist requires proper dramatic timing for social interactions!"

The door opened. Avian Veritas stepped inside, looking travel-worn and mildly annoyed—his default state, from what Leontis had observed.

"You're alive," Avian said.

"Very much so! And the protagonist has had REVELATIONS!" Leontis stood, gesturing dramatically but with more control than usual. The manic edge was gone, replaced by certainty. "Sit, sit! This changes everything!"

Avian moved into the room, closing the door behind him. His storm-blue eyes swept across the Codex, the scattered notes, Leontis's face. Cataloging. Assessing.

"What kind of revelations?"

Leontis's theatrical mask slipped for a moment, showing the genuine awe and terror beneath.

"The kind that makes you wonder if we've been worshipping the wrong side of history."

Avian's POV

Leontis looked calm. Centered. Speaking with clarity instead of his usual theatrical rambling.

Good. Means he actually understood what he saw instead of just drowning in it.

"Explain," Avian said, keeping his voice neutral.

"I had a dream last night. Well—not exactly a dream. More like..." Leontis moved to his desk, resting his hand on the Codex. "It was a memory. Aldric the Bard's memory. I experienced it like I was actually there."

"What did you see?"

"Commander D and Saint Vaerin." Leontis said it carefully, like he was still processing. "They were... friends. Actually friends, not just allies or whatever. Talking about casualty reports, complaining about Church scribes lying about numbers. Like they'd known each other for years."

Yeah. I know. I was there.

Avian's expression didn't change. "Go on."

"The Church lies." Leontis's voice carried certainty now. "Aldric was there. He heard them talking. Vaerin called him 'Dex.' Not Commander D, just Dex. Like a nickname." He paused. "They were joking about heroes being too stupid to die. Planning what to do after the war ended. That's not—that doesn't sound like enemies."

Still nothing new. This is all stuff I remember.

"And there was this sword. Red blade, crimson. It kind of... absorbed the firelight instead of reflecting it."

Fargrim. Yeah, I know.

Avian kept his expression neutral. "Historical curiosity, but it doesn't really—"

"That's not the important part." Leontis cut him off, leaning forward. "After they split up, Aldric followed Vaerin. Saw him go into his tent alone, and..." He struggled for words. "His skin was cracking, Avian."

The words hit like a punch to the gut.

What?

"Cracking," Avian repeated slowly. What the actual fuck?

"Yeah. Like—like his body couldn't contain something. Fractures all up his arm, glowing. And Vaerin, he cast this spell, right? Maintenance magic. Just... sealing the cracks back up. Temporary fix." Leontis pulled out his sketches. "It looked painful. Desperate."

Avian stared at the sketches. His mind raced through memories.

Vaerin's skin was cracking? How the fuck did I not notice that? We were together constantly.

Wait. Those times he'd disappear into his tent alone. The way he always wore long sleeves even in summer heat. How he'd wave off questions about exhaustion with jokes.

He was hiding it. The bastard was doing maintenance spells in secret, keeping everyone in the dark about whatever the fuck was happening to him.

"What kind of energy?"

"That's what freaked me out." Leontis's hands moved as he talked. "I've been working with the Codex for weeks now, right? Getting better at feeling different types of power. Mana, aura, all that. This was... it wasn't either of those."

"Then what?"

"Divine power. But not the normal kind. Not like when priests do blessings or whatever." He struggled to explain. "Too much. Way too concentrated. Like trying to—I don't know—fit an ocean into a cup? And the cup's breaking from the pressure."

Divine power. Concentrated beyond mortal limits. Vaerin's body literally breaking apart trying to hold it.

What the fuck were you, you bastard?

"When was this? How close to the end of the war?"

"Near the end, I think. Maybe a few weeks before..." Leontis met Avian's eyes. "Before Commander D supposedly became the Demon King."

Oh. Oh shit.

The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity.

"So you're saying Vaerin was the one transforming. Not Commander D." Avian kept his voice carefully neutral.

"I'm saying the Saint everyone worships was falling apart. Literally." Leontis's voice dropped. "And I think the Church knows. Has always known. They just... rewrote everything to make their monster look like the hero."

Avian was quiet, processing. The cracking skin. Divine power leaking through mortal flesh. Vaerin falling apart at the seams while pretending everything was fine.

What the fuck were you, Vaerin?

"This is dangerous," he said finally. "You know that, right? The kind of thing that gets people killed."

"Yeah. I know." Leontis touched the Codex. "Aldric knew too. That's why he buried it all in here. Hidden in the music theory and spell notation. You'd have to actually experience the memories to understand what he saw."

"And you experienced them."

"Or they experienced me. I don't know anymore." Leontis gave a humorless smile. "The more I use this thing, the stronger it gets. Started with fragments, now I'm getting full memories. Like I'm actually there, five hundred years ago."

Great. So it's getting worse. Or better, depending on how you look at it.

The cat was out of the bag, the truth half-revealed, and Leontis stood at the center of it all with knowledge that could crack the Church's foundation like cheap pottery.

"So what are you going to do? With all this?"

"Do?" Leontis laughed—short, sharp. "What can I do? Tell someone? The Church burns me for heresy. Publish it? They hunt me down like they did the Ravencrests. Keep it secret? Then I'm just... sitting on this. The only true account of what happened."

"So you're stuck."

"We're stuck." Leontis's expression turned serious. "Don't pretend you don't care about this. I saw your face when I mentioned they were friends. You're cataloging every word I say."

Avian's mask slipped for a moment. Just a moment.

Fuck. Too smart for his own good.

"I have my reasons for being interested."

"Same reasons you interrogated that merchant? Same reasons you went to the capital after Truth's Witness?" Leontis stepped closer. "You're looking for something. About the war. About Commander D specifically."

Way too smart. And way too observant. Double fuck.

"Careful where you're going with this."

"I'm not going anywhere. Just... observing." Leontis held his ground. "We want the same thing, right? The truth. What actually happened instead of the Church's version."

They stared at each other for a moment, neither willing to show their full hand.

"If Vaerin was transforming into something..." Avian said slowly. "What the hell did he become?"

"Don't know yet. But I will." Leontis's voice carried certainty. "The memories are building toward something. The final battle. Whatever the Church has been hiding, I'm going to see it."

"And then?"

"Then we figure out what to do with it." Leontis met his eyes. "Together. Because this is going to change everything."

Avian was quiet for a moment, thinking. Finally, he nodded.

"Keep reading the Codex. Experience the memories. But Leontis?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell anyone else. Not Canaline, not Kai, nobody. If the Church catches even a hint that you know this stuff..." He let it hang.

"They'll kill me. I know."

Avian nodded. "Keep your head down." He moved toward the door, then paused. "And if you see the final battle—what actually happened between Commander D and Vaerin—tell me immediately."

"Why? What are you looking for?"

"The truth."

He was reaching for the door when Leontis spoke again.

"Hey, you know what's weird?" Leontis glanced at Fargrim in the corner. "That red sword from the memory. Commander D's blade. It looks a lot like yours. Same color, same way it kind of... absorbs light."

Avian's hand paused on the door handle. Just for a second. Then he opened it. "Blood-forged blades all look similar. Pretty common."

He left before Leontis could pursue the thought, closing the door on a room that hummed with resonance and hidden truths.

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