Kael's dream energy was not being drained by conflict, but by passivity, by the absence of struggle, by simple, inexorable surrender.
In the Hall of Breath, Master Elian and Lyra watched Kael's floating figure with growing alarm. His dream body was motionless, but no longer vibrant as it had been at the start of the Veil. A pale haze seemed to envelop him, an emanation that was not the usual luminous energy of the Keepers, but an opacity, a stasis.
"He is falling," Elian murmured, his voice grave. "The distraction of desire. It is the most dangerous of all, because it is not perceived as a threat, but as a haven."
Lyra approached Kael, her face tight with worry. "Master, we must do something! He cannot remain like this! He is not responding, not reacting." She tried to touch him, but her hand passed through Kael's figure, as if he were an inconsistent shadow.
Elian nodded. "He needs a push, an anchor to bring him back. A resonance strong enough to penetrate the illusion." His eyes fell on Anya.
But Anya was there, sitting on a woven mat, her legs crossed, her face relaxed in an almost unnatural calm. She was immersed in her personal fog. The consciousness penalty for having summoned the Silent Guardian kept her bound, her dream senses attenuated, her spirit focused on maintaining the illusion in the waking world. She tried to maintain the connection with Kael, but her empathy, her ability to reach other Keepers, was reduced to a faint thread, almost imperceptible. Occasionally, a slight spasm rippled across her eyelids, as if her spirit were struggling to focus, but the density of the penalty was too strong.
"Anya cannot help him," Lyra said, her voice filled with a bitter sense of frustration. "Her mind is too blurred. It is as if she is immersed in a waking dream. She cannot connect with Kael as she did with the Eight Veils of the Keeper." Their dependence on Anya was evident, and his temporary absence was an unexpected and devastating burden.
Elian closed his eyes for an instant, meditating. "This Veil was designed to be faced alone, but the gravity of the situation in the real world and Anya's sacrifice have amplified its insidiousness. We must reach him, but without breaking the fundamental rule of the Seven Veils: Kael must find the solution himself. We can only provide him with an echo, a calling."
Elian approached Kael's figure, extending a hand. He did not touch him, but focused on his dream energy. Lyra imitated him, placing her hand on Elian's back, channeling her strength through the Master. They felt a resistance, as if they were pushing against a dense wall of cotton.
"Kael!" Elian's voice resonated in the hall, but he knew that, deep within the distraction, it would be only a faint echo. "Remember the cost of false peace! Remember the truth you discovered about loss, about denial! True peace is not the absence of pain, but the acceptance and growth that comes from it!"
In Kael's perfect dream, a subtle ripple appeared. Elian's words did not reach him directly, but an image, a fleeting memory, made its way through: Elara's face, yes, but not just smiling and alive. It was Elara's face at the moment of her disappearance, the pure pain of loss that Kael had tried to erase for years and had only recently begun to accept. That small, painful truth was a dissonance in his perfection.
The image of his Dream Garden, the real one, the one he was laboriously rebuilding, flashed at the edges of his blissful vision. It was not perfect; the scars of the Ash still marked it, but it was real, and in it there was the promise of a true rebirth. The distraction of desire, that golden prison, began to waver.
It was not a sudden break, but a crack, a small crackle in the glass of his perfect illusion. It was the beginning of an awakening, driven from the outside, but which had to be completed from within.
While Kael struggled in the golden prison of desire, in the waking world, the Silent Guardian continued its enigmatic march through the thick woods south of Aris. The figure, barely a shimmer in the air to an inattentive eye, pulsed with a dream resonance that was the manipulated echo of Kael's vitality, combined with Anya's resolute empathy.
It was a beacon of deception, and it was working.
The Silent Ones, those empty and corrupted human agents of the Ash, moved with inhuman speed. Their movements were fluid, almost silent, as they wove between the trees, their empty eyes fixed on a point that only their altered perception could register. They were like infallible hounds, driven by the hunger of their lord, and now their instinct led them directly toward the Silent Guardian.
The Whisperer, the dream entity manipulating them from the depths of the Dream Realm, sensed the approach. The Guardian's signal was strong and persistent, a promise of annihilation for the Ash. There was no hesitation in its fragmented "mind"; the source of that disturbance had to be eliminated, and quickly. The Silent Ones were a few hundred meters from their target, their pace growing more impatient.
The Silent Guardian, programmed by Anya and guided remotely by Master Elian (through Anya, despite the penalty), had no consciousness of its own. It reacted to a complex series of impulses, subtly moving away whenever the Silent Ones got too close, maintaining a constant but frustrating distance. It was a macabre ballet between hunters and prey, a game of chase in the heart of an unsuspecting forest.
Hours passed. The sun climbed higher, then began its descent. The Silent Ones were relentless, but the Guardian was also tireless. Its existence was purely dreamlike, a construct without the need for rest. The Whisperer, however, began to perceive a subtle, growing frustration. Unused to such resistance from a single life source, its "attention" was completely absorbed by this prolonged hunt. Despite its apparent strength, the Silent Guardian was actually a cunning distraction, draining the enemy's resources and attention.
In the village of Aris, Uncle Borin still felt that slight, almost imperceptible lightness in the air. The worry for Kael was constant, but the weight of the general atmosphere had indeed lightened. He did not know that, right at that moment, most of the tangible threat that had approached his village had been diverted, trapped in an endless pursuit through the woods.
But Anya's penalty was not without consequences. Within the Deep Foundation, Anya lay motionless. Her task of remotely "guiding" the Silent Guardian, of maintaining its cohesion and resonance, was draining her strength more deeply than she had anticipated. Her dream breath became shallower, and the veil of fog in her eyes had thickened. She could no longer perceive the urgency of Kael's state, nor the precise dynamics of the pursuit in the real world. Lyra stood by her, watching, but there was little she could do to alleviate the penalty.
The deception was working, but the price was high.
The Silent Guardian, continuing its run, had now led the Silent Ones dozens of kilometers from Aris, into a remote area where the terrain became rougher and the traces harder to follow for one who was not an emanation of the dream. The hunt continued, exhausting and deceptive, with the Guardian pulsing like a false promise in a desert of dream perceptions. The Ash had been deceived, and for now, Aris was safe.
But Anya was losing her own strength...
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