Rook laughed.

  Not loud—just enough to let the sound exist.

  “That was better,” he said, rolling his shoulder as he stepped back into the sunlight. “You didn’t hesitate that time.”

  The yard bore the evidence of John’s learning curve. Shallow craters pocked the earth like old scars, some still rimmed with cracked soil where force had met ground too hard. Grass lay flattened in long arcs, bent by near-misses and imperfect footwork. Midday sun hung overhead, bright and unapologetic, as if the world itself refused to acknowledge how dangerous the space between them had become.

  John tightened his grip on the hasta. His breathing had steadied—still heavy, but controlled now. That alone felt like a victory.

  “I felt it,” John said. “The opening. I almost missed it.”

  “Almost doesn’t count,” Rook replied, grinning. “But you saw it. That’s new.”

  They circled.

  Rook moved easily, relaxed in a way that felt insulting. Not careless—never careless—but comfortable, like someone enjoying a game he already knew he would eventually win. John lunged.

  The hasta cut forward in a clean line, faster than before. Rook shifted, not away but the attack, his body twisting just enough that the blade passed where he had been a breath ago.

  The tip grazed the grass.

  Blades sheared free in a sudden whispering burst, green fragments lifting into the air as if caught in an invisible hand. A pulse followed the lunge—pressure, not sound—rolling outward and rippling the yard. Loose dirt skittered. The severed grass hung for half a second before raining down.

  John froze, startled.

  Rook didn’t.

  He was already inside the space John had just vacated, palm resting lightly against the shaft of the hasta, eyes bright.

  “Oh, that?” Rook said, clearly delighted. “That’s what I was waiting for.”

  John swallowed. “I didn’t— I wasn’t trying to—”

  “I know,” Rook cut in. “That’s the good part.”

  He stepped back, releasing the weapon, giving John room again. Sunlight glinted off the blade as it lowered.

  “You’re not forcing it anymore,” Rook continued. “You’re letting it answer you. That pressure? That wasn’t strength. That was intent.”

  John looked down at the grass scattered at his feet. At the small crater behind Rook that hadn’t been there a minute ago.

  Something about it felt… familiar. Not memory. Not exactly. More like recognition.

  Rook tilted his head, studying John with open approval. “You’re catching on faster than you think.”

  John met his gaze. “And you’re enjoying this.”

  Rook didn’t deny it.

  “Yeah,” he said simply. “I am.”

  He raised his hands again, settling back into stance, boots grinding softly into the dirt. “Now do it again. This time—don’t aim where I am.”

  John lifted the hasta.

  The yard went quiet.

  An idea sparked.

  John’s mouth twitched before he could stop it.

  Rook saw it instantly.

  He moved before John did.

  Rook dove forward just as the ground above him ruptured. A slab of earth shifted above freely and dropped from the sky, slamming down where he had been a heartbeat earlier. Dirt and stone exploded outward as Rook hit the ground, rolled, and came up in one fluid motion.

  He scooped a clod of dirt and hurled it.

  John reacted on instinct, batting it aside—

  Too late.

  Rook was already there.

  His foot drove square into John’s chest.

  The impact knocked the air clean out of him and sent him flying backward. John hit the ground hard, skidding through the grass before rolling to a stop. He pushed himself up, gasping, lungs burning as they struggled to remember their job.

  “Wow,” John wheezed, bending forward with his hands on his knees. “How did you know what I was going to do?”

  Rook straightened, calm, not even breathing hard.

  “Many,” he said evenly, “many years of experience training under my master.”

  He studied John for a moment, then nodded—satisfied.

  “This is good,” Rook continued. “I need this.”

  John looked up at him, confused.

  Rook’s expression sharpened. “If I’m going to survive real fights—when I’m at the disadvantage against a dreamer—I need to be ready.”

  He rolled his shoulders and stepped back into stance.

  “And you,” he added, a hint of a grin returning, “are starting to make that possible.”

  From the far edge of the woods, the trees .

  Not swaying. Not bending with wind.

  Moving—fast, deliberate, as if something were tearing through them.

  John and Rook both turned toward the sound, neither immediately alarmed. Just alert. Curious. Birds burst from the canopy in a sudden wave, scattering into the open sky.

  Then John saw him.

  A figure leapt between the trees, light and controlled, before landing effortlessly on a thick branch at the tree line. He was tall and lean, dressed in dark gray, a high collar wrapping around his neck and lower face like a restraint. A hood shadowed his features.

  John glanced at Rook.

  Rook looked… furious.

  The man reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing short blond hair and a pale scar cutting over his left eye.

  Rook’s voice cracked through the yard.

  “I told you what would happen if you ever showed your face again.”

  The man stiffened. His reply came quickly, urgently. “I know—and I’m sorry. I didn’t have time. I needed to warn you all about—”

  Rook was already moving.

  He launched forward with explosive speed, crossing the distance in seconds. John hesitated only a fraction of a heartbeat before chasing after him, pulse spiking, understanding nothing except that this was bad.

  The man cursed under his breath and fled, vanishing deeper into the woods.

  Keeping up with him—and Rook—was nearly impossible.

  The stranger dropped from the trees and hit the ground running.

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  Not stumbling. Not crashing.

  He tore through the woods with impossible ease, branches blurring past him as if the forest itself were opening a path. Rook pushed harder—but then the trees swallowed the man whole, cutting off Rook’s line of sight.

  Rook didn’t slow.

  In one smooth motion, he drew his blade and slashed forward.

  The air screamed.

  Three massive trees simply ceased to exist—sheared apart and erased mid-trunk, their upper halves dissolving into drifting fragments before they could even fall. The sudden absence left a hollow silence in their wake.

  Rook stopped.

  He took two measured steps forward, then closed his eyes.

  He listened.

  Nothing.

  No footfalls. No breath. No disturbed air.

  John finally caught up, lungs burning, about to speak—

  “Knight!” Rook shouted, voice cracking through the woods. “Come out. I know you’re near.”

  For a moment, there was only wind moving through leaves that no longer trusted themselves to stand still.

  Then a voice answered from somewhere unseen, calm but edged with urgency.

  “I was trying to warn you,” the man said. “All of you.”

  A pause.

  “About Asani.”

  Knight leaned against a tree, half-hidden, peering around the trunk as if hoping to catch a glimpse of something—anything.

  He never saw the hand.

  Fingers clamped around his throat and yanked him backward. Rook pulled him in close, lifting him clean off the ground as Knight clawed uselessly at the grip.

  “I think,” Rook growled, “you have bigger problems than Asani right now.”

  He drove Knight forward.

  Wood exploded.

  Knight’s body smashed straight through the tree, bark and splinters tearing free as the trunk split and collapsed behind him. He hit the ground hard, coughing, gasping, struggling to regain his footing.

  John stood frozen, watching, still trying to understand what he’d just witnessed.

  Rook turned his head slightly toward him, never taking his eyes off Knight.

  “See, John? This is the problem,” he said calmly. “People like him are why we train.”

  Knight staggered upright, forcing air back into his lungs. “You don’t understand,” he rasped. “There’s something worse coming. A stronger nightmare. It’s already on its way.”

  Rook drew his sword.

  The air around him darkened, bending inward as if afraid to exist too close.

  “I your nightmare,” Rook said, stepping forward.

  Then—

  A thin line opened across Rook’s cheek.

  Blood welled and began to trail downward.

  Rook stopped.

  He lifted a hand, touched the cut, and stared at the blood on his fingers. His eyes shifted, searching the trees, the space between breaths.

  Knight whispered, almost to himself, “It’s too late.”

  Impact slammed into Rook’s back.

  He was hurled forward and crashed into another tree—this one thicker, older. It didn’t break. It stopped him dead, the sound of the collision echoing through the woods.

  All three of them turned.

  Manny stood motionless, but nothing about him was still.

  He looked like a demonic mannequin given the wrong instructions on how to be alive. His body was solid and imposing, yet unnaturally smooth in places—porcelain-white plates stretched over muscle that didn’t quite align beneath it. Seams of darkness ran along his limbs like cracks in ceramic, faintly pulsing.

  His head was the worst part.

  It wasn’t a head so much as a column of faces—four of them, fused around a single axis. Each face was frozen in the same expression: a massive, theater-like frown carved too deep into the porcelain, as if sorrow had been etched there with intent. Dark, sunken eyes stared outward from every angle, unblinking, leaking slow trails of blackened blood that crawled down his face and neck.

  With a soft, grinding sound, his head .

  One face slid out of view as another turned forward, the motion wrong—too smooth, then too sudden—like frames had been skipped. The blood didn’t follow gravity properly. It lagged behind, stuttering as it fell.

  Manny moved.

  Or tried to.

  His arm lifted—and halfway through the motion it reappeared a foot closer to its destination, snapping into place with a faint distortion in the air. Space seemed to correct itself around him, like reality didn’t want to argue. Every movement came in broken increments: start, skip, finish.

  John’s stomach dropped.

  This wasn’t speed.

  This was desynchronization.

  Manny’s gaze locked onto them—onto all of them at once—and the pressure in the woods deepened, heavy and absolute, as if the dream itself recognized something that should not exist.

  They spread out without speaking.

  Not tactically—.

  The space around Manny felt wrong, like standing too close to something diseased. The air near him jittered, stuttering in place. Leaves on the ground would slide an inch, reset, then slide again, as if the forest couldn’t decide where they belonged.

  Manny didn’t follow them with his body.

  His head rotated instead.

  One face turned toward Rook.

  Another toward Knight.

  A third toward John.

  The fourth stared at nothing at all.

  Black blood dripped from his eyes in uneven intervals, sometimes falling, sometimes snapping back up his face like the motion had been undone. His chest rose and fell out of sync—two breaths in, none out, then suddenly a full exhale that fogged the air.

  John’s stomach twisted.

  “I’ve—” John started, swallowing hard. “I’ve fought him before.”

  The face looking at John .

  Then Manny screamed.

  It wasn’t sound alone. It was pressure—raw, shrill agony layered over itself, like multiple voices screaming from the same throat but slightly out of time. The noise tore through John’s skull and straight down his spine.

  He flinched hard, stumbling back a step, heart hammering, vision blurring as the scream cut off mid-note like a tape being ripped out.

  Silence slammed down.

  John gasped and looked to the others.

  Rook hadn’t moved.

  Knight stood frozen—not frightened, not bracing—just… confused. His brow furrowed, head tilting slightly as if he were trying to understand a language he didn’t speak.

  Neither of them looked shaken.

  John felt cold.

  “You don’t hear that?” John asked, voice tight.

  Rook’s eyes never left Manny. “Hear what?”

  John turned back.

  All four of Manny’s faces were now aimed directly at him.

  And for the first time, one of them smiled.

  John forced himself to speak.

  “Rook,” he said, voice tight. “I’ve beaten him before.”

  Rook glanced at John—just once—then turned back to Manny.

  “Whoever you think you faced,” Rook said flatly, “I promise you this is not it.”

  John shook his head, confused, almost defensive. “No. I did. At Asani’s house—”

  Manny moved.

  There was no warning. No buildup.

  He was already striking.

  A clawed hand snapped toward Rook’s chest—

  Knight intercepted it in a blink, steel screaming as he deflected the blow at the last possible instant. The force of the impact kicked dirt and air outward. Rook saw the opening and slashed—

  Knight .

  The blade passed where Knight had been a fraction of a second earlier.

  John didn’t think.

  He lunged.

  The hasta drove forward with everything he had—but Manny wasn’t there anymore. He twisted aside, movement breaking into stuttering skips, his body snapping between positions faster than John could track.

  Pain exploded.

  Manny’s fist punched straight through Rook’s chest.

  Time stalled.

  Knight reacted instantly, pivoting and bringing his blade down in a brutal arc. The strike cleaved clean through Manny’s arm—and the force didn’t stop there. The ground thirty yards away collapsed, a crater forming along the invisible path of the swing.

  Manny’s severed arm hit the ground in pieces that didn’t stay where they landed.

  Rook staggered back, gripping the limp arm lodged in his chest. He ripped it free and fell to one knee, coughing violently as blood spilled between his fingers.

  John froze.

  This wasn’t training.

  This wasn’t a nightmare he understood.

  Manny shrieked—not in pain, but fury.

  His movements became erratic, violent, glitching harder now—jumping inches, then feet, then suddenly , every strike sharper, harder to predict.

  Knight barely kept up.

  “I need your help!” Knight shouted over the chaos. “I can’t take him one on one!”

  John swallowed hard.

  Fear tried to lock him in place.

  He forced it down.

  John tightened his grip on the hasta and stepped forward, heart pounding as he readied himself for another attack—this time knowing there would be no room for hesitation.

  Rook barely reacted to the gaping hole in his chest.

  Blood spilled freely, yet his eyes never left Knight.

  John glanced away from Manny for half a second—just long enough to register the impossible fact that Rook was still standing—

  Then Manny hit him.

  The blow drove John straight into the ground, knocking the breath from his lungs. Manny followed instantly, landing a brutal combination that detonated outward, the force catching Rook and Knight both and hurling them back at the same time.

  The woods screamed.

  Then—

  A boom.

  It wasn’t just heard. It was . The impact rolled through the ground, through bone, through air itself.

  Manny stopped.

  The wind surged violently. Clouds rushed in overhead, dark and fast, the sky collapsing inward. The air grew heavy—oppressive. Stones the size of golf balls began falling from above, thudding into the earth around them.

  Trees ripped free from the ground.

  An entire row of them was torn up and hurled aside like debris, flung clear of whatever was coming.

  Whatever it was—it was coming hot.

  Manny turned.

  Through the air came a figure wreathed in flame.

  He hit Manny at full speed.

  There was no fight. No exchange.

  Manny’s body was —most of him simply gone on impact. What little remained ignited instantly, disintegrating into ash that scattered and vanished on the screaming wind.

  The flames rolled away.

  Chad stood there.

  He did not look pleased.

  His eyes slid immediately to Knight.

  “Varik Knight,” Chad said flatly. “What have I told you?”

  Knight opened his mouth—

  “Leave,” Chad snapped, voice carrying absolute finality. “Before I erase you next. I am not fucking around.”

  Knight’s eyes flicked to John for half a second.

  Then he fled into the woods.

  Chad turned as if Knight had never existed.

  He walked straight to Rook, who still stood there with a hole through his chest, posture rigid, waiting.

  “Captain Rook,” Chad said calmly. “I need you and John back at Linda’s. Asani could be making his move.”

  He finally looked at John. “You alright?”

  There was concern there—but urgency outweighed it.

  “Yeah,” John said, still shaken. “But I think Rook needs to be looked at.”

  “We’ll take care of him when we get back,” Chad replied, already turning. He never slowed. Never lingered.

  The wind gradually died down. Thunder faded into the distance. The sky loosened its grip.

  On the walk back, John noticed the rocks still scattered across the ground. That part stuck with him.

  “Who was that Knight guy?” John asked.

  Rook said nothing.

  Chad answered instead.

  “He’s the one who caused Linda to go blind,” Chad said evenly. “And the only reason he’s still alive is because of her.”

  He didn’t look back.

  “But his time is coming.”

  As they walked, John couldn’t shake the feeling that something about it all didn’t fit.

  Knight had warned them. He’d deflected the first strike. He’d shouted for help when Manny turned.

  That wasn’t what monsters did.

  John glanced at Rook—at the hole still torn through his chest, already closing—and then at Chad, who moved forward with absolute certainty, as if there was only one version of the truth worth keeping.

  John said nothing.

  But for the first time since arriving here, he wondered who decided which nightmares were allowed to live.