They came without warning.

  Seven of them. Cloaked in gray and gold. Faces hidden beneath silver-veined masks. Their weapons — curved, silent, and marked with the symbol of a closed eye.

  The Brotherhood of Sleep had awakened.

  They moved as one across the forest ridge, wordless, bound by oath. Each step they took seemed guided by dream-memory — as if they walked paths their minds had never traveled but their souls remembered.

  In the valley below, the Masked Man knelt beside a frozen stream, washing blood from his hands. His breath curled in the air. He didn’t look up.

  “I wondered when you'd come,” he said.

  The Brotherhood circled him silently.

  He stood.

  No blade. No fear. Only that steady presence — like gravity itself bent around him.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The first brother struck.

  The Masked Man dodged easily. Effortlessly. He caught the attacker mid-swing, turned his momentum, and snapped the blade in half without drawing a weapon. The brother hit the ground. Silent.

  The others followed. And one by one, they fell.

  But he did not kill them.

  Not yet.

  Only one remained — a younger initiate, breathing hard, sword trembling in his grasp. His mask was chipped, his stance uneven.

  The Masked Man approached slowly.

  “You’re not ready.”

  “You’re the Awakened One,” the initiate spat. “You were built to burn the world.”

  “Was I?” the Masked Man murmured. “Or were you told that in your dreams?”

  He stepped back.

  “Run back to your order. Tell them what you saw. Tell them I spared you.”

  The initiate stood frozen.

  “Why?”

  “Because someday, you’ll question who the real enemy is.”

  And just like that — he vanished into the fog.

  Far away, in a candlelit hall beneath the mountain, a figure stirred among the Brotherhood’s high priests. He crushed a dreamstone in his palm and whispered:

  “He remembers too much.”

  Why Did He Spare the Young Brother?