The carriage creaked softly as it rolled across the morning road. Dream sat with his arms folded, gaze distant, mortal eyes half-lidded but very awake. Erias sat across from him, clutching the fabric of his new coat, still shaken from the night before.
Silence stretched between them.
Not tense.Not comfortable.Just… heavy.
Erias kept glancing at Dream, then away, then back again. The boy's mind churned with questions, fear, amazement, and confusion, but one question refused to leave him.
At last, he spoke.
"Varos… where did you learn to fight like that?"
Dream looked at him slowly. For a moment, he said nothing.
He could not tell the boy he had fought in the skies before the first mortal ever drew breath. He could not tell him he had slain nightmares made from raw terror. He could not tell him he had moved through millennia-long wars in the dream-realm. He could not tell him that every strike came from a cosmic instinct older than this world.
So he said the one truth a mortal could accept.
"Experience," Dream answered quietly. "Many years of… experience."
Erias frowned. "But no one moves like that. Not even stories of heroes say someone can move like that."
Dream held his gaze.
"Stories have always told too little," he said. "And mortals always underestimate what practice can become."
The boy lowered his eyes, thinking deeply about that, about power earned, power learned, power honed.
Silence followed again.
Hours later, the city appeared in the distance towers of pale stone rising like silver teeth against the horizon, banners fluttering on high walls, crowds moving like seas around the massive gate.
The road widened.
Merchants approached. Travellers walked. Guards patrolled. The world felt bigger, louder, faster.
Erias leaned out the window, eyes widening at the size of the city.
"Varos," he whispered, "that's the… the City of Aramoor."
Dream nodded but remained quiet.
A symbol caught his eye hanging from the great stone gate. A large banner of deep red, emblazoned with scales of balance wreathed in flame.
The sigil of Torvas.
One of the two gods who had confronted Dream in the countryside.
Dream leaned forward.
"Erias," he said softly, "that symbol. The flaming scales. What does it mean to your people?"
Erias looked surprised by the question.
"Oh, that? That's the banner of Torvas the God of Justice. Aramoor is his main centre of worship. The capital honours him. His priests patrol the streets sometimes."
Dream studied the massive banner billowing in the wind.
"And those who worship other gods?" Dream asked.
"Oh, they're allowed," Erias replied quickly. "The kingdom doesn't force anyone to worship Torvas. They just… You know… honour him as the protector of the crown."
Dream nodded slowly.
So that explained it.
Why two gods could appear beside a mere mortal's carriage.Why Aestra and Torvas watched the roads.Why the divine presence was stronger here than anywhere else in Vvralis.
The kingdom itself was a beacon for divine attention.
It also meant
The traitor was hiding in the shadow of a god's influence.
Dream's jaw tightened.
How bold.
Or how desperate.
As the carriage approached the city gates, the crowds parted instinctively. The polished wood, the magnificent horse, and the quiet nobility of the carriage's motion drew the attention of guards and passersby alike.
Erias pulled back inside, heart racing.
"Varos… people are staring again."
"Yes," Dream said, "they often do when they see unfamiliar things."
Erias swallowed. "Is… that a bad thing?"
"It depends on who is looking."
Dream's gaze lifted toward the gate.
Priests stood on each side draped in crimson robes with gold thread, bearing the sigil of Torvas on their shoulders.
One of them noticed the carriage.
His breath caught.
He stared at Dream with a recognition mortals should not have.
Not recognition of identity…
Recognition of presence.
Presence that did not belong to mortals.Presence that gods feared.A presence that bent the air around it.
The priest's eyes widened with awe and alarm.
He whispered to the acolyte next to him:
"That man… that presence… alert the High Temple. Now."
The acolyte ran.
The priest stepped into the flow of the crowd, following the carriage quietly, trying to look discreet.
Dream knew.
He didn't turn his head. He didn't give a sign.
But he knew.
The priest's heartbeat echoed through the air. His breath stuttered whenever Dream shifted slightly in his seat. His divine sensitivity, the gift given to all who served Torvas, reacted violently to Dream's presence.
He felt the echo of something older, stronger, higher than gods.
He felt Dream.
Erias didn't notice.
He was staring up at the high walls with sparkling eyes.
"Varos," he whispered excitedly, "look! Those buildings… they touch the clouds!"
Dream kept his gaze forward.
"Yes," he said. "But clouds are not what we must worry about."
They passed beneath the giant gate, shadows of the stone arch swallowing them.
The priest followed.
Dream's eyes narrowed slightly as they entered the city.
The dream-scent was here.
Faint.But unmistakable.
The traitor was in Aramoor.
Waiting.
Plotting.
Watching.
Beside him, Erias leaned forward, overwhelmed by the city's size.
"Where are we going first?" Erias asked. "Are we meeting someone? Are we"
But Dream did not answer.
Because something else caught his attention.
A ripple of dream-force.
A whisper.
A familiar wrongness.
It crawled like frost through the alleys of the city.
The traitor's trail.
Dream felt its shadow on the very stones beneath the city.
He inhaled slowly.
Then whispered:
"It begins."
Erias blinked. "What does?"
Dream didn't answer.
The carriage rolled on.
Behind them, the priest of Torvas continued his quiet pursuit eyes full of fear, confusion, and reverence.
And ahead of them
the traitor waited.
In the heart of the city.
Plotting its next move.