The peace didn't last.
One morning, as fog rolled down the hills, a scream echoed across the village.
A boy — dirt-covered and wild-eyed — came running from the fields. "Something's in the valley!" he shouted. "It took the sheep! It— it has red eyes!"
Toren dropped his hammer.
Lyra's mother gathered her staff. Others grabbed pitchforks, bows, anything they could find.
Auron followed, heart pounding.
When they reached the valley's edge, they saw it — a creature of smoke and armor, standing tall with claws like blades and eyes like burning coals.
It snarled.
The villagers froze.
Toren stepped forward. "Get behind me!"
But Auron felt it — the same power from his dream. The storm surged in his veins.
Without thinking, he stepped past his father.
"Auron—!"
Too late.
Auron raised his hand — and with a scream, lightning burst from his palm, slamming into the shadow beast.
The creature shrieked and stumbled back, smoke boiling off its skin.
The villagers stared in shock.
Lyra whispered, "You… you really are something else."
The beast roared, then turned and fled into the trees — but before it vanished, it spoke in a deep, guttural voice:
"He has returned… The blade… lives…"
Then it was gone.
Auron fell to one knee, exhausted. His body trembled. His palm smoked.
Toren rushed to him. "Son… what have you become?"
"I don't know," Auron whispered. "But it's coming back. All of it."
He looked to the forest, the place where the creature disappeared.
The past hadn't just returned in dreams.
It had returned in shadows.