The Rebirth Of The Beast Tamer

Through the storm-light, shadows crawled across the shrine's cracked threshold. They took shape, with mist sculpting itself into forms.

Two silhouettes was blurred yet agonizingly familiar but it stood at the edge of the lightning fissures. "Mother…?" The word slipped out before he could stop it. Immediately the shrine fell away.

He was no longer Kelvin the Crest's tamer, no longer the bearer of Xerion's flame or wielder of relics. The stone pillar at his back became dissolved. The storm's howled a roar that collapsed into a single, deafening sound that shrieks, roars and the snapping of bone.

His fingers didn't grip steel but a splintered wooden practice sword. His knees was knocked together. His voice was cracked as he begged two blurred shapes of his parents to flee. "Please, please, we have to go! They are coming! Run!" He pleaded.

The beast tide poured through the Ironholt's gates once more. Twisted maws was dripping with fire and talons rending armor like cloth, the stench of carrion burning.

Kelvin's lungs refused to fill up, he felt the same suffocating helplessness of that night, as if no years had passed and no strength had been gained.

"Kelvin." The voice of his father was firm, steady despite the chaos. His mother's hand was on his shoulder, it was warm and trembling. They smiled at him, smiling as if they were not moments from death.

"You must live." A sob tore free from his throat. He dropped to his knees with wooden sword clattering uselessly against stone, though his vision was blurred with tears.

"Not again," he whispered. "Please, not again." And in the corner of his vision he saw Xerion.

The beast prowled the edge of the illusion with green lightning crawling along its wings. Xerion's form shimmered, unstable, as though the Veil itself were trying to paint him as another phantom. The bond between them thinned like fraying thread.

This is not real, Xerion's voice pressed into his mind, heavy with urgency. Kelvin, anchor yourself because you are not that boy anymore.

But Kelvin staggered backward, clutching his head. "No! You are not real, you are just another trick! They have already taken everything from me; I won't let you be another lie!"

He shoved Xerion's presence away. The bond dimmed and seemed muted like a flame that is snuffed under ash. Xerion snarled, claws tearing furrows in the stone as if it is to anchor himself against Kelvin's rejection.

The phantasms surged at once, growing sharper. His parents stepped closer, with their arms outstretched. Their voices overlapped, warm and suffocating.

"Stay with us, don't be afraid, you don't need to fight anymore…" Kelvin's breathing broke into ragged gasps. His chest was burned.

His wooden sword was splintered, useless and shook in his trembling hands. He wanted to fall into their arms. Wanted to let go of the endless battles, the responsibility and the weight of leadership pressed against his spine.

Maybe if he let it consume him, there would be peace. The storm howled as the shrine's walls rattled and as he tried to reach out for them his knees buckled. And then a roar shattered across the plain. It was xerion's roar.

Not the weak cry of an illusion, but the guttural, soul-deep thunder of his true companion. It shook the shrine. It tore through the illusion like claws rending silk.

Kelvin staggered back as the figures of his parents flickered with green fissures tearing across their faces. The warmth in their eyes melted into cold, hollow Veil light.

Look at me, Xerion's mind-voice thundered, forcing itself into Kelvin's collapsing psyche. You are not a boy anymore. You are my tamer. My fire is yours, and yours is mine. You are Kelvin the one who made death itself yield to will.

Kelvin's tears burned hot on his cheeks. His gaze locked with Xerion's obsidian eyes which was unwavering and fierce.

In them he saw not a phantom, but the years they had fought together and the hunts survived, the scars earned, the victories that was carved from despair.

His parents' faces wavered again. They reached for him, but the words shifted. "Coward, you let us die, mind you that you will never be enough."

Kelvin's grip tightened on the splintered wooden sword and then he snapped it across his knee. The sound cracked like thunder, cutting through the last remnants of illusion.

He rose to his feet, shoulders squared, the storm's fury reflected in his eyes. "You were brave," he whispered, not to the illusions, but to the memory of them. "And you taught me to be the same. I don't carry your death as chains. I carry it as the fire that brought me here."

Xerion bared his fangs, wings snapping wide. The illusion shattered completely, green shards exploded into the storm like glasses.

Kelvin dropped to one knee, exhausted but unbroken. Xerion pressed his great head against Kelvin's chest, his heartbeat was synchronizing with his own. The bond flared bright again and stronger than before.

For the first time, Kelvin realized that the courage his parents had shown was not meant to haunt him. It was meant to guide him and nd it had.

The storm still raged outside the shrine, but inside, Kelvin was no longer the boy clutching a broken wooden sword. He was the man who had forged himself through fire and loss. And he would not break.

The shrine was not a true shelter. The necrotic storm pressed its weight against the broken walls with its green lightning splintering through fissures in the ceiling and floor.

Each crack gave off a low moan, as though the very bones of the plains were protesting. The Veilstone relic on Kelvin's belt continued to hum, while harmonizing with the storm in a way that felt less like resonance and more like invitation.

Lyra stood at the far side of the shrine, bow in hand, though it felt heavier than it should. The storm made her fingers tremble, though not from cold.

The sound was not merely a thunder, it carried voices. Echoes that was twined into the cracks of her heart, weaving temptation out of memory.

"Elara." The name slipped from her lips before she even realized that she had called out. The fissure nearest to her flashed again. From the light, a silhouette stepped forth. Her breath was caught in her throat.

This time is not the broken, bloodied body that she had cradled in those final hours, but a whole, bright-eyed, lips curved in the smile Lyra thought she had never see again.

The phantom carried the same easy grace, the same tilt of head that had always carried warmth even in their hardest training. "Lyra," Elara whispered. "Sister." Lyra responded.

Lyra staggered a step forward. Her chest ached with longing, with the kind of ache that blurs reason. "You are…" Her bow slackened in her grip. "You're alive?"

The phantom tilted her head, beckoning with outstretched hands. "Come, leave all this behind. You don't need to fight anymore and stay with me."

For one trembling heartbeat, Lyra believed it. Her boots scraped across stone, carrying her closer to the fissure's edge.

The storm surged behind Elara, turning her into a figure carved from living light, flawless and radiant. Lyra's heart screamed to cross the distance, to undo years of guilt with one embrace.

But then Salaris shrieked. The shadowbeast's screech cut through the storm, a sound that is sharp enough to rattle the shrine walls.

Lyra flinched with pain spiking behind her eyes. Salaris launched from her perch, wings flared wide as shadow-feathers spun into the air.

"Not now," Lyra hissed, lifting her arm to shield herself from the force of her own companion's cry. "It is her, don't you see? It is really her!"

But Salaris's mind-voice clawed through Lyra's rising delusion. That is not her and is not real. Look! And you will see chains.

Lyra's gaze snapped back to Elara and only this time, the light flickered. And there, around the phantom's arms, shadows were writhed. Chains slithered, dripping from the storm like tar.

They were twined around Lyra's legs and arms, tightening whenever she tried to resist. "No…" Lyra whispered, shaking her head violently. "No, you are not."

But her bow sagged further. The runes etched into its wood refused to ignite, as though the illusion itself had leached her strength. Her shoulders were shook under invisible weight.

The phantom Elara stepped closer, shadows dragging like bridal veils behind her. "Sister… you could not save me. You will never save anyone. Why fight? Why suffer? Let go so that you can rest with me."

Lyra's knees buckled. Her vision became blurred with hot tears. She almost dropped her bow entirely, with chains pulling her down, dragging her toward the fissure's edge where the storm raged most violently.

One more step and she would fall. Salaris screeched again, the sound was raw but desperate. Lyra's body jerked, but still the illusion pulled.

She laughed through her sobs, with a broken sound. "Maybe she is right, Salaris. Maybe I should just..." The beast didn't wait for her to finish.