Lina was the one who found it.
She hadn't meant to go far from camp. She never did. Not like Ash, who liked the thrill of getting lost, or Mira, who always seemed drawn toward whatever felt dangerous. Lina just needed to breathe.
After Mira's dream, after the marks, after the basin—it all hung around her like a fog. Not just in the air, but in her chest, in her bones. Like everything sacred had quietly shifted sideways, and no one wanted to admit it.
Even the fire the night before had felt colder than it should.
She didn't want to admit it, but being around Rylan made it worse. Not because he had changed—he hadn't, not exactly—but because he knew he had. She could see it in his eyes: that lost, too-still expression. Like something was watching the world from behind them, measuring every moment.
So Lina wandered.
Not into the deeper woods—she wasn't a fool—but along the western edge of the grove, where the oldest trees leaned into one another like crones in conversation, and the moss grew so thick it swallowed her boots. The light didn't quite reach this part of the forest the same way. It bent oddly. Shadows overlapped like memories.
She was about to turn back when she saw it.
A rock, half-buried in moss and roots. Not remarkable at first glance. But one side of it was oddly flat—unnaturally so. As if shaped. Etched.
She frowned and knelt, brushing away the overgrowth with careful fingers. Vines came loose like threads being pulled from fabric. Beneath the layers, a small hollow emerged. Shallow, but deliberate. Carved.
And within it—leather.
Old.
Blackened at the corners. Warped by time.
Bound with bark twine that had petrified into something almost like bone.
Lina froze. Her first instinct was to call the others, but something stopped her. Not fear. Not secrecy.
Reverence.
She reached in, hands trembling slightly, and lifted it free.
A journal.
She didn't open it. Not yet.
She tucked it into her satchel and rose, turning back the way she came.
The forest remained silent behind her.
The others gathered as soon as they saw Lina's face.
No words had to be exchanged. Her expression told them enough: something had shifted. Something important. The tension that had wound around them since Mira's mark first appeared thickened again, stretching taut between glances and unsaid thoughts.
The campfire burned low. Sparks drifted upward like fireflies as they settled into a loose ring.
Rylan sat beside her as she unwrapped the bundle near the flames, his posture tense, but quiet. Mira stood across from them, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her thumb absently tracing the edge of the faint sigil on her palm. Varyon watched from over Lina's shoulder, jaw clenched in thought. And Ash hovered behind them all, leaning against a tree like he was only half-interested—but never far enough to miss a single word.
The leather groaned as Lina opened the cover.
Inside, the pages were yellowed and brittle. Some stuck together in soft clumps of decay. Others had flaked apart entirely. But in the midst of the ruined parchment, some pages had miraculously survived—intact, crisp, and clearly protected.
Preserved by something.
Rylan leaned closer. "Whose was it?"
Lina shook her head. "No name. But I think it belonged to someone from the First Circle."
Ash gave a low whistle. "So we've got ghost fan mail now."
Varyon didn't smile. He had already begun reading.
The first legible page had no title, no formal heading. Just a series of quick, uneven entries. Observations. Warnings. Thoughts that read like they had been scrawled between moments of panic.
Some were drawings of ruins they recognized. Others were fragments of events that felt too close to the present:
The Veil remains intact, but the Veyr grows quiet.
We do not speak the Ninth's name anymore.
He burns too brightly, and we've all begun to feel it.
Solin has warned us: if we hesitate, the Veil will thin.
But the Saint still refuses to act.
We are not seven anymore.
Mira's breath caught. "The Saint?"
"They mentioned that before," Rylan murmured. "In the vision. The Saint was the one who hesitated. The one who let it fester."
Lina turned the page.
A single line had been carved into the parchment — not inked, but cut:
There is a traitor among us.
Beneath it, scribbled in a different hand—rushed, sharp, barely legible:
Not a traitor. A key.
She opened it before. She will again.
The silence that followed felt endless.
Not because they didn't know what to say.
Because they already knew.
Mira stared at the fire, lips parted. "They're talking about me."
"No," Rylan said, too quickly. "Not you. Someone else. Someone from before."
"They didn't write her name," Lina said softly. "They were afraid to."
"No," Varyon said, stepping back from the fire. "Not afraid. Careful. There's a difference."
Ash tilted his head toward the trees. "So what are we saying here? That the Veil didn't fall because of some outside force? No curse, no breach. Just… one of them opened it. From the inside?"
"And one of us," Mira whispered, "might do it again."
No one answered.
Rylan turned the next page.
There were no words—only blackened parchment.
Ash at the edges. Burned deliberately.
Whatever had come next had been erased, destroyed before it could spread further.
That night, the journal pulsed.
Not the one Lina found.
The other one.
The real book.
The one that had chosen Rylan.
He'd kept it in his pack, wrapped in cloth and layered with salt and sigils they barely understood. Mira had suggested burying it. Varyon had even offered to burn it.
But Rylan had kept it anyway.
Because he knew what it was.
Because it knew him.
He woke before the others, eyes wide, breath shallow.
Something had called to him.
Not in words. Not even in dreams.
Just presence.
He pulled the book from the satchel slowly, reverently. It was cold to the touch. He didn't call to the others. Didn't make a sound.
The cover peeled back on its own.
The pages turned slowly, guided by no hand.
They stopped on a blank one.
Then, from the center of the page, ink began to bloom. Not black. Not quite. Too dark. Too fluid. Like the shadow of something deeper than shadow.
A shape formed.
A glyph, sharp as glass. Ancient in design.
And beneath it, a name:
SYRA.
Not one they'd spoken.
Not one they'd read.
But it settled into the room like a curse half-remembered.
Rylan whispered it aloud before he could stop himself.
And in the woods beyond the camp, the wind died.
Mira felt it first.
A pressure in her chest. Like someone had knocked the breath from her lungs without touching her. She sat bolt upright in her tent, eyes wide, hand clutching her sternum.
The mark on her palm burned cold.
Not searing. Not fire.
Ice.
She stumbled outside just as the fire dimmed.
The others followed in moments—Lina, blinking and clutching her coat; Ash already armed, though he didn't know why; Varyon, wordless, eyes scanning the trees.
Rylan stood at the edge of the clearing.
The book open in his hands.
And on the page, the name still pulsed:
SYRA.
"What did you do?" Mira asked, voice cracking.
"I didn't do anything," he said.
And yet, something in the earth shifted.
Deep.
Low.
Like something waking up.
Far below the grove, something opened its eyes.
Not newly born.
Not returning.
Remembering.
It had always been here. Watching. Waiting.
A name was all it needed.
Names had power.
And Syra had once been spoken as a warning.
Now it had been spoken again.
As an invitation.
In the distance, a whisper moved through the trees.
Not words.
Not sound.
Just a promise:
She will open it again.