Ashen opened his eyes.
Only-They weren't his.
He stood in a dim room lit by ink-soaked candles, surrounded by walls that breathed.
Script etched into skin. Skin folded into paper. Paper shaped into architecture.
The ceiling dripped with letters that rearranged themselves when he blinked. Words crawled over his arms like veins. He was naked, but not cold-clothed in language, stitched into his body.
"Begin record," a voice said from nowhere.
Ashen turned—too fast—and the world stuttered, as if it couldn't render motion correctly.
"You're in a memory cell," came a second voice. This one... was familiar.
Ryn Velos stepped forward from the shadows.
Only now, his burnt eyes were wide open.
Alive.
Seeing.
"Welcome to the Archive," Ryn said gently. "Or rather... your copy of it."
Ashen opened his mouth, but words failed. Not figuratively.
Literally.
Each time he tried to speak, a sentence formed in the air before him and broke apart into static before it reached his lips.
Ryn sighed and snapped his fingers.
The silence shattered.
Ashen gasped. "What the hell is this?! Where are we?! You're not real!"
"No," Ryn said, smiling like a man who'd already read the book of his own death. "But neither are you. Not right now."
Ashen backed up—his feet left punctuation marks where they stepped.
"This isn't real."
"It is," Ryn said, stepping forward. "It's just not yours."
[Flashback - Archive Memory Cell #116-A - Year: Unknown]
A girl sits at a desk, scribbling words that drip red onto parchment.
A tall man—hooded, faceless—looms behind her, whispering syllables that make her teeth fall out.
On the wall behind her: "To record God is to reword Self."
Ashen blinked. The memory bled out of the air.
Ryn gestured at the floating scraps. "The Archive stores every deviation. Every lie someone told about the truth. Every forgotten god. Every rewritten man."
He leaned closer.
"You just stepped into a place that remembers things even the divine want erased."
"Why are you helping me?" Ashen asked.
"I'm not," Ryn said with a grin. "I'm part of the test."
"Test?"
"You're not the first Witness. Just the first to survive past two sigils."
That itch in Ashen's shoulder twitched again.
"But you're bleeding now," Ryn continued. "You've touched the Cipher too early. It gave you a taste of truth. Unprepared minds... break."
Ashen's head throbbed.
"I'm not breaking," he muttered.
"Oh?" Ryn stepped aside and gestured to a mirror behind him.
Ashen looked—and staggered.
It wasn't his reflection.
It was dozens of versions of him, blinking in and out. One with golden eyes. One with no face. One weeping black feathers.
Only one mouthed something.
"You are a footnote."
"I don't understand."
"You will."
Ryn touched Ashen's forehead.
Ashen fell backward—
And woke up in the ruins of Miretongue, choking on ink.
Vaela was crouched over him, panting, one arm bleeding from a glyph-shaped wound.
"You—" she slapped him. "You—idiot!"
Ashen coughed. "What—happened—"
"You touched the Cipher," she spat. "Do you know what it does to the mind?! That was a test to see if you'd become one of them! If you'd start erasing reality instead of walking it!"
"I saw him again," Ashen muttered. "Ryn."
Vaela froze.
"Was it the real him?"
Ashen hesitated. "No. But it knew things. About me. About the other... me."
Vaela's voice dropped to a whisper. "The Archivists call that 'Echo Bloom.' Traces of identity branching across threads. The more you awaken, the more of yourself you'll see—but they won't all be loyal to you."
Ashen sat up, dizzy.
On his hand, the new rune had settled.
It was shaped like a quill crossing out a crown.
Vaela paled.
"The 'Scribe's Undoing'," she whispered.
Ashen looked at her. "What does that mean?"
"It's not a sigil," she said, trembling. "It's a vote."
Suddenly—
A figure stepped from the mouth of the ruin. Dressed in red and black robes, eyes hidden behind an iron veil. They carried a chain of severed tongues.
They spoke in a dialect that rearranged itself as it hit the air.
"Witness Halweir. You've been noticed."
Vaela gripped her blades again. "Ashen—run."
"Who is that?!"
"The Curator."
The Curator raised a hand. The world around them bent.
"The Archive has chosen you. You will Unwrite—or be Unwritten."