POV: Arthur Starlight
I never liked leaving the academy.
Not because I was afraid of the outside world—but because the outside world always reacted to me in ways I didn't understand.
The air shifted. The ground tensed. Sometimes the wind forgot how to move.
Today was no different.
We traveled in silence through the forested paths of the Outer Tier. Our instructors called it a "controlled expedition." A simple observation run to the Archive of Dust. No combat. No spellwork. Just "exposure."
But no one really explained what we were supposed to learn.
The sky above was pale with layered cloudlight, the kind that looked painted on. Trees arched overhead, tall and pale and smooth like bones left too long in sunlight. The birds didn't sing here.
"Do you know why it's called the Archive of Dust?" Elanor asked quietly as we walked side by side. Her breath fogged slightly, even though the air wasn't cold.
"No," I answered, though I did.
Because it was where memory went to rot.
The Archive wasn't a library. Not in the usual sense. It wasn't built—it was discovered. A crater full of broken relics, fractured monuments, and fossilized pages that refused to stay dead. The wind carried voices here, but never yours. If you spoke too loud, sometimes you'd hear yourself answer.
They said early Evolvanth users trained here. The first dreamers. The first distortions. And some never left.
Vanitar trailed just behind us, silent as always. His eyes flicked around like they were seeing through the surface of things. I watched him walk once—just once—and noticed how even the grass didn't dare grow too close to his boots.
He didn't look curious.
He looked like someone returning.
The others joked, whispered, even pretended bravery. But when the ruins finally came into view, everyone went quiet.
The Archive was vast—sunken steps led into a crater choked with monuments and altars, half-consumed by sand that never shifted, windless but never still. Obsidian slabs jutted from the ground at impossible angles. Symbols carved into stone shimmered and rearranged when you looked away.
Velmira, our lead instructor, raised her hand.
"This is not a battlefield," she said, her voice calm but edged. "This is memory petrified. Be respectful."
We entered in silence.
And the world changed.
Every step we took echoed. Not out loud—but in memory. I saw flickers behind my eyes. A boy screaming into an empty altar. A sword snapping against itself. A name I didn't recognize—being spoken like it mattered.
This place didn't hold stories.
It remembered them.
And that's when I felt it.
The mark beneath my shirt—where Noctivox slept—burned, just slightly. Like someone tapping it from the outside. Like someone—or something—recognized it.
I froze. So did Vanitar.
He looked at me.
And for the first time…
He looked afraid.