The rain had been falling for hours, a relentless curtain that blurred the city into streaks of gray. Elior pulled his thin cloak tighter around his shoulders as he hurried across the empty square. His shoes squelched in the mud, and the damp cold gnawed at his bones. He had no coin for the taverns, no family hearth waiting for him. The only refuge he could think of was the grand city library — though it had closed its doors long before the storm began.
He reached the towering building and pressed his hand against the heavy oak doors. To his surprise, one of them groaned open at his touch. No lamplight burned within, only shadows stretched across rows of shelves that seemed to watch him as he slipped inside.
The silence was heavy, broken only by the soft drip of water from his cloak. He wandered deeper, past familiar halls of history and scripture, until he reached the old eastern wing — a place most avoided. The shelves here were warped with age, the air thick with the musk of forgotten parchment. It was said the wing had been sealed years ago after a fire. Yet as Elior pressed onward, he found no barricade, only dust and darkness.
Then he saw it.
At the far wall stood a door he had never noticed before — tall, black, and seamless, as if carved from a single slab of obsidian. It had no handle, no hinges, no lock. Only an inscription burned faintly across its surface:
"Once a world is read, it must be survived."
Elior's heart quickened. He stepped closer, his hand trembling as he touched the cold stone. The door shuddered beneath his palm and swung open soundlessly. A gust of air rushed out, carrying the scent of ink and something else — something vast and ancient, like the breath of the earth itself.
Beyond was not a room but an endless night. Shelves rose into infinity, crisscrossing in impossible patterns, their ladders stretching into nothingness. Lanterns floated above the aisles, their flames pale and cold. And on the shelves lay books — thousands, tens of thousands, glowing faintly as if alive.
Elior stepped across the threshold. The door slammed shut behind him.
The silence here was different — thicker, like a heartbeat pulsing through the air. He wandered between the shelves, drawn to a thin, leather-bound volume lying open on a pedestal. Its pages shimmered faintly.
Words shifted on the parchment as he looked:
"Chronicle of the Dead Kingdom."
Before he could turn away, the letters unraveled into smoke and rushed into his eyes. The world tilted. The shelves dissolved.
Elior was no longer in the library.
He was standing on a battlefield.
The sky burned crimson, filled with the stench of ash and blood. Around him sprawled the ruins of a once-great city, its towers collapsed into heaps of stone. Corpses littered the ground, clad in shattered armor. As he stumbled back, one of the corpses twitched. Its skull jerked upward, hollow eyes glowing with sickly green fire.
And then another rose. And another.
Dozens of them. An army of the dead, their rusted swords screeching as they were dragged free of the earth.
Elior's breath caught in his throat. He had no weapon, no training — only bare hands and a mind screaming to run. He staggered backward as the first of the undead lurched toward him, its jaw hanging loose in a grotesque grin.
From the corner of his vision, a figure moved. A girl — tall, armored, with a sword that gleamed like moonlight. She cut down the first skeleton in a single swing, then turned her sharp eyes on him.
"You don't belong here," she said, her voice cold but steady.
Elior's lips parted, but no words came.
She extended her hand. "Come with me, or you'll die where you stand."
And though every instinct told him not to trust her, Elior took her hand.
The battle had only just begun.