The first sound Kael noticed in the endless library was not footsteps or whispers, but the absence of his own echo. The obsidian floor should have reflected his movements with sharp, hollow resonance, yet his steps fell soundlessly, as though the place swallowed noise. The silence was alive, a presence watching him.
He tightened his grip on the indigo book. Its warmth anchored him, though the enormity of the Archive made him feel like a speck of dust drifting in a cathedral built for gods. He tilted his head back, but the shelves climbed higher than sight could reach, each book humming faintly, like stars singing in the night.
"Don't stare too long," a voice said.
Kael spun, his breath caught in his throat.
A figure stood between the shelves—a girl, no older than he was, her pale hair falling in loose strands over a robe the color of parchment. Her eyes glowed faintly, not with light but with a strange transparency, like panes of glass reflecting worlds behind them. She carried no book, no torch, no tool—yet she moved as though she had walked these halls for lifetimes.
"Why not?" Kael asked, still clutching his book like a shield.
"Because infinity has teeth," she said.
Her words carried no malice, but Kael shivered. The girl studied him with a gaze that stripped him bare, as though she could see the moment of his drowning, the fear still lingering in his bones.
"You shouldn't be here," she added.
"I didn't choose it," Kael muttered. "The river pulled me. The book—" He lifted the indigo tome. "This thing. It brought me here."
For the first time, her expression shifted. Interest flickered across her face like a spark.
"You can hold it," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "That shouldn't be possible."
Kael frowned. "What do you mean? Of course I can hold it. It saved me."
She shook her head. "Most who glimpse it see only air. To touch it is… forbidden." She stepped closer, her movements fluid, deliberate. "What is your name?"
"Kael."
"And mine is Liora," she said. "I am… a custodian, of sorts. I keep watch where the shelves collapse, where memory leaks into void."
Kael glanced at the endless rows of books. "So this is… what? A library?"
"Not a library," Liora said. "A graveyard. Every book you see is a story that once lived, spoken or written. When the last tongue forgets it, when the last page crumbles, it comes here. The Archive remembers what mortals cannot."
Her words sank into him like stones into water. He turned slowly, taking in the towering shelves again. Whole lives, forgotten. Whole worlds, reduced to whispers on glowing spines. The thought pressed against his chest, both awe and sorrow.
"But if it's all forgotten," Kael asked softly, "what's the point of keeping it?"
Liora's eyes narrowed. "That is the point. What is remembered dies only when it is left nowhere at all. This place resists oblivion. Whether that resistance is a mercy or a cruelty, no one agrees."
Her voice carried weight, as though repeating a debate spoken countless times.
Kael stared at the indigo book. "Then why do I have this? Why give it to me?"
"That," Liora said, and for the first time her voice trembled, "is the question that frightens me."
A low hum reverberated through the floor, deeper than the pulse of Kael's book. The shelves trembled, dust rising from high above. Liora's eyes darted upward, her face tightening.
"They've noticed," she whispered.
"Who?" Kael asked, though dread already crawled down his spine.
Liora grabbed his arm, her grip icy cold. "Run."
They fled between shelves that seemed to stretch longer with every step. Shadows moved in the periphery—forms too vague to name, yet too deliberate to ignore. Books shook loose from their spines, spilling pages that dissolved into ash before hitting the floor. The hum grew louder, more insistent, like a heartbeat turning frantic.
Kael stumbled, but Liora pulled him up with unnatural strength. "Don't stop," she hissed. "The Wards can't touch you if you keep moving."
"The what?" Kael gasped.
She didn't answer. Ahead, the shelves bent inward, forming a narrow corridor that ended in a stone archway. Its surface rippled, like water disturbed by breath. Liora shoved him toward it.
"Through here!"
They dove.
The world inverted again—falling, folding, unraveling. Kael landed hard on his side, groaning. The hum in his chest steadied, easing the panic from his veins. He blinked, disoriented, as the new space came into focus.
It was smaller, more contained. A chamber carved of obsidian, lit by glowing veins of silver running through the stone. Tables lined the edges, covered with open tomes and quills suspended midair, writing by themselves. At the center stood a pedestal, empty save for faint etchings burned into the surface.
Liora knelt beside him, her expression stern. "You shouldn't have come. But now that you have, you cannot leave unchanged."
Kael pushed himself up. "I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't even know this place existed!"
"That doesn't matter," she said. "The book chose you. Which means the Archive will test you. And if you fail…"
Her gaze drifted to the pedestal, her words trailing like smoke.
Kael swallowed hard. "If I fail, what?"
She looked at him, and for the first time her glass-like eyes held something close to pity.
"Then you become part of the shelves."