Kael slept little that night, if sleep was even possible in a place without sunrise or sunset. The Archive's air never shifted, its silence never broke. Time flowed here like honey, thick and disobedient to human rhythm. He sat on the cold obsidian floor of the chamber, the indigo book in his lap, tracing its cover with shaking fingers.
Each time he blinked, his father's face returned—the smile, the embrace he had almost given in to. The test had ended, yet its residue lingered. His chest ached not from rejection, but from the sharpness of truth. It was one thing to long for the dead. Another to look into their eyes and say no.
"You survived," Liora said quietly from across the chamber. She had not moved for hours, seated with her legs folded beneath her, her posture as still as a statue's. "Most do not."
"That wasn't survival," Kael muttered. "It was… loss all over again."
"Every Keeper learns that lesson," she replied. "Memory is not mercy. It cuts as often as it comforts."
Kael looked up. "And you? Have you been through it?"
Liora's glasslike eyes flickered. "Many times. The Archive does not test once and release you. It tests every wound, every yearning, every shadow you carry. I failed once, long ago. That is why I remain here, bound to its shelves. To serve until it forgets my face."
Kael studied her. "You mean… you're trapped?"
"Not trapped." Her voice was even, but brittle. "Employed."
Before he could respond, a low vibration rippled through the chamber, deeper than thunder. The veins in the obsidian walls pulsed crimson instead of silver, and the temperature of the air shifted from cool to stifling.
Liora's eyes sharpened. "They've found us."
Kael rose to his feet. "Who?"
Her hand tightened around his wrist with icy urgency. "The Revisionists."
The chamber's walls shuddered, and the obsidian melted away. When Kael's vision cleared, they were no longer in the sanctuary but a vast hall lined with shelves wider than city streets. Figures stood among them—humanoid, cloaked in threads of ink that dripped from their bodies like liquid shadow. Their faces were obscured, but their voices rose in a low, collective murmur that reverberated through Kael's bones.
One stepped forward. Unlike the others, his face was visible—sharp features carved with precision, eyes alight with something between madness and brilliance. He regarded Kael with hungry curiosity.
"So this is the boy the Book chose." His voice was rich, cultured, but carried an edge of cruelty. "Unpolished, raw, yet alive in a way most here have forgotten."
Liora stepped between them. "Stay back, Seroth. He is not yours."
The man—Seroth—smiled faintly. "You cling to old rules, Liora. Preservation, stagnation, decay. You treat memory as sacred, when it is only clay waiting for the sculptor's hand. Stories deserve more than dust. They deserve revision."
His words struck Kael like sparks against dry grass. "Revision? You mean… changing them?"
"Of course," Seroth said smoothly. "Why let history rot in its true form, when it can be perfected? Imagine a world where every tragedy is rewritten into triumph. Every failure, corrected. Every death… undone."
The offer twisted in Kael's chest. His father's face flickered unbidden in his mind. A version of life where loss could be rewritten—wasn't that what he wanted?
Liora's voice cut through the temptation. "Lies dressed in silk are still lies. You corrupt the Archive with fantasies. You destroy truth."
"Truth," Seroth sneered, "is a brittle cage. People starve in it. Better to give them dreams that heal." His eyes locked onto Kael. "You know this, don't you? You've tasted the cruelty of memory. Why cling to pain, when I can teach you to reshape it?"
Kael's throat tightened. "You… you can't just erase reality."
"Erase?" Seroth chuckled. "No, boy. I improve." He gestured, and one of the shelves split open. A book rose, its pages fluttering. From it spilled an image: a battlefield, soldiers charging into hopeless slaughter. Then, with a flick of his hand, the scene shifted. The soldiers triumphed, raising banners in victory. The despair vanished, replaced by glory.
Kael's stomach twisted. It was beautiful. It was wrong.
Liora grabbed his arm. "Do not look. Their illusions rot the soul."
Seroth's gaze sharpened. "You fear him because he sees the truth you deny. The Archive is not a tomb. It is clay, and we are its sculptors. Come with me, Kael. I will show you how to write the world into perfection."
Kael's breath faltered. He thought of his father. His mother. The drowning river.
Truth or comfort. Which is nobler?
Liora's grip tightened, grounding him. "Choose carefully," she whispered. "Once you step onto his path, there is no return."
The shelves around them trembled, their spines glowing in conflict—some silver, some crimson. The Archive itself seemed to await his decision.
Kael stood frozen between them, the indigo book pulsing in his chest like a second heart.