The silence stretched. Kael's hand trembled around the indigo book as if it were a living heart, pulsing against his chest. Seroth's words lingered like smoke, thick and intoxicating. Every death undone. Every failure corrected. The promise was everything Kael had longed for in sleepless nights.
"You hesitate," Seroth said smoothly. His voice was velvet over steel. "That hesitation is the sound of truth whispering to you. Preservation offers you only grief. I offer release."
Kael's lips parted, but before he could answer, Liora stepped in front of him, her charcoal-sketched body flickering with urgency. "You don't know what you ask of him, Seroth. A rewrite is never clean. For every thread you weave, another frays. For every smile you restore, another face fades."
Seroth's eyes gleamed. "Ah, but is that not the nature of creation? Loss in exchange for beauty? Even the stars burn themselves to death just to give light." He spread his arms, his cloak dripping ink that hissed when it touched the shelves. "Tell me, boy—do you not wish to see your father again? Not as a cruel illusion, but as a man breathing, laughing, whole?"
Kael's heart stuttered. His father's memory surged before him: rough hands guiding his own around a fishing rod, laughter echoing over the riverbank. The ache was unbearable. Could I? Could I bring him back?
The book in his chest thrummed louder, almost painfully.
"Kael," Liora said sharply. "Do not let desire blind you. The Archive is not your diary to mend. It is the root of every world. If you tamper with one echo, the ripple tears through countless others."
Her words crashed against Seroth's, leaving Kael drowning in contradiction.
Seroth extended his hand. "You have power. Raw, untamed. That burst you used against Mourn was not preservation—it was creation. You do not belong in the dust with caretakers. You belong in fire, forging new epics."
Kael clenched his jaw. "And what do you want from me? To help you rewrite everything?"
"Not everything," Seroth said, his smile sharp. "Just enough to prove that truth is not sacred. Only stories worth telling deserve survival."
The shelves around them quaked, books rattling violently. From between the aisles came a sudden flare of light—this time not Seroth's doing. A book leapt from the shelf and burst open in midair, spilling a spiral of silver light that twisted into a vortex.
Liora gasped. "A fracture!"
The vortex widened, its edges jagged, unstable. Kael glimpsed fragments within it: a desert under black suns, a lone tower made of glass, a figure in chains reaching upward. The story was crumbling so quickly it ripped itself open without guidance.
Seroth laughed. "Fate delivers you a stage, boy. Step through. Rewrite it as you wish. Show me what kind of Archivist you truly are."
Liora grabbed Kael's arm. "No! Entering now will mark you. The Archive will no longer see you as apprentice—it will see you as actor. Once you rewrite, you cannot return to neutrality."
Kael's pulse thundered in his ears. The vortex howled, calling to him. He felt the same pull as with Eira's tale, but sharper, hungrier, as though the story itself demanded his intervention.
His mind split along two voices.
Preserve. Honor the truth, even if it's cruel.
Rewrite. Bring beauty where there was pain. Bring back what you lost.
Kael stepped forward, closer to the light.
Seroth's smile widened. "Yes. Choose the fire."
Liora's grip tightened, her voice trembling with urgency. "Kael! Think. To preserve is to bear the weight of truth. To rewrite is to bear the guilt of a lie. Which burden can you endure?"
The indigo book in Kael's chest blazed, pulling him toward the fracture. He could not stand still any longer.
"I don't know which is right," Kael whispered, "but I can't do nothing."
And with that, he leapt into the light.
The world spun. His body felt stretched, pulled apart into letters and stitched back together as words. The scent of ash filled his lungs. When he landed, he stood in a wasteland of shifting sand beneath a sky painted black with two suns hanging motionless above.
A tower of glass loomed ahead, cracked, its top swallowed by clouds. Chains of shadow wrapped around it, binding something within.
Kael staggered, dizzy, then steadied himself. He was inside again. Another story. Another test.
Behind him, faint and echoing, he thought he heard Seroth's laughter—and Liora's sharp, desperate cry.