The Archive was restless.
Shelves creaked as if under invisible pressure, spines of books cracked open on their own, spilling ink that writhed like worms across the marble floor. Caretakers whispered in tones sharper than knives, their parchment masks splitting as they argued. The fracture Kael had entered was bleeding into the Archive.
Liora stood rigid, her charcoal-sketched form trembling. "This isn't just any collapse," she muttered. "The tower he's entered… it should never have been left unsealed."
Seroth leaned lazily against a swaying shelf, his cloak dripping ink in leisurely arcs. "Unsealed? Unforgotten, you mean. You and your kind buried it because you feared its truth. And now? The boy has unearthed it with the innocence of a child digging in the dirt."
Her gaze sharpened. "If he reaches what's chained inside—"
"Then he will glimpse the origin of the Archive itself," Seroth cut in, voice smooth as velvet. "The first fracture. The story even you were forbidden to read."
Liora's hands shook, but her voice rose with defiance. "No one can wield that knowledge without being undone."
Seroth's smile widened. "Then let us see how the boy fares. After all… isn't every archivist born to unravel, one page at a time?"
---
Kael pressed through the tower's base.
The glass walls were fractured, bleeding motes of light that floated like dying fireflies. His reflection split across the shards, showing dozens of versions of himself—some older, some younger, some broken, some smiling. He looked away quickly.
The interior was hollow and cavernous, each step echoing far longer than it should. Cracks zigzagged across the transparent floor, beneath which lay sand swirling like a storm.
He found writing etched into the walls—lines of script he could barely decipher, half-scrubbed away by age.
—the prisoner is not to be named.
—song is the key, but the song is also the lock.
—to rewrite is to release; to preserve is to condemn.
Kael ran his hand across the inscriptions, his chest tightening. "Not to be named… but why?"
The air grew heavier the deeper he walked. The song was clearer now—no longer faint, but echoing against the glass like a heartbeat. Four notes, mournful, circling endlessly.
At the far end of a corridor, he found doors of obsidian glass, their surfaces bound in shadowed chains. The song seemed to pulse from behind them.
Kael froze. Every instinct screamed that beyond those doors waited the prisoner.
But he wasn't ready. Not yet.
He turned aside, exploring the adjoining chambers. Inside were fragments—objects scattered like abandoned memories: a shattered crown, a mirror webbed with cracks, a quill burned to ash. Each hummed faintly with power, as though they were remnants of the story that had once lived here.
Kael touched the crown. For an instant, he saw a vision: a figure kneeling in chains, their head bowed, their voice carrying those same four notes. The vision shattered, leaving Kael breathless.
He stumbled back, gripping his chest. "This story… it's not just broken. It's imprisoned."
The indigo book throbbed at his heart, pulling him onward, toward the chained doors.
Kael swallowed hard, sweat prickling his skin. "I'll find the truth. But not blindly. Not yet."
He turned his gaze upward, at the endless fractured walls. "I need to understand this place first."
The song lingered, low and patient, as though waiting for him to decide whether he would one day open the door.