The chamber's silence weighed on Kael long after the last whisper faded. He stood before the dais, staring at the throne of jagged glass, its shadowed chains humming faintly as though remembering the echo of his question.
"You will be inside it."
The words had burrowed deep, ringing louder than the rattling chains themselves. He pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the indigo book pulse with steady resistance, as if shielding him from the meaning laced in that promise.
But curiosity gnawed sharper than fear.
He circled the chamber's edge, each step measured, listening for the voice to return. The fissures along the walls glowed faintly with a light like frozen lightning, and through them, Kael thought he saw movement—a silhouette pacing just beyond the cracks, blurred but immense, as if the prisoner's very presence bled into every surface of the tower.
"Are you watching me?" he asked softly.
The fissures flared brighter in response.
Kael bit his lip. "Why can't I see you clearly?"
A whisper drifted from the chains, barely audible: "…because you already know me. You only refuse to remember."
The words stung. Kael frowned. He had never heard such a claim before, yet something about it struck a chord he couldn't name. He turned away, trying to focus on the room itself.
At the far side, a passage split off into a narrow corridor. He followed it, the glass beneath his boots shifting from fractured transparency to a mirror-sheen surface. His reflection stared back at him with unsettling clarity.
But it wasn't just his reflection.
Each pane showed a different Kael: one with hollow eyes and blood on his hands, another kneeling in chains himself, another walking away from the throne entirely, leaving it to crumble.
Kael staggered, the weight of those reflections pressing into him. "These aren't real…"
"…they are all real," the whisper cut across him. "…stories you might become. Paths written but not yet chosen."
His reflection blinked, but he hadn't. The Kael in the glass lifted his chained wrists, staring at him with quiet accusation.
"No," Kael muttered, backing away. "That isn't me."
But the chained reflection only smiled—a tired, broken smile that twisted his stomach.
He turned sharply and pressed deeper into the corridor. The book at his side pulsed, almost frantic now, as though it wanted to pull him away. But Kael clenched his jaw. If this tower was meant to show him fragments, then he would face them, even if they tore him apart.
The corridor opened into a smaller chamber, this one lined with hanging shards of glass like suspended lanterns. Each shard glowed faintly, flickering like candlelight, and as Kael stepped closer he saw that each shard held a scene.
A battlefield of ink and fire.
A woman with eyes like stars, kneeling in sorrow.
A figure cloaked in shadow, binding chains around themselves willingly.
He reached for one shard, and his fingertips brushed its surface. Instantly, the vision leapt into his mind—he was standing at the heart of a vast library aflame, shelves collapsing, voices screaming as the books burned.
And at the center, on a throne identical to the one in the tower, sat a figure draped in chains, humming that same four-note song. The fire did not consume them. It only circled, as if caged by their presence.
Kael staggered back, gasping, his palm seared with cold. The shard dimmed, the vision vanishing.
The whisper returned, softer now, almost tender. "…do you see, Kael? I do not destroy. I preserve. The fire cannot touch what I bind. They chained me because I refused to let the Archive burn itself away."
Kael's throat tightened. "You… you're saying you protect stories. Not break them?"
"…is it not the same?"
The reply chilled him.
He thought of Eira, the girl whose tragic ending he had refused to accept. By saving her, hadn't he broken her story? Or had he preserved her instead, given her a chance to live beyond her script? Was preservation and breaking only two faces of the same act?
He gripped his head, trying to steady his thoughts.
The hanging shards flickered brighter, the visions inside them cycling faster. Faces, places, moments—all incomplete, all bound to the figure in chains.
"…Kael…" The whisper swelled again, threaded with urgency. "…they told you chains suffocate. But chains also hold together what would shatter. Without me, these stories dissolve. Without me, the Archive collapses into silence."
Kael looked around, heart racing. The chamber hummed louder, his book pulsing in dissonant rhythm.
"And if I free you?" he asked.
The visions froze. Every shard in the room turned black, reflecting only his face.
The voice answered with quiet finality: "…then we will see whether you are a savior… or a story ending too soon."
The words lingered like smoke, thick and suffocating. Kael stumbled back toward the main chamber, desperate for air, for distance from the shards that reflected only his fear.
When he emerged again into the throne room, the chains rattled faintly, as though laughing. The fissures in the walls pulsed one last time, showing the blurred silhouette pressing close, its eyes faintly glowing behind the cracks.
Kael's book burned against his chest, its hum protective, warning.
And for the first time, Kael realized the prisoner wasn't just speaking to him.
It was waiting for him.