The world did not break. It unremembered itself.
One moment, Kaelan was in the hushed, dust-moted silence of the Grand Athenaeum's restoration wing, his fingers carefully tracing the frayed edge of a five-hundred-year-old wedding vow. The next, the vow, the desk, the very air was gone—not torn, but unmade. There was no sound, no violent transition, only a nauseating lurch of perception, as if the universe had blinked and forgotten to put him back.
He stumbled, his archivist's hands splaying not against polished oak, but against cold, black glass. The air hummed, a low, psychic thrum that vibrated in his teeth and bones. It wasn't a sound; it was the feeling of a forgotten name on the tip of the tongue, given physical form.
He pushed himself up, his breath catching in his throat.
The sky was a vortex of bruised purple and silver, swirling around no sun, no moon. Jagged, crystalline spires thrust from the landscape like the broken ribs of a colossal beast, pulsing with a faint, internal light. The ground was a sheet of obsidian that reflected the chaotic sky, yet felt strangely soft underfoot. And everywhere, in the periphery of his vision, things flickered: half-seen figures, snatches of movement, a child's laugh that died before it was truly born. This place was haunted not by ghosts, but by the ghosts of moments.
The Echoing. The name surfaced in his mind from some deep, instinctual well, and he knew it was true.
His hand flew to his wrist, finding the familiar smoothness of the resonant crystal bracelet there—a simple thing, a gift from his sister, Elara. His anchor. He clutched it, the cool touch a desperate prayer to a world that no longer existed. Elara. Her name is Elara. She laughs with her whole body, and her eyes crinkle at the corners. She is real.
A low, shuddering moan echoed across the plain. It didn't come from the air or the ground, but from between them. The space itself seemed to weep.
Fifteen paces away, the air coalesced. Grey, shifting mist twisted into a humanoid form, its surface a mosaic of broken mirror shards. In each shard, a terrified face flashed for a microsecond: a woman drowning, a man trapped in a fire, a child lost in a crowd. It was a tapestry of pure, undiluted Abandonment. It was a Memory Wraith.
It turned toward him, and a cold that had nothing to do with temperature leached the strength from his limbs. It began to drift forward, its passage silent and utterly inevitable.
Kaelan scrambled backward, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. His training was useless. There was no text to reference, no precedent to cite. There was only the primal urge to not be alone, to not be forgotten.
His heel caught on a half-buried obstruction. He fell, his hand slapping down on a hard, weathered surface—the stone arm of a long-fallen statue. As his skin made contact, his mind… opened.
Sensation, not his own, flooded him.
A single, perfect, devastating thrust of a spear. A move practiced to instinct.
The unshakable stance, the alignment of muscle and bone, the absolute certainty of the kill.
Not of victory, but of final, desperate sacrifice. A name breathed into the dark: "Protect them…"
He had Recorded the statue's last, defining moment.
The Wraith of Abandonment loomed, its chill numbing his skin. Despair closed its fist around his throat. There was no time for thought, only a final, defiant act of will. He reached for the foreign memory burning in his mind and Played.
The demand was instantaneous. An emptiness within him, a void, opened wide. It demanded a memory of equal weight. There was no time to choose.
His body moved without his command. It pivoted, his arm thrust forward with the force of a guardian's last stand. He wasn't holding a weapon, but his hand, clenched into a fist, moved with the precision and power of a master's spear.
He did not strike the Wraith's form. He struck the concept of it, the memory of abandonment, with the memory of protection.
The creature did not scream. It shattered into a million glittering motes of light, each one emitting a faint, final sigh of release before winking out.
Silence descended, heavier than before.
Kaelan sank to his knees, gasping. Elation warred with shock. He had wielded a power beyond understanding. He had survived.
Then, the Tax was collected.
It was not violent. It was a quiet, precise editing of his soul. Like a single, vital line of text being carefully, irrevocably redacted from the most precious book in his care.
He clutched the crystal bracelet, seeking comfort. He sought the memory of the day Elara gave it to him. She had been laughing, her head thrown back, the sun catching the crystal as she teased him for being too serious. "Wear this," she'd said, her voice bright with affection, "so you remember there's a world outside your books."
He reached for the memory.
He knew it happened. He knew the facts of it. But the memory itself—the sound of her laughter, the warmth of the sun on his skin, the overwhelming feeling of love and belonging—was gone.
Silenced. Erased.
A hollow ache bloomed in his chest, so profound it was a physical pain. He wasn't grieving. Grief required a memory to grieve for. He was just… empty. He had paid for his survival with a piece of his own foundation.
He was, already, an echo of who he was.
A single, numb tear traced a path through the dust on his cheek as he whispered the name into the alien silence—a name that now felt like a ghost of a ghost.
"Elara…"