The memory of sunlight tasted of honey and old vellum.
Kai knelt on the cold flagstones of the Great Library's Western Scriptorium, his fingers tracing the rim of a clay cup left on a windowsill. He closed his eyes, inhaling the dust motes dancing in the slanted afternoon light. On his tongue, a ghost-flavor bloomed—sweetness from the honeyed tea it once held, followed by the dry, crisp finish of the thousand-page manuscript the cup's owner had been reading. A story of star-crossed lovers in the Summer Court, Kai recalled. He'd copied that one last winter. A happy ending.
He pulled his hand back, the phantom taste fading. This synesthesia, this curse or gift, was a constant companion. For Kai, history was not a passive thing locked in text; it was a lingering flavor, a scent on the air, a texture beneath the skin. It was why, at twenty-two, he was one of the Lyceum's most promising Scribes. He didn't just copy words; he felt their weight.
A shuffling sound drew his attention. Elian, the Head Scribe and the closest thing Kai had to a father, was making his way down the aisle, his gnarled hands skimming the spines of the towering bookshelves. His eyes, clouded over with the white cataracts of old age, saw nothing, but his fingers read the library like a language only he knew.
"Daydreaming again, boy?" Elian's voice was a dry rustle of old paper, yet it held a familiar warmth that settled Kai's soul. "The inkwells won't fill themselves."
Kai rose, a faint smile on his lips. "Just appreciating the quiet, Master Elian."
"Hmph. Quiet's just a pause between one disaster and the next." Elian stopped, his hand resting on a row of dark, iron-bound codices. His brow furrowed, a latticework of ancient worries. "Have you felt it? The air… it's thin today. Brittle."
Kai had. The world beyond the Lyceum's enchanted walls, Vespera, was in its twilight—an Age of Echoes. The Great Fading, the scholars called it. A slow, metaphysical decay that leached the color from the sky and the flavor from your food. But here, within the library's protected confines, the decay was a subtle thing—a slight muting of the light, a quiet that felt less like peace and more like absence.
"The wards are strong," Kai said, more to reassure himself than the old man.
Before Elian could reply, the great bronze doors of the Scriptorium groaned open. Two men in the grey, unadorned robes of the Lyceum administration stood silhouetted against the light, their faces grim. Behind them stood a figure that did not belong: a Proctorial Guard, his face hidden behind a polished steel mask that reflected the library's fading light with cold indifference.
A knot of ice formed in Kai's stomach.
The senior administrator, a pinched-faced man named Magnus, unrolled a scroll, the crackle of the parchment unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.
"By decree of the Lyceum Council, in accordance with the Resource Allocation Mandate for the coming winter," Magnus announced, his voice devoid of any emotion, "the Eastern Wing is to be… purged."
A collective gasp rippled through the dozen scribes in the room. Purged. A sterile word for something monstrous.
"The wing's structural integrity is failing, and its contents are deemed… low priority," Magnus continued, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. "The materials will be repurposed. For fuel."
Fuel. The word hung in the air like a death sentence.
Elian took a stumbling step forward, his sightless eyes wide with horror. "The Eastern Wing? Magnus, you can't. The Oral Histories… the Songs of the Forge… those are the last surviving records of the First Artisans. They are the founding myths of Hephaestion himself!"
Magnus's expression tightened. "Hephaestion is a dead god, Elian. His myths won't keep us warm. The mandate is absolute." He gestured to the guard. "The work will begin at sundown."
With that, they turned and left, the bronze doors closing with a boom that echoed like a final, slamming coffin lid.
For a moment, there was only the stunned silence of sacrilege. Then, Elian let out a choked sound, a dry sob of pure grief, and leaned heavily against a bookshelf.
Kai rushed to his side, his own heart a cold, heavy stone in his chest. "Master Elian…"
"They don't understand," the old man whispered, his whole body trembling. He gripped Kai's arm, his fingers surprisingly strong. "They see only paper and ink. They can't feel the stories, Kai. Not like we can. The Songs of the Forge… I can still remember my father reciting them. The boom of the Forge God's hammer, the scent of cooling steel, the taste of creation on the air…"
His voice trailed off, his face going slack. "The taste… what was it again? I… I can't quite recall…"
Kai felt a chill colder than any winter wind. It was the Blight of Forgetting, the inner Fading that came with age, stealing Elian's own history piece by piece. The library was his memory, and now they were burning it down.
That afternoon, Kai worked in a haze of quiet fury and despair. He watched as guards began hauling stacks of priceless scrolls and books from the Eastern Wing, their movements efficient, their faces blank. Each thud of a book tossed onto a cart was a physical blow. He wanted to scream, to fight, to do *something*. But he was a Scribe. His only weapon was a quill, his only armor the ink staining his fingers.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long, funereal shadows across the library floor, the pyres were lit in the main courtyard. The smell of burning history filled the air—acrid and heartbreaking.
Elian stood with Kai at a high window, his face a mask of tragedy. "He is dying all over again," the old man murmured.
Kai couldn't stay. He had to see. He had to bear witness. Slipping away, he made his way to the courtyard, hiding in the shadows of a great colonnade. A group of guards, their faces ruddy in the firelight, approached a large, wheeled cart. On it lay the master copies of the Songs of the Forge—thick scrolls of treated hide, bound in blackened iron.
As a guard grabbed the first scroll, Kai felt it—a sudden jolt, a taste of ozone and hot metal on his tongue. The Anima, the magical essence within the story, was reacting to its imminent destruction.
The guard grunted, heaving the heavy scroll into the heart of the roaring pyre.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
Then, the fire erupted. It did not just burn brighter; it changed. The flames turned a brilliant, impossible blue-white, roaring with the sound of a thousand smiths' hammers striking an anvil. A wave of heat washed over the courtyard, smelling of coal-smoke and cosmic creation. The guards stumbled back, shielding their eyes from the divine death throe.
Kai stared, mesmerized and horrified. He could see it, a shimmering in the air above the fire—the story's spirit, its Echo, being torn apart.
One by one, they threw the scrolls into the inferno. With each one, the roaring intensified, the air growing thick with power and grief. When the last, great scroll was consumed, the fire flared into a blinding column of light, and for a single, heart-stopping moment, Kai saw the silhouette of a titanic, bearded figure within it, raising a mighty hammer before dissolving into a billion dying sparks.
Hephaestion was gone. Well and truly.
The fire returned to a normal, mundane orange. The guards, shaken, began to disperse. The show was over.
Kai felt hollow, empty. He was about to turn away when he saw it. In the ashes at the base of the pyre, nestled amongst the cooling embers, lay a single point of light. It was no bigger than his thumbnail, glowing with the soft, steady pulse of a star that had fallen to earth.
It was the final, crystallized memory of the god. The Final Chronicle.
An instinct he did not recognize and could not control seized him. It was not a thought; it was a physical pull, an overwhelming thirst. He had to have it. He had to *save* it.
He glanced around. The courtyard was nearly empty. Keeping to the shadows, he scurried forward, the heat of the dying pyre washing over him. He knelt, his heart hammering against his ribs, and reached into the warm ashes.
The moment his ink-stained fingers touched the ember, his world ended.
Pain. A supernova of it, blinding and absolute. The history of a god—eons of creation, the forging of suns, the hammering of mountains, the quiet satisfaction of a perfectly balanced blade—slammed into his mind. He felt his consciousness, his very sense of self, fracturing like brittle glass under a hammer blow.
His body convulsed. He fell back, the ember clutched in his fist, his throat opening in a scream that had no sound. He had to hide it. Hide it from the world. Hide it inside himself.
Without thinking, driven by the god's own desperate will to survive, he brought his fist to his mouth and swallowed the star.
Darkness, total and complete, rushed in to claim him.