Lyra's POV
I couldn't breathe.
The doors to the Forbidden Archives stood wide open in front of me, glowing with magic that felt alive. Wrong. Impossible.
These doors hadn't opened in two hundred years. Professors with decades of powerful magic had tried and failed. But I'd just touched them, and they'd welcomed me like an old friend.
From somewhere deep inside the building, something whispered my name again. Not out loud—inside my head, like a thought that wasn't mine.
Lyra... come closer... I've been waiting...
"This is insane," I muttered, but my feet were already moving. After everything that happened tonight—the betrayal, the humiliation, losing everything I'd worked for—what was one more impossible thing?
I stepped through the doorway.
The air changed instantly. It felt thick and tingly, like right before a lightning storm. Behind me, the doors slammed shut with a boom that shook my bones.
Okay. Now I was trapped in the Forbidden Archives. Great decision-making, Lyra.
The entrance hall stretched out before me, lit by floating orbs of blue light that drifted like bubbles. Dust covered everything—shelves of ancient books, strange artifacts under glass cases, stone statues with eyes that seemed to follow me.
But that wasn't the weird part.
The weird part was that when I looked at the room, it kept... shifting. One second, the hall stretched forward into darkness. The next second, it curved upward like I was standing on the inside of a giant ball. Then the walls flickered, and I saw a hundred different versions of the same room layered on top of each other, all existing at the same time.
My stomach lurched. "Okay, definitely not normal."
Keep walking, the voice urged. The center. You must reach the center.
"Who are you?" I asked out loud, feeling ridiculous for talking to a voice in my head. "Why did those doors open for me?"
Because you're finally ready. Because the seals are breaking. Because you're the only one who can stop what's coming.
None of that made sense, but my curiosity was stronger than my fear. It always had been. That's why I'd spent three years researching ancient magic while everyone else partied. That's why I'd trusted Cassia with my secrets, believing friendship mattered more than competition.
That's why I was an idiot.
I pushed the bitter thoughts away and kept walking. The hallway twisted and turned, leading me deeper into the Archives. With each step, the tingly feeling in the air grew stronger. My skin started to hum, like every cell in my body was vibrating at a frequency I couldn't quite hear.
Then I saw the light.
It poured through a doorway at the end of the hall—not regular light, but pure white brilliance mixed with colors that shouldn't exist. Colors I didn't have names for.
I stepped through the doorway and stopped dead.
The room beyond was impossible.
It was huge and tiny at the same time. The walls curved up and around, covered in glowing symbols that moved and changed. The floor beneath my feet looked solid, but when I stared at it, I could see through it into other rooms, other places, maybe other worlds. It was like standing inside a bubble that existed in a thousand different locations at once.
And at the center of it all, floating in midair, was a crystal sphere about the size of my head.
Inside the sphere, starlight swirled and danced. Not like a picture of stars—actual moving starlight that formed patterns and shapes. As I watched, the light twisted into what looked like a map, with lines connecting glowing points that pulsed like heartbeats.
Yes, the voice said, and I realized it was coming from the sphere. You see me. You understand. Come closer, Cipher-child.
"Cipher-what?" But my feet were already carrying me forward.
The closer I got, the more details I could see in the map. Some of the glowing points were bright and steady. Others flickered weakly. And several had gone completely dark, leaving holes in the pattern like missing teeth in a smile.
"What is this?" I whispered.
I am the Starbound Codex. I am the map between worlds, the guide through dimensions, the key to the seals your family has protected for seventeen generations.
My family? My parents died when I was five in a magical accident. My grandmother raised me in a tiny town until she passed away three years ago. We were nobody special. We had barely any magic.
"You've got the wrong person," I said. "I'm not special. I can't even do basic levitation spells without messing up."
Your magic isn't weak, foolish child. It's SEALED. Hidden. Protected. The Codex's voice grew urgent. Your parents knew the enemies would come for you. They bound your power before they died, made you appear ordinary, unremarkable. Safe.
My chest tightened. "My parents... they died in an accident. An explosion in their lab."
They died protecting you. And now the same enemies who killed them are here, at this Academy, breaking the seals one by one. Three are already destroyed. Four remain. When all seven fall, the dimensions will collapse, and reality itself will tear apart.
"That's—that's crazy. You're saying my parents were some kind of heroes? That there's a conspiracy to destroy the world? That I'm supposed to stop it?" I laughed, but it came out sharp and broken. "I can't even stop one girl from stealing my research. I'm nobody. I'm nothing."
The Codex blazed brighter, and power rolled off it in waves that made my teeth rattle. You are a Cipher, last of the Architects' bloodline. You can read the language of creation, navigate between dimensions, restore what has been broken. You are EVERYTHING they fear.
"Then why don't I feel powerful?" My voice cracked. "Why did Cassia destroy me so easily? Why didn't anyone believe me? Why did Dorian just... sit there?"
The Codex pulsed with something that felt almost like sympathy. Because they are blind. Because they see only the surface. Because your true strength has been sleeping, waiting for this moment.
"What moment?"
The moment you choose. Remain small, defeated, broken—or accept what you are and fight back.
I stared at the sphere, my mind racing. Part of me wanted to run away, pretend this wasn't happening, go pack my bags and leave the Academy forever. Forget magic, forget betrayal, forget everything.
But another part of me—a part I didn't know existed until tonight—burned with something fierce and hot.
I'd worked so hard. Studied until my eyes bled. Created something brilliant and new. And Cassia had taken it all, crushed me under her heel, and smiled while doing it.
If what the Codex said was true... if I really had power sleeping inside me...
"What do I have to do?" I asked.
Touch me. Bond with me. Let me awaken what your parents sealed away.
I reached out slowly. My hand trembled as it got closer to the crystal sphere.
"Will it hurt?"
Yes. But you've already survived the worst pain tonight. What's a little more?
Fair point.
I pressed my palm against the crystal.
The sphere shattered.
Light exploded outward like a supernova. The map unwound from inside the sphere, streams of starlight that wrapped around my wrist, my arm, my whole body like living vines. They burned—not with heat, but with pure power that seared through my skin and into my bones.
I screamed.
Symbols blazed to life on my arms, my shoulders, my chest. Ancient words in languages I'd never learned but somehow understood perfectly. The map sank into my skin, becoming part of me, and with it came KNOWLEDGE.
I saw the seven seals—massive magical locks holding back entire dimensions full of raw, dangerous power. I saw my parents, younger and alive, placing those seals with tears streaming down their faces. I saw the moment they'd laid their hands on baby-me and spoken words that locked away my magic, hiding me from the monsters in the dark.
I saw three of those seals breaking, one by one, as dark figures performed twisted rituals.
And then I saw HIM.
A boy with black hair and dark blue eyes, watching me from the shadows just outside the Archives. His face was sharp and beautiful and cold as ice. Power radiated off him in waves that made my new magical senses scream in recognition.
He'd been there the whole time. Watching. Waiting.
The vision faded. I collapsed to my knees, gasping, my whole body shaking. The glowing marks on my skin pulsed in rhythm with my racing heartbeat.
Alarms began blaring throughout the Academy—sharp, urgent warnings that meant someone had been detected in a forbidden area.
Someone knows you're here, the Codex said, now speaking from inside my mind. Run, Cipher-child. Or stand and face what comes.
The door to the chamber burst open.
Security mages rushed in, their hands glowing with combat spells ready to fire.
And right in front of them, dropping from the shadows like a predator, landed the boy from my vision.
Kael Voidstrider. The Academy's most feared student. The one everyone whispered about in frightened voices.
His dark eyes locked onto mine, and a slow smile spread across his face—hungry and dangerous and absolutely terrifying.
"Finally," he said softly. "I've been waiting three years for you to wake up."