Chapter 2
A Legend Rewritten
I don't sleep that night, even though I leave the archive hours after it closes.
I know this because I feel every hour pass in my body the way my shoulders refuse to relax, the way my thoughts circle and circle like they're afraid to land. I know the archivist goes home and tells himself it was just an odd marginal note, nothing more. I know he pours a glass of water and stands at his kitchen sink longer than usual, staring at nothing. And I know that I, Mireya Solenne, lie on my back in my small apartment, staring at the ceiling, replaying the feel of that parchment beneath my gloves.
I am not afraid.
But I am no longer steady.
By morning, I am back in the reading room.
I arrive early earlier than I'm allowed to and wait outside the heavy wooden doors with a paper cup of coffee I barely touch. The building is quiet in the way old places are quiet, as if they're holding their breath. I press my palm to the stone wall, grounding myself in its cold, and tell myself this is still my job.
Label. Record. Return.
When the doors finally open, the archivist looks surprised to see me.
"You're punctual," he says, blinking behind his glasses.
"I didn't sleep," I say honestly.
He studies me, really looks this time. I know he sees the shadows under my eyes, the way my fingers fidget around the strap of my bag.
"That makes two of us," he admits, then clears his throat. "Follow me."
We sat at the same long oak table. The same filtered light. The same careful quiet.
But the room feels different.
I feel different.
The bestiary waits where we left it, wrapped in protective cloth like something fragile and alive. When he unwraps it, I feel a strange tightening in my chest, as if I'm about to reopen a wound I don't remember earning.
"Before you begin," he says, resting a hand on the table, "I should note that unofficial annotations aren't uncommon."
"I know," I replied.
"Pilgrims. Monks. Scholars with too much wine and too much opinion."
"I know," I repeat, sharper this time.
He lifts his hands in surrender. "Just saying."
I opened the book.
The letters are still there.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.
I am not imagining this.
"I want to start at the beginning," I say. "Not in the book. Of the story."
He pulls out a chair and sits beside me, close enough that I can hear his breathing change when I turn a page.
"You believe it's a story," he says.
"I believe it's a correction."
I flip carefully, scanning margins, tracing indentations with my eyes. The letters don't follow the order of the text. They appear, disappear, resurface pages later, like someone thinking aloud over time.
"She writes like she's afraid," I murmur.
"Who?" he asks.
"The woman," I say. "The one everyone says died."
I feel his attention sharpen. He knows what legends live in books like this. He just doesn't want to say it first.
I read aloud again.
They will say the beast was cursed.
I pause.
"They always do," the archivist says quietly.
"And the woman was punished," I continue. "That's the part that bothers me."
"Because?" he prompts.
"Because punishment implies guilt."
I turn the page.
The handwriting shifts here. Less cramped. More certain.
I was not punished. I was warned.
My fingers tremble.
"This isn't the legend," I say. "Not the one I know."
He leans back slightly. "Which one do you know?"
"The one where the monster loses control," I say. "Where love is a weakness. Where she pays for trusting him."
I hear the lie in my own voice as I say it the way I've repeated these stories without questioning who they were written for.
"And this?" he asks.
"This is someone refusing the ending they were given."
We work slowly.
Painfully.
I read. He listens. Sometimes he asks me to repeat a line, like he doesn't trust his own ears.
There are dates scratched out. Names replaced with symbols. Entire lines intentionally blurred, as if the writer rubbed at the ink while it was still wet.
"She didn't want to be found," I say.
"But she wanted to be heard," he counters.
"Yes."
I pause, pressing my gloved hand flat against the page.
"I think she knew someone like me would come along," I add, quieter now.
He doesn't laugh.
Instead, he says, "Someone who believes margins matter."
I nod.
There is a long silence, broken only by the soft rustle of parchment.
Then I see it.
A word that repeats.
At first, I thought it's a coincidence. A flourish of ink. A trick of the light.
But then I see it again.
And again.
My pulse quickens.
"Do you see that?" I ask.
The archivist leans closer. "See what?"
"This word," I say, pointing. "It's been altered, but not erased."
He squints. "It's a name."
"Yes."
I swallow.
"It appears here," I say, flipping back a few pages. "And here. And here."
"How many times?" he asks.
I count silently.
"Too many to be accidental."
I feel disoriented now, like the floor has shifted beneath me but my body hasn't caught up.
"This legend," I say slowly, "it's been told as a warning."
"A warning against what?" he asks.
"Against loving the wrong thing," I reply. "Against staying."
I turn to another page.
The handwriting grows steadier, calmer.
I did not leave because I stopped loving him.
My chest aches.
"She left," the archivist says softly.
"Yes."
"Voluntarily."
"Yes."
"That's… not how the story goes."
"No," I agree. "It's how it was made to go."
I lean back, pressing my fingers to my temple.
"This is wrong," I say, and mean the legend, not the letters. "All of it."
He watches me with something like concern.
"You're shaking," he notes.
"I know," I say, surprised by the honesty. "I don't know why."
But I do know.
Because if the legend is wrong, then what else is?
Because if she chose to leave, then she wasn't weak.
Because if she wasn't weak, then the monster wasn't the villain.
"Take a break," he suggests.
I shake my head. "I can't."
I turn to another page.
The letters thin here, as if written in haste.
They say I ran. They say I feared him.
I let out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh.
"She's angry," I say. "Can you hear it?"
"I can," he replies.
I read the next line aloud.
I feared time.
My throat tightens.
"That's not fear of a man," the archivist says.
"No," I whisper. "It's fear of staying."
We sit with that.
With the weight of it pressing down.
"I've studied folklore for years," I say finally. "I've defended it. Argued that myths hold truth."
"And now?" he asks.
"And now I think the truth has been edited."
I trace the margin again, my finger hovering over a symbol I hadn't noticed before.
It's small. Almost careless.
But it repeats too.
A mark beside the name.
I hesitate.
"What?" he asks.
"There's something else," I say. "Someone else."
He leans in.
I follow the symbols, the altered letters, the places where the ink darkens around a single word.
A name that appears again and again, never fully erased, never written plainly.
My heart starts to race.
"I think," I say slowly, "the legend centered on the wrong person."
The archivist's voice drops. "Who should it have centered?"
I don't answer right away.
I read one last line, barely visible.
He begged me to stay. I loved him too much to do so.
I close my eyes.
When I open them, I know what I'm looking for.
I flip back through the pages, faster now, reckless despite myself.
And there it is.
Clearer than the rest.
Unhidden.
Unashamed.
A name "Alaric" appears repeatedly