The Ruins Remember
Caelan Veyne moved through the silent archives, the faint scent of parchment and dust clinging to the stone walls. Candlelight flickered along the towering shelves, casting shadows that seemed to breathe, curling and twisting like the fingers of some ancient, unseen watcher. The world outside the archives was asleep, but here, amidst forgotten knowledge, the air hummed with quiet anticipation.
He had always been drawn to the old texts, the ones no one else dared to touch. Most apprentices focused on mundane records—tax logs, city edicts, family lineages—but Caelan sought the stories that had been buried, erased, or ignored. Tonight, however, something was different. He felt it before he even touched the scroll: a pull, subtle yet insistent, tugging at the edges of his mind.
The scroll he now held was unlike any he had seen. Its edges were brittle, fraying with age, yet the ink shimmered faintly as if alive. Lines spoke of ruins that "should not exist," of towers swallowed by time, of streets and spires erased from every map. A cold shiver ran down his spine. His fingers trembled as he traced the words. When he touched the ink, warmth spread through his palm—a pulse not entirely his own.
A whisper teased at the edges of his consciousness. At first, he thought it was the wind through the broken archway, or perhaps his imagination. But the whisper carried meaning, a language older than the archives, the city, even himself. "Remember… awaken… follow…" it seemed to say.
He blinked, and for a moment, shadows seemed to stir along the walls, stretching and coiling, responding to his gaze. Then the memories came. Not his own, but fragments: a tower collapsing in ash, faces lined with grief and hope, streets filled with light that had long since been extinguished. He staggered backward, gripping the scroll as his knees threatened to buckle.
"This… this isn't real," he whispered, though his voice sounded hollow even to him. "It can't be."
A faint scraping echoed from the corner of the archives. Someone—or something—was there, moving among the stacks. Caelan froze, senses sharpened, every instinct screaming at him to run. But curiosity, insistent and merciless, held him in place.
The scroll pulsed again, faintly glowing. The warmth ran up his arm, settling in his chest, in rhythm with a heartbeat that wasn't entirely his own. He realized, with a mixture of fear and awe, that it was reacting to him—his bloodline, his essence, some link he did not yet understand.
His breath caught as a subtle sense of destiny threaded through the fear. He had never been remarkable in the eyes of the city: quiet, overlooked, and ordinary. But here, in the flickering candlelight, destiny felt weighty and undeniable. The ruins, erased for centuries, were calling.
He rolled the scroll carefully and tucked it into his satchel, its faint glow dimming under the shadowed fabric. The city outside remained quiet, oblivious to the stirrings beneath its streets, oblivious to the secrets that waited for him. He paused at the threshold of the archives, hand on the door, heart hammering.
Every instinct screamed against the path he was about to take. Every warning whispered in his blood, in his mind, in the quiet ash of forgotten memories. Yet, stronger than all of it, was the pull of the ruins. He would go. He had no choice.
The Forgotten Realm was calling. And Caelan Veyne, a boy thought ordinary, would answer.