"If memory can be forged, then history can be rewritten."
The wind was sharp at Myreth's Rest.
Not in temperature, but in pressure—air rippling with layered enchantments that filtered intrusions, aura pulses, even intent. You didn't just enter Myreth's Rest. You were weighed by it.
Kael could feel the tension the moment he stepped onto the outer bridge.
Around him, suspended spires floated like broken quills in an ink-stained sky. Pages—real, spectral, burning, frozen—drifted through the air. Each was a memory sealed in script, tethered to the Library's central heart.
Lyra stepped forward cautiously.
"This place feels... wrong. Like every step is being written before we take it."
Zera nodded, appearing from the mist behind them. "Because it is. Welcome to the city where history edits you."
Drayke cracked his knuckles, unimpressed. "Great. Another place that thinks it can scare me with a floating book."
Kael ignored them.
His focus was locked on the figure approaching from the main hall—robes swirling like spilled ink, eyes glowing with script instead of pupils.
The Scribe of Bleeding Pages.
Kael had seen his portrait in the memory crown's flash. He hadn't aged a day.
"You carry a stolen memory," the Scribe said, voice calm but layered with power. "And forged a relic from it. That alone makes you a threat."
Kael stood still. "I didn't steal anything. I survived it."
"You remembered it. That's worse. Do you understand what that Crown truly is?"
Zera answered before Kael could speak. "A relic of intent. Not weaponry."
The Scribe turned toward her.
"Zera Vaelith. Whisperborn. Half-Eternal. You should've died with your mother."
Silence fell.
Lyra looked at Zera in shock. Drayke's eyes narrowed.
But Zera smiled. "You're still bitter the mist took your tongue in that war, aren't you?"
Kael stepped forward, his aura subtly flaring.
"I didn't come to dig up the past. I came for the truth."
"The truth?" The Scribe raised a hand. "Then read it yourself."
A book unfolded midair. Not held. Not opened. It bloomed, like a wound reopening.
Words danced across its surface. Ink twisted into imagery.
Kael saw it—
The forging of the first Memory Crown.
Veyl Solane, locked in battle with an Eternal.
The First Collapse—when dungeons broke the sky itself.
And deeper still—a name buried in the margins.
His own.
Not a footnote.
A cause.
The book snapped shut.
Kael reeled from it, sweat beading on his forehead. That vision—it wasn't a prophecy.
It was a warning.
"You caused the Collapse," the Scribe said. "Not now. Not yet. But your aura, your path, your evolution—it leads there. Again."
Lyra looked at Kael, shaken. "That can't be true. He's trying to stop the Eternals."
"He becomes one," the Scribe replied simply. "The last. The worst."
Kael's voice came low. Cold. "Then tell me how to stop it."
The Scribe gestured, and the pages floating above them stilled.
"You must break the chain of memory. Find the Archivist of the Abyss. She keeps the tethered names—the ones fated to fall."
"And where is she?"
Zera answered for him. "Noctheron Marsh. Where memory rots."
Kael turned away. He didn't need to say it.
They were going.
But the Scribe wasn't finished.
"Kael Arclight," he called, voice echoing with finality. "You wear a relic that remembers your will. If that will ever falters—even once—the Crown will rewrite your soul."
Kael didn't look back.
He just muttered the words that now defined his path.
"Haaah... what a strong aura."
Meanwhile, in the Forgotten Tower
Ceris Nightreign stood at the base of a spiraling ruin, cloak torn, one eye bandaged. He gazed up at the mural carved in shifting stone.
Kael's face.
Burning.
Crowned.
Worshipped.
Or feared.
Behind him, twelve silhouettes stirred.
The Dead Eleven.
Discarded champions of the Eternal Trials. Ceris was the last survivor. The only one who refused ascension.
He stared at Kael's image, expression unreadable.
"You better not fall before I reach you, little brother."