The last step of the staircase vanished beneath their feet, leaving only a smooth stone platform beneath them. The air felt different here—thicker, charged, like the weight of a thousand whispers pressing in from all sides. It wasn't just silence—it was the kind that listened.
Ahead, the chamber stretched wide and endless, lined with towering mirrors, each one warped and distorted, their surfaces rippling like reflections on disturbed water. But these weren't ordinary mirrors.
They did not show the group's current forms—instead, they shimmered with scenes from another time.
Kael stepped forward, his breath shallow. "This… doesn't feel right."
Elyra's gaze swept across the room, sharp and searching. Her fingers instinctively tightened around the satchel at her side.
"This isn't a place for the living."
The words sent a shiver down Lira's spine. She adjusted her grip on the Codex, eyes darting across the shifting reflections.
Some mirrors displayed empty corridors, others flickered with images of unfamiliar figures in Archivist robes. One, directly in front of her, showed a chair in an empty room—until, suddenly, a shadowed figure sat down, as if it had always been there.
Thorne let out a slow exhale. "It's watching us."
Zara scoffed but didn't move any closer. "Or testing us. Again."
Kael glanced over his shoulder, unease settling deep in his gut. The staircase behind them was gone. No exit. No way back.
Zara clicked her tongue. "Because of course it's gone. Of course it is." She turned back to the mirrors, eyes narrowing at her own reflection—or what she thought was her own reflection. The moment she focused, the image shifted. A woman stood there instead, her face eerily familiar, yet Zara knew she had never seen her before.
Kael swallowed. "We need to keep moving." But moving where? There were no clear doors, no visible pathways—only the mirrors.
Lira hesitated, then stepped closer to one. It reflected the room they stood in but without them in it. She turned her head slightly, but the image didn't change. The chamber remained empty, stretching into nothingness.
Elyra's voice was barely above a whisper. "This is a memory."
Thorne gave her a sharp look. "Of who?"
She didn't answer. She didn't know. But she could feel it—an echo of something that had happened before.
Kael exhaled through his nose. "So what, the Archive records everything?"
Lira shifted uncomfortably. "Not everything." She lifted the Codex slightly, feeling the weight of it in her hands. "Just what it wants to be remembered."
A ripple passed through the mirrors, like a breath, as if something within had acknowledged her words. The air grew denser, pressing against them from all sides.
Then, in unison, the reflections began to move.
No one had stepped forward. No one had spoken. But the mirrors—they had decided it was time to show them something.
And whatever it was, they would have no choice but to see it.
The shifting reflections slowed. Elyra barely noticed the others behind her as she stepped toward one of the taller mirrors. Unlike the others, this one didn't shimmer or warp. The surface was unnervingly smooth, dark, like ink pooled on glass.
She hesitated. Something about this mirror felt different. Intentional.
Then, before she could second-guess herself, she took another step forward.
Her reflection rippled. Not like the flickering mirages in the other mirrors—this was deeper, as if something was peeling away layers of time.
"Elyra?" Zara's voice was distant, cautious.
Elyra barely heard her. She wasn't looking at herself anymore.
The reflection shifted.
A figure stood where she had been, clad in Archivist robes. But it wasn't her. The features were blurred at the edges, unfinished, as though the memory itself was resisting being seen.
Elyra's breath caught. "Who…?"
The figure's lips moved. No sound came at first, but then—fragments.
"The fracture is… growing."
The voice was distant, layered—like an echo bouncing off empty halls. Elyra stiffened, pulse quickening.
"What fracture?" she asked, though she already suspected the answer.
The figure didn't react. The vision wasn't a conversation—it was an echo, something already spoken long ago, repeating itself whether she was there to hear it or not.
"If they find the truth…" The words faltered, like something was trying to erase them even as they were spoken.
Elyra's fingers curled into fists. "Who? Who are you talking about?"
The image in the mirror warped. The Archivist flickered violently, as if the memory itself was being ripped apart.
"…the Archive will… unravel."
The final word sent a pulse through the chamber. Elyra stumbled back, her breath catching in her throat. A sharp crack split through the silence—then, in an instant, the mirror went dark.
Gone.
Like it had never been there at all.
She stood frozen, heart pounding, eyes fixed on the place where the vision had just been. The others were watching her now, waiting.
Kael was the first to break the silence. "What did you see?"
Elyra swallowed, forcing herself to focus. "A warning."
Lira stepped closer. "A warning about what?"
Elyra's fingers instinctively brushed against her satchel, where the Codex page rested. The weight of it felt heavier now, as if it had been waiting for this moment.
"That something was hidden. Deliberately." Her voice was steady, but she could feel the tension curling at the edges of her words. "And if we find it…"
She hesitated, exhaling sharply.
"The Archive won't survive."
No one spoke.
The air in the chamber felt different now.
The mirrors no longer flickered with unknown images.
For the first time since they had entered, it felt like something was waiting for them to decide what to do next.
Zara, never one for standing still, exhaled sharply. "This is pointless. If the Archive wants to show us something, we might as well get on with it."
Before anyone could stop her, she strode toward another mirror—one positioned slightly apart from the others, its glass murky but intact. The moment she got close, the surface shifted.
Zara stopped cold.
A girl stood there. Small. No older than six or seven.
Zara's chest tightened. The child had her eyes. The same defiant tilt of her chin. The same restless energy buzzing beneath her stance.
Herself.
But that was impossible.
Zara frowned, her reflection forgotten. "That's—" She stopped herself, her voice unsteady. "That's impossible. I was never here."
The others turned at the edge in her voice.
Kael took a hesitant step toward her. "Zara?"
She didn't react. She was too focused on the mirror, on the girl who wasn't supposed to exist.
The child—her younger self—stood in the middle of an Archive corridor, fingers brushing over the spine of an old book. She looked small among the towering shelves, yet completely at ease. Like she belonged.
A sharp breath left Zara's lips. She didn't remember this. She couldn't remember this.
The memory didn't fade. Didn't flicker or shift like the others.
Lira, standing closest, studied Zara carefully. "Are you sure?"
Zara's head snapped toward her. "What do you mean, am I sure?"
Lira didn't look away. "If the Archive shows what's been lost… maybe it's showing you something you've forgotten."
Zara's fingers curled into fists. "I wouldn't forget something like this."
But the longer she stared at the girl in the mirror, the more uncertain she felt.
A quiet detail in the reflection caught her eye. A mark on the child's wrist.
Zara's pulse pounded in her ears. She yanked up her sleeve. Nothing. No scar, no mark. Nothing that proved the girl was her.
But the girl knew. She turned her head slightly—just enough for their eyes to meet.
And then, without warning—the reflection vanished.
Not like the other visions, where time naturally unraveled. This was cut off. Erased.
The mirror returned to its normal state, reflecting only Zara's wide-eyed, shaken expression.
A pit formed in her stomach.
She swallowed, hard. "What the hell was that?"
No one had an answer.
Lira pressed her lips together, then turned to Elyra. "The Archive is choosing what we see."
Thorne exhaled sharply, eyes dark. "Or what we don't."
The air felt heavier now, charged with something they couldn't name.
Before anyone could speak, the Codex page in Elyra's satchel began to glow.
The mirrors trembled.
The Archive had given them glimpses of the past. Now, it was filling in the gaps.
"Uh…" Kael took a step back. "That's new."
Elyra reached for the Codex with careful hands. The ink on the page was shifting.
Zara, still shaken, forced herself to focus. The vision could wait. Whatever was happening now—it wasn't waiting for them.
And somehow, she knew… this was going to be worse.
…
The chamber was too still, as if the Archive itself was holding its breath. The glow from the Celestial Codex page in Elyra's hands pulsed, soft at first, then stronger, casting flickering golden light across the warped mirrors.
Then, the reflections began to change.
The once-flickering images shifted, becoming sharper, more deliberate. Shadows that had been vague silhouettes gained form—Archivists in robes, corridors long since lost, hands reaching for books that no longer existed. The past wasn't just being shown anymore.
It was being rewritten.
Lira took a slow step back, watching as a mirror near her warped. "It's filling in the blanks," she murmured. "Like it's trying to fix something."
Elyra barely heard her. The page in her grip was warm now, alive in a way parchment never should be.
And then, the words appeared.
Not written, not inked—revealed.
> The hidden path stays buried until the past is unmade.> Fractures do not form by chance; they are forged by intent.
The last word sent a pulse through the air, rattling the glass.
Zara exhaled sharply. "That's not vague or ominous at all."
Kael ran a hand through his hair, his fingers twitching. "So, let me get this straight. We're standing in a room full of memories that shouldn't exist, watching a book that writes itself, and now it's telling us—what? That history's been tampered with?"
Thorne's voice was grim. "No. It's telling us someone did it on purpose."
The weight of his words settled over them like a stone.
Elyra stared at the page, her mind racing. The fracture is no accident. The Codex wasn't just revealing lost knowledge—it was pulling back the layers of something deliberately hidden.
But why? And by who?
She lifted her head, meeting Lira's gaze. The scholar's expression was tight, her usual fascination tempered by something closer to dread.
"If the Archive has been rewritten," Lira said carefully, "then everything we know about history—about this place—could be a lie."
Kael exhaled. "Great. So now we have to figure out who changed history and what they were trying to bury."
A faint tremor ran through the ground.
The mirrors cracked.
One by one, fractures spiderwebbed across the glass. The room groaned, as if the Archive itself was straining under a weight too great to bear.
Whatever they had just uncovered, the Archive was reacting.
No—it was resisting.
The glow from the Celestial Codex page pulsed one final time, and the chamber responded.
Kael took a slow step back. "That's not just a reaction." His voice was low, measured, but edged with unease. "It's trying to stop us."
Zara exhaled sharply, rolling her shoulders like she was shaking off a weight. "Yeah? Well, too late for that."
Elyra tightened her grip on the Codex. "No. Not stop us." She swallowed. "Erase us."
A crack split through the chamber, sharp and final.
The mirrors collapsed inward, crumbling into dust, leaving behind nothing but the blackened outlines of where they once stood. The reflections were gone. The past erased. Or rewritten.
Elyra's heart pounded as she scanned the room. "We need to move."
But there was nowhere to move.
No door. No staircase. No way back.
Only,
one path remained.
At the far end of the chamber, a corridor had formed—a passage that hadn't been there moments ago. Its walls weren't lined with mirror, but with something worse.
Black glass. Empty. Waiting.
Lira took an instinctive step away from it. "That wasn't there before."
Kael exhaled. "Yeah, no kidding."
The Archive had made its decision.
There was no more debate. No more choice.
They could only go forward.
And whatever was waiting ahead, the Archive wanted them to see it.
Elyra didn't wait for another sign. She stepped into the corridor first, the others following without hesitation.
The moment they crossed the threshold—the air rushed past them like a gasp, the entrance behind them sealed shut.
The weight of the Archive sealing off the past.
There was no turning back.