Light slanted through the estate's windows with the colour of bone. Zeyla sat unmoving at her desk, pen still, tea cooling beside her.
On the page before her, the words she'd written were changing their shape,letters curling into a language she did not know yet could somehow almost remember. The ink pulsed faintly, like a throat swallowing. When she blinked, new words bled through the paper: A name or a language she can't read .
She whispered the name aloud and the sound didn't quite fit in the room. It seemed to echo downward, beneath the floorboards, where no space should be. Her reflection in the teacup flickered once and the whisper rose from somewhere behind her ribs:
"The beloved is a mirror that remembers the face before the world began."
The air rippled. Curtains lifted without wind. Somewhere down the hall the clock struck a note that was not a number. Zeyla stood, dizzy, the world around her softer at the edges, as though she were seeing it through someone else's dream. The mirror on the far wall misted over and breathed. Behind that film of vapour a faint outline movedNoor's shape, slim and still, standing in a corridor made of light the colour of dust.
_____
The sky above the wasteland was a disc of black sun edged in ivory. No wind, no sea only a horizon of moving sand that remembered water but had never tasted it. Noor walked alone. Every step dissolved as she took it, the world repairing itself behind her.
At the far edge of sight the vault waited: a circle of pale stone rising from the sand like the lid of an eye. When she reached it, the air thickened, heavy with unspoken pages.
A figure stood there already, white against the dark hair like frost, eyes the colour of wine held to a dying light.
"The Archivist," she said.
He bowed slightly. "The Veydrasil was restless. It knew you would come."
"I need to confirm something in the record."
"That is not what the it calls it."
Noor didn't argue. She descended the spiral of stone until the vault opened into its inner chamber a space too vast for walls, too bright for light. In its centre lay the slab of obsidian that mirrored the black sun above. Runes moved across its surface like thoughts in a dream.
She placed her palm on the stone. The light beneath her skin answered.
At once the Veydrasil breathed. Across the slab, images shifted: cities folding into dust, stars dimming, faces flickering between life and myth. Then it found what she sought a line of text written in the oldest script.
Entry: The Fall of the Second Light. Witness: Archivist. Cause: The hand of hers.
She stared at it. "I didn't destroy it."
"The Veydrasil records what it remembers," he said behind her. "Not what we intend."
Her reflection on the stone looked older, thinner, gold leaking into her eyes like the trace of another sun.
"I only need to see it," she whispered. "Not to change it."
"The Veydrasil changes whoever reads it," he said. "That is how it preserves itself."
Her hand trembled; the words on the slab flickered, then steadied again. She could feel the record shifting its attention back toward her as if it wanted to add another line.
She withdrew her hand. The glow receded.
The Archivist watched her. "You return it?"
"I return what isn't mine."
For the first time a shadow of a smile touched his mouth. "Few remember how."
She glanced once more at the slab. The inscription faded; in its place, a faint reflection of herself gold and dark intertwined remained, then vanished.
When she turned to leave, the air shivered, whispering the Veydrasil's closing benediction:
"All who look become part of what is looked at.''
Outside, the black sun dimmed to grey. The sand settled. Noor breathed once, steady, and began the long walk back.
The Archivist stayed behind. The Veydrasil's surface calmed, save for one new line that appeared as she vanished into the haze:
Entry: The Return of the Witness. Cause: Unknown.
He placed his hand over it briefly, sealing the page.
The vault was still.
Dust hung in the air like the pause before a final word.
The tablet lay open on the stone floor, empty.
The man stood before it, hood fallen, the colour gone from his face.
He reached out but stopped just short of touching.
Behind him, the Archivist's steps were soft but certain.
"My lord," he said quietly, "you know what you've done. No mortal should have crossed this....."
He turned his head, voice almost a whisper.
"She isn't crossing anything now."
A shadow moved near the stair: the elder woman, her form thin as light through smoke.
"You know the price," she said. "You always did."
He didn't answer. His gaze stayed on the tablet.
The last trace of Noor was fading light retreating through his fingers though he hadn't touched her. The echo of her name dissolved into the air; even memory forgot its shape. The vault grew paler, emptier, until there was nothing left to remember.
He placed his hand on the stone.
For a heartbeat, warmth lingered then vanished.
His shoulders dropped; a single tear fell, clear and slow, and disappeared into the blank surface.
He drew back.
"She is gone," he said.
The Archivist bowed. "The record is clean."
The old woman smiled, a small, tired smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Nothing is ever clean," she murmured. "Only rewritten."
He turned, the folds of his robe whispering across the stone, and walked away into the lightless horizon.
When he was gone, the vault closed itself.
The tablet stayed dark, perfectly still until the faintest ripple crossed it, the echo of a breath that no longer existed.
The sun had not yet risen when Zeyla stirred.
Her head rested on her folded arms, ink smudged on her wrist.
The candle had long since died, but the faintest light pale and watery slipped through the curtains.
Her pen still lay across the open page.
She must have fallen asleep while writing.
The ink had dried mid–sentence, a single word half-formed.
The kind of word you don't remember thinking.
Somewhere a sound gentle, rhythmic pressed against the edge of silence.
It might have been the fountain outside, or the echo of her own heartbeat.
Zeyla lifted her head.
Someone was standing by the window.
The light was strange not gold, not white, something between.
Hair like poured silver, falling past the shoulders.
Eyes shining faintly, catching the half-dawn.
A gown as pale as breath, unmoving in the breeze.
Zeyla blinked.
When she spoke, her voice was calm and distant, like a memory remembering itself.
"Do you still write, Zeyla?"
Zeyla's lips parted, but no sound came.
The woman turned slightly, the light catching her profile.
It was Noor.
Zeyla's heart stuttered.
"Lady Noor…?" she whispered.
Noor's expression didn't change.
Her gaze was on the horizon beyond the glass, where the first rim of sunlight tried to rise.
"Were you dreaming?" she said quietly.
Zeyla looked down.
Her notebook lay open, every page blank.
Beside it sat a cup of tea, faintly warm.
And near her hand a spider lily, white-edged and crimson at the heart.
She reached for it.
The petals trembled, soft as breath almost unreal.
When she looked up again, Noor was still there, but her edges were thinning.
"I need you to do something," Noor said.
Zeyla's throat was dry. "What do you want me to do?"
Zeyla blinked once.
The light shifted the sun finally crested the window.
When she opened her eyes again, for a moment she could still taste ash on her tounge.
Only the spider lily remained, its stem resting on the clean page, a trace of dew still clinging to it.