Gray gasped for air, lungs convulsing, throat raw. His chest heaved as though the library itself had been drained of oxygen. The faint blue glow still pulsed between the collapsed shelves, painting the walls in trembling shadows.
The hooded man lay sprawled on the marble, motionless. The dagger he'd dropped glimmered faintly beside him, slick with blood. But Gray knew—deep down—that the man was not dead. His body was too rigid, too tense, as if caught mid-thought, his muscles locked in something worse than pain.
Gray staggered to his knees. His side bled freely now, every breath slicing through him. The smell of dust and iron clung to the air. He wanted to reach for the book, to burn it, to tear it apart, but his hand trembled too violently to move. His vision pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
He stumbled toward the exit, one hand dragging against the shelf for balance. His steps echoed hollowly, unsteady, almost drowned beneath the fading whispers that still clung to the air.
"Get… out…" he muttered to himself. His own voice sounded far away. "Get out… just go."
The blue light behind him dimmed, shrinking until it vanished into the seams of the marble floor. Silence swallowed the library again.
He made it halfway across the hall before a sound stopped him.
The man's voice.
It was faint at first, then sharp, piercing the quiet like a thread drawn tight.
"You… will not leave here," he rasped, the tone now laced with venom, "without giving me… the Apple."
Gray froze.
The words hit him harder than the blow had.
The Apple.
His heart lurched violently. His breath hitched. He turned his head slowly, his mind reeling.
The Apple of the Waning Dawn.
He knew that name. It throbbed in his skull like a memory that wasn't his, a story he'd never been told but had somehow always known. The words alone sent a wave of cold through him, dragging behind it a hundred indistinct whispers.
'How the hell does he know?' His mind shook violently.
The man was moving now. Shakily, but moving. He rose to his knees, one hand pressed against the floor. His hood hung low, shadows hiding his face.
Gray stumbled back, breath sharp and uneven. He had no strength left to fight. Not again. Not this.
Then, something else reached him.
A sound.
Footsteps—measured, deliberate—echoing from beyond the double doors of the library. A second later came a rush of air, sharp and cold, sweeping through the cracks between the wood. The temperature dropped instantly. His breath misted in front of him.
That presence—he recognized it. Every inch of him recognized it.
Seraphine Kaelith.
Gray's eyes widened in panic.
No, not now. Not here.
He dove toward the front desk, sliding behind it just as the doors opened. The faint squeal of hinges sounded like thunder in the quiet.
Cold light bled into the room.
Seraphine stepped through the threshold, the faint hum of her Vyre weaving through the air. Her eyes—bright glacial blue—scanned the darkness. The faint aura around her burned with restrained power, a swirling mixture of frost and something older, heavier. Every movement carried control, precision, and quiet authority.
Gray pressed a hand over his mouth, silencing his breath. His entire body trembled, not from pain, but from the weight of her presence.
The hooded man turned to face her. His voice came low, almost fond.
"Seraphine Kaelith, it's been a while."
Seraphine tilted her head slightly, her expression unreadable. "Do i know you? Better yet why are you even here. You know this is royal grounds."
The man's laughter was strained, weak, yet mocking. "You think you can stop what is coming? I came only to collect what was ours. The Apple should have never reached these walls."
Her brows narrowed. "The apple?"
He lifted his head slightly, and even from Gray's position behind the desk, he could see the faint gleam of that same symbol burning on his cheek. "Yes... the apple. It whispers. Even now, the Dawn wakes again."
The air around them thickened. A faint mist began to rise from the marble, coiling around Seraphine's boots.
She didn't answer. She simply raised her hand.
The temperature plummeted. A crack ran through the floor, then another, spreading in a spiderweb pattern across the marble. The air hummed with a high, ringing tone that made Gray's teeth ache.
The man's voice lost its calm. "You will regret this—"
Seraphine vanished.
A blur of motion followed. She appeared behind him, hand outstretched. Frost exploded outward, enveloping the man's arm before he could turn. It froze solid, brittle white lines crawling up toward his shoulder.
He howled, shattering the ice with a violent surge of Vyre. His counterattack followed—a storm of shadowy blades that tore through the shelves, shredding wood and paper alike. But she was already gone again, reappearing to his left, then behind, each movement precise, almost effortless.
"Pathetic," she said softly.
A strike landed, invisible but devastating. The man's body folded, thrown backward into a column. Cracks shot up the stone like lightning.
Gray's eyes darted between them, heart slamming in his chest. He had never seen anything like it. Seraphine didn't even seem to be exerting herself.
The man lunged again, his Vyre coiling in the form of a black, sticky bullet. It screamed as it cut through the air. Seraphine caught it with her bare hand.
The impact shattered the windows.
The glass fell around her like frozen rain, glittering in the pale light of her aura. She twisted her wrist. The bullet broke into a thousand glittering shards that turned to mist before hitting the floor.
"Still clinging to that form of power?" she said. "You learned nothing."
He snarled, lunging again. She met him mid-motion, her hand slicing across the air. A wave of frost surged outward, smashing him into another wall. The floor beneath him froze instantly.
He coughed blood, struggling to stand. "You cannot stop...the Dawn. None of you can...the Apple...the Apple has already been found."
Seraphine's expression didn't change. "You are mistaken. The only thing you will find here is silence."
She raised her hand. Vyre rippled, condensing around her arm in a spiral of cold light. From that spiral, metal shimmered into being—a long, ornate spear, silver and azure, etched with runes that glowed faintly like starlight.
The man staggered to his knees, his own Vyre flaring in jagged waves. His voice turned to a rasping laugh. "Kill me, then. It changes nothing. The Dawn will rise. He already walks among you."
Seraphine stepped closer. The spear tip hovered inches from his throat. Her aura pressed down like the sky itself had bent to her will.
"The Dawn," she said, voice calm, "died long ago."
He smiled faintly. "Then why...do you still fear its shadow?"
The spear drove forward.
There was no sound—only the faint whisper of wind through the shattered windows. The man's body went still, eyes glassy. His Vyre flickered once, then vanished.
Seraphine withdrew the weapon, expression as cold and unreadable as ever. She let the body fall, turning away as if it were little more than an inconvenience.
Her gaze swept the room one final time. Her eyes narrowed slightly, resting on something near the far side.
The book.
The Silent Hymn of Vh'laen lay half-open, its faint glow returning, pulsing slowly like a heartbeat. Its pages fluttered in the cold air spilling through the broken windows.
Seraphine approached, her steps soundless. She bent slightly, one hand hovering just above it, her expression tightening for the first time. The Vyre around her arm rippled faintly, reacting.
The light from the book dimmed, as if shrinking away from her.
She straightened slowly, eyes glinting with something unreadable. "So it begins again," she murmured.
Her gaze shifted toward the window, where the night wind howled through the shattered glass.
The city beyond was silent.
She turned her head slightly, scanning the shadows. He spear dissolved into mist. Her aura dimmed.
Without another word, she stepped toward the window, the night wind tearing through her hair. Then, in one fluid motion, she leapt through the frame and vanished into the darkness outside.
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Gray remained frozen behind the desk long after she was gone, blood dripping steadily from his side. His breath came in short, shuddering gasps.
He stared at the spot where the man had fallen. Nothing remained—no body, no blood. Only faint streaks of dark Vyre burned into the marble, like scars.
And near the center of it all, the book still pulsed faintly, its blue glow alive, defiant.
Gray swallowed hard. His thoughts were chaos.
The Apple. The Dawn. That mark on the man's face.
And the way Seraphine had looked at that book—not surprised, not curious. Terrified.
He took one unsteady step forward. Then another. The light flickered as if sensing him, the whispers faint, curling around his mind.
"Vh'laen… dosk thrynn…"
His hand twitched toward the cover.
Then he stopped.
The wind howled louder through the broken window.
Gray turned, breathing ragged, and limped out of the library without looking back.
Behind him, the faint blue light of The Silent Hymn of Vh'laen shimmered once—then went out.