The corridors of the Scribe's Annex were still hushed with dawn when Illyen stepped into the hall, cloak brushing against the marble floor. There was a different air to him now — not weightless, but centered, as though memory had finally become something gentle enough to hold without cutting himself on it.
Memory was no longer a cage of broken glass — it had become a lantern, lighting the path he had once walked blind.
Cael waited by the arched doorway, tall and steady in the muted glow. His gloved hands clasped before him, but when he saw Illyen approaching, the invisible tension in his shoulders eased.
"Ready?" Cael asked, voice deep, warm, familiar.
"Yes." Illyen exhaled softly. "Today… feels different. Like the threads are pulling us toward something old."
Cael reached out, brushing Illyen's sleeve with a grounding steadiness.
"Then we follow them together."
Before Illyen could reply, a gentle chiming echoed from the stairwell.
Elara approached, her Scholar's vestments a deep midnight blue threaded with tiny silver stars. Her presence always felt like quiet truth — soft, luminous, and ancient.
Behind her stood Aric, a young archivist with tired eyes and an armful of lanterns shaped like lotus flowers. Their petals glowed softly, each flame swaying like a heartbeat.
"I asked Aric to join us," Elara said. "The Vaults shift with memory. We need someone who knows the oldest paths."
Aric bowed quickly. "I can guide you. But the Echo Vaults… they remember things we don't."
Illyen's heart tightened.
"That's why we're going."
⸻
The Descent
The entrance to the sub-crypts was hidden behind a stone panel carved with the sigil of the First Scribes — a quill crossed with a star. Illyen remembered tracing that symbol as a child, though he never knew why it felt comforting.
Cael stepped forward and laid his hand upon it.
The stone glowed once.
A low, ancient sigh trembled through the air as the panel slid open.
Cold air spilled out — old ink, cool stone, a faint metallic scent of ancient magic. Illyen inhaled deeply.
"Stay close," Aric warned. "The Vaults test intent."
Illyen met Cael's eyes.
"Then we'll pass."
They descended into a spiraling staircase carved from obsidian stone. The walls glimmered faintly with inscriptions — names of forgotten scholars, runes of protection, constellations that belonged to no sky Illyen recognized.
As his fingertips brushed one engraving, a pair of intertwined circles gleamed beneath the dust.
Illyen froze.
He knew this symbol.
"This… this was on the jade tokens," he whispered.
Cael halted beside him. "The ones we buried beneath the magnolia…"
Elara stepped close, her eyes widening. "Then your bond was tied to these halls long before your memories were fractured."
Illyen's breath trembled.
It wasn't just memory they were chasing — it was their place in something older than either of them.
⸻
The Echo Vaults
The staircase opened into a vast, hollow dome. Threads of ancient magic drifted in the air like silver starlight caught in slow currents. Every shimmer hummed softly, as if whispering to itself.
Illyen stared, awe hollowing him out in the most beautiful way.
The threads of ancient magic drifted like fragments of songs the world had forgotten how to sing.
"It's beautiful," he whispered.
"And dangerous," Elara murmured. "These are echoes — remnants of spells cast centuries ago. They replay memories if you get too close."
Aric nodded. "Some memories… aren't yours."
Cael positioned himself protectively at Illyen's side.
Illyen rolled his eyes softly.
"I'm not fragile."
"No," Cael said, "but you are irreplaceable."
Heat rose in Illyen's cheeks, but he didn't look away.
The Vaults stirred at the closeness of their magic.
Their hands brushed — light as breath — and even the shadows seemed to lean closer, as if the stones recognized their bond.
The Echo Vaults parted slowly, threads of light pulling away like curtains to reveal the inner sanctum:
the Hall of Aether's Loom.
Columns pulsed with dim, breathing light. Spirals of script etched the floor. And at the center—
A pedestal.
Empty.
Waiting.
Illyen felt a tight ache in his chest.
"The Loom… it's gone."
"No," Elara whispered. "It was moved. But traces remain."
Aric kneeled beside the pedestal, brushing dust carefully aside. "This is where the Veil was once bound. And where the fracture began."
Illyen stepped closer, letting his magic hover above the etched runes. A pulse answered him — sharp, bright, unbearably familiar.
Pain.
Crackling blue light.
A sound like the world shattering inward.
He staggered backward.
Cael caught him instantly, arms firm around him.
"Illyen— breathe."
Illyen gasped softly, gripping his cloak. "It's just… I remember the sound. When the Loom pushed back. When it tried to protect me."
Elara's eyes sharpened. "Then the Loom wasn't the cause. It reacted to something else."
"Something beneath it," Aric said.
Cael straightened. "Then we go deeper."
⸻
The Shifting Passage
The passage downward narrowed into a winding throat of stone. The air thrummed softly; the walls shimmered in response to their presence.
At one point, Illyen brushed the stone — and a vision flickered:
Cael, younger, exhausted, sitting beside Illyen's unconscious body.
Head bowed.
Hand gripping Illyen's limp fingers.
Whispering promises to a sleeping ghost.
Illyen pulled back, breath breaking.
Cael turned sharply. "What did you see?"
Illyen's voice was barely a whisper. "The truth. You… you stayed even when I wasn't myself."
Cael looked away, jaw tight. "You would have done the same."
Illyen brushed his knuckles against Cael's hand.
There was a sacred softness in the way Cael watched him — a quiet vow shaped into a gaze that said: I have waited, and I will wait again.
Elara smiled faintly behind them. "The Vaults remember every shape of love."
Aric blinked. "I thought they only recorded magic."
Elara touched a glowing thread drifting by.
"What is love," she murmured, "if not the oldest magic?"
Illyen felt a tremor run through him — soft, warm, overwhelming.
⸻
The Lower Vault — The First Crack
The path ended in a smaller round chamber. The floor was carved with a vast glyph — cracked, scorched, still faintly humming like a wound that had never healed.
Aric whispered, pale, "This is the rupture point."
Illyen knelt slowly.
The crack in the glyph was not just a wound in the floor — it was a scar in history, pulsing faintly with the heartbeat of an ancient mistake.
He lowered his palm, not touching, simply letting his magic hover.
A vision surged:
Two Scribes in pure white, arguing in frantic whispers.
The Loom dimming behind them.
Spells meant to conceal, not heal.
A name written, then crossed out.
A life marked for erasure.
Illyen gasped.
Cael's hand shot out, catching him.
"What did you see?"
Illyen's eyes widened, shimmering with horror and clarity.
"It wasn't my spell that fractured me," he whispered. "It wasn't the Veil. It wasn't an accident."
He looked up, voice trembling.
"They tried to rewrite the Veil. To remove something. To remove… someone."
Cael's expression hardened into something fierce, sharp, protective.
"Who?"
Illyen swallowed.
"Me."
Elara's breath hitched. "Then the Loom acted in defense — restoring what others tried to take."
Cael's grip on Illyen tightened. "Someone tried to erase you from the world."
Illyen met his eyes, feeling the weight of ten lost years settle like falling ash.
"No," he whispered. "Someone tried to erase us."
Cael's heart stuttered visibly in his gaze.
Aric stepped back, pale. "Then the Veil wasn't a failure. It was a shield."
Illyen felt truth bloom inside him — slow, inevitable, devastating.
Truth approached them softly, like a tide rising around their ankles — gentle at first, then unstoppable.
Illyen exhaled, voice barely more than breath.
"The Loom didn't break me."
"It saved me."
"And it saved our bond."
Cael pulled Illyen closer, eyes burning with a promise older than the Vaults themselves.
"Then we find whoever tried to steal you," he said, voice like a vow.
"And we take back everything they tried to tear from us."
Illyen pressed his forehead to Cael's.
"The thread held," he whispered.
"It held all along."
And beneath the house, the Vaults hummed in recognition — a soft, ancient note of memory, magic, and a love the world had once tried to erase.