Elias awoke to the scent of cold parchment and burnt oil. For a long moment, he lay still, unsure whether he had slept or simply blacked out. The ceiling above him wavered in the dim glow of a dying lamp. Dust floated through the light like drifting ash.
He sat up slowly. His desk loomed beside the narrow bed, stacked high with catalogues and unfinished notes. And there lying perfectly closed amid the clutter was the book.
The Codex or whatever it truly was looked changed. The leather cover, once dull, now carried a faint sheen, as though something beneath the surface breathed. Elias's heartbeat quickened. I should burn it, he thought. Throw it into the furnace and forget. Yet the thought felt absurd the instant it formed. He could not destroy what he did not understand.
A dull ache pulsed in his right hand. He lifted it toward the lamp. Faint lines curled across his palm delicate, almost invisible veins of silver-grey, forming half-circles and crooked runes. When he turned his wrist, they glimmered, then faded back beneath the skin.
Ink? No… light. He rubbed at them until his skin reddened, but the markings remained, ghost-pale and stubborn. Panic fluttered at the edge of his mind. It has marked me. The words came unbidden, carrying a strange reverence he did not like.
He forced himself to breathe. The book lay motionless, silent. Perhaps it had all been imagination the fatigue of too many sleepless nights in the archive. Veltherra's Grand Library could do that to a man: endless corridors of dust and echoing silence had a way of warping thought.
He rose, splashed water on his face from a basin, and peered into the mirror. Shadows pooled beneath his eyes. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw another reflection behind his own,a blur of movement, there and gone. He turned sharply. Nothing but the book.
Outside his window, Veltherra stirred to life. Dawn poured through the fog, gilding the rooftops of the old quarter. The city was built on layers of ancient catacombs below, the scholar's ward above, and high above that, the white towers of the Church of the Veil. Their bells rang out now: deep, deliberate tones that rolled through the streets like waves of warning.
Elias listened. He had always loved that sound; it gave order to the chaos of the city. But this morning, the bells seemed off-beat, discordant, as if ringing for a different reason.
He dressed quickly, wrapped the book in cloth, and slid it into the bottom drawer of his desk. Stay hidden, he told himself. Act as though nothing happened. Yet when he stepped into the corridor, every creak of the wooden floor felt accusatory.
The Grand Library's upper halls greeted him with their usual chill. Shafts of pale light pierced the stained-glass windows, painting the marble in colours that never quite seemed alive. Few patrons came this early; only the custodians shuffled about, sweeping the endless dust.
Elias moved between the rows of shelves, forcing routine into his limbs. He sorted scrolls, recorded titles, wiped the brass nameplates until they gleamed. But his focus fractured easily. Shadows along the ceiling seemed to breathe. The flame of his lantern bent sideways when no draft was present.
When he reached for a ledger, his fingertips brushed a symbol etched faintly into the wood of the shelf a perfect circle crossed by three diagonal lines. He froze. He had never seen such markings here. Under the light, they shimmered briefly, then vanished.
You're overtired, he told himself. Cataloguing hallucinations now. Yet his stomach knotted with a different understanding: the sigil matched one of the diagrams from the book.
He closed his eyes, trying to recall the phrase beneath it,something about gates, or doors of perception but the memory slipped away, leaving only a whisper at the back of his mind.
You opened one.
He jerked his head up. The voice was not spoken aloud; it bloomed inside his thoughts, soft as breath. He scanned the hall. No one. Only silence thick enough to hear his own pulse.
A faint laugh his own escaped before he realised he was trembling. "Madness," he muttered under his breath. "Pure madness."
And yet part of him felt an undeniable thrill. Whatever this was delusion or revelation it meant he had touched something real, something that scholars had chased for centuries beneath the marble calm of Veltherra.
The lamps flickered once, twice. The air smelled faintly of iron. From somewhere deep in the library, a door closed on its own.
Elias straightened the stack of ledgers in his arms and forced his feet to move. Work. Keep moving. Don't think. But thought was a tide, relentless and whispering.
The day passed uneventfully. Elias returned to his quarters, ate a meagre supper, and tried to sleep. But the shadows in the corners of his room seemed deeper than before. The silence was too complete. His dreams were filled with faces he did not recognise, speaking in languages he could not understand.
He awoke with a start, drenched in sweat. The book lay on his desk, as though waiting.
He had not touched it since that night in the basement. But now, he could not resist. He opened the drawer and pulled it out.
The leather was warm under his fingers. The symbols on the cover shifted, just out of the corner of his eye. He opened the very same page.
The diagram was still there the circle with intersecting lines. Beneath it, the words remained unchanged.
"To know, one must pay. To pay, one must dare."
The hum was back, low and insistent. Elias felt it in his bones. He traced a finger over the symbols.
A vision flashed before his eyes: a crowded city street he did not recognise, people moving like clockwork, symbols carved into the walls of buildings. It vanished almost instantly, leaving him dizzy and gasping.
He stumbled back, clutching the book to steady himself. The room spun. The air was thick with the scent of ink and dust.
A knock at the door.
Elias froze. Who would be here at this hour?
He opened the door cautiously. An old woman stood in the hallway, her presence commanding despite her frailty. She wore the robes of the Church of the Veil, her eyes sharp and knowing.
"I know what you have done," she said, her voice low and steady. "You have opened a door that should not be opened."
Elias swallowed hard. "I. . .I don't understand."
She stepped into the room without waiting for an invitation. "You will," she said. "But first, you must listen."
She spoke of the Codex, of its origins and its purpose. She spoke of the dangers of seeking knowledge without understanding the cost. She spoke of the Church's vigilance, of their role in guarding against such transgressions.
Elias listened, his mind racing. He had thought the book was a discovery, a key to hidden truths. But now, he realised, it was a weapon a tool of power and peril.
When she finished, she turned to leave. "Remember," she said, pausing at the door. "Knowledge is never free."
The door closed behind her, leaving Elias alone with his thoughts.
He returned to the desk, to the book. The symbols on the cover had changed again, now forming a new pattern. He traced them with his finger.
A new phrase appeared beneath the diagram.
"Knowledge remembers those who seek it."
The hum was louder now, almost deafening. Elias felt it in his chest, in his mind. The room seemed to close in around him.
He turned the page.
The symbols shifted, rearranging themselves into a new pattern. The words beneath them were different this time.
"Those who seek the truth… are those who wish never to hear it."
The hum intensified, vibrating through the air. Elias felt a surge of energy, of power, coursing through him. His vision blurred. He saw the same flashes of memory, but he could not comprehend why the book was showing him this.
A voice whispered in his mind.
"You have crossed the threshold. There is no turning back."
Elias gasped, pulling his hand away from the book. The room was silent once more. The symbols on the page had faded, leaving only blank paper.
He sat back, heart pounding. What had he done?
He had sought knowledge. And now, it seemed, knowledge had found him.