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The doors to the Serpent Archive had not been opened in over two hundred years.
Even the air around them tasted like secrecy — cold metal and dust layered over forgotten prayers.
I ran my hand across the carved serpent that wound through the stone arch. Its scales shimmered faintly, as if alive, responding to the pulse of the mark beneath my skin.
"Are you certain about this?" Rowen asked quietly. His psychic sensitivity was already straining; I could see the faint tremor in his fingers. "Thalindra said this place eats memories."
"That's why I came alone before," I murmured. "But this time, we need to know what my ancestors were guarding."
He hesitated. "And if what they were guarding wasn't meant to be freed?"
I looked back at him, meeting his gaze. "Then it shouldn't have called to me."
The serpent's eyes flared gold at my words. The door uncoiled, stone scales sliding away until a narrow passage appeared.
A breath of air escaped — old, dry, heavy with age and warning.
We stepped through.
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The Archive was not like the others. It wasn't built to hold knowledge.
It was built to hide it.
Each wall was lined with black shelves, spiraling downward in a serpentine design. Sigils crawled along the floor, whispering softly in an ancient tongue that brushed my mind like cobwebs.
At the center stood a single pedestal — carved from obsidian, veined with veins of red light pulsing in rhythm with my heart.
Rowen shivered. "This is wrong. The energy here — it's not celestial. It's older."
"Primordial," I said softly. "The De'Ardentis family was sworn to guard the Primordial Scripts — the ones written before Heaven's first decree."
I approached the pedestal. On it lay a coiled scroll bound with chains of molten silver.
The metal hissed faintly as I reached out. The mark on my palm flared, and the chains parted like smoke.
The parchment unfurled on its own — revealing not ink, but moving light. The words slithered across the surface like living serpents, rearranging themselves as if aware of my gaze.
> "Vovet Sanguinem. Custodit Fatum."
— He who swears by blood shall guard fate itself.
Beneath it, more text appeared, whispering into existence:
> The first vow was not spoken by gods, but by those who defied them. To bind Heaven and Hell, a mortal line was chosen — blood that could remember eternity.
Rowen's breath hitched. "That's your family. The De'Ardentis."
My pulse quickened. "The vow runs through my bloodline."
"And Lucien?"
I hesitated, reading further. The words shifted again, forming a seal — a twin-mark, half radiant, half void.
> The heir of twilight shall awaken when the blood of remembrance calls his name.
Rowen looked at me in disbelief. "Elaris— You called him awake."
I stepped back, the realization clawing through me. The vow hadn't just chosen me.
It had waited for me.
The ground trembled softly. Dust fell from the ceiling, and the walls began to hum — low and steady, like a thousand heartbeats buried in stone.
Rowen turned sharply. "Something's coming."
I could feel it too — a presence slithering through the darkness, old as the first betrayal.
"Don't move," I whispered.
A voice drifted from the shadows — smooth, echoing, threaded with silk and venom:
"Child of remembrance... how long have you hidden my tongue from the world?"
The air grew cold. The torches guttered out, one by one. Only the scroll glowed now, casting long shadows across the floor.
"Who's there?" Rowen demanded, though his voice trembled.
The darkness moved — not like mist, but like something with shape and intent. Then, from within it, a pair of eyes appeared — luminous silver, rimmed in gold.
The shape stepped forward, resolving into a woman — tall, ethereal, her hair flowing like smoke, her form wrapped in serpentine light. Her voice coiled around the edges of my mind.
"I am the Keeper of the First Tongue," she said. "The serpent who taught men the words gods feared."
My breath caught. "You're not—"
"Evil?" she finished, smiling faintly. "I am language itself, child. Heaven calls all understanding a sin."
She turned her gaze on me fully now, her eyes narrowing. "You carry the vow's pulse. The last of the De'Ardentis bloodline that remembers what the vow truly means."
"What does it mean?" I asked.
Her expression softened — almost pitying. "To love across the boundaries of creation is to unmake what gods call order."
I shivered, remembering Lucien's words — You are the vow now.
The serpent-woman tilted her head. "You and your heir have awakened the vow again. The world will answer. But before it does…"
She reached out her hand. The scroll between us ignited in a spiral of gold and crimson fire.
"Choose," she said softly. "To guard the vow — or to break it."
The flames rose higher, swallowing the chamber in brilliance.
I closed my eyes and whispered to the light: "If love is defiance… then I'll guard it."
The fire surged inward — into my chest, my veins, my heart. The mark on my hand flared brighter than ever before, searing a second symbol into my skin — a serpent coiled around a flame.
When the light died, the chamber was silent again. The scroll was gone. The serpent woman had vanished.
Only the mark remained.
Rowen touched my arm, trembling. "Elaris… what did you just do?"
I looked at the serpent symbol still glowing faintly on my skin. "I took her language."
"The serpent's?"
"No," I said quietly. "The vow's.