The rain had weakened by the time Aelys reached the Grand Luminaran Library, but the city around her still shimmered with droplets clinging to the crystal-laced rooftops. She paused on the marble steps, letting the cool wind settle the sparking hum inside her chest. Ever since the encounter with The Forsaken Echo, she had felt… uneven. As if her own heartbeat lagged behind reality by a fraction of a second.
Lira, perched on her shoulder, flicked her bright tail.
"You're drifting again," the little foxlike creature chirped softly, her voice a melodic hum only Aelys could hear.
"I know," Aelys whispered. "Seris told me to study the Resonance Index today. Maybe I'll find something that explains this feeling."
The heavy doors parted silently as she stepped inside. The scent of old parchment, photic ink, and crystal dust washed over her like a wave. Thousands of scrolls and tomes floated overhead along luminous rails, rearranging themselves according to subtle shifts in magical currents. The entire place felt alive in a calm, breathing way.
Aelys approached the inner hall where Seris usually waited. Instead, she found an elderly archivist adjusting a cluster of levitating books.
"Excuse me," she began, "I'm looking for Seris Valoren."
The archivist blinked slowly, his eyes glowing faintly blue. "Ah. Apprentice Aelys. Seris is attending a High Convergence Council. She left instructions for you."
He tapped a rune, and a scroll drifted toward her.
"Begin your study of Line Resonance beneath the library. Trust the Pulse."
Aelys frowned. "Beneath the library? That area is restricted, isn't it?"
"Restricted," the archivist said, "not forbidden." Then he smiled gently. "You are the Custodian's Candidate. Restrictions bend around purpose."
She didn't feel like a "candidate" of anything — only a girl pulled into a world she didn't fully grasp — but she accepted the scroll and descended the spiral path leading underground.
The Understacks
The air grew colder the deeper she went. The lamps shifted from warm golden light to violet flames that danced without heat. Lira pressed closer to her neck.
"Aelys… something's resonating down here."
Aelys stiffened. "Like The Forsaken Echo?"
"No…" the creature murmured, sniffing the air. "Worse? Better? I don't know. But it's… older."
At the bottom of the staircase she found a massive door carved with intertwined spirals — the symbol of temporal convergence. It opened the moment her fingers brushed it.
Inside lay a vast chamber lit by pulsating lines in the floor, all converging at a crystalline sphere suspended in midair. It throbbed softly, like a second heartbeat mirroring hers.
Aelys stepped closer, drawn as if by instinct.
The sphere brightened.
Then it spoke.
Not in words.
In memories.
Images burst into her mind — a woman who looked like her but older, weaving shimmering threads through a collapsing timeline; a broken citadel floating above a storm of fractured moments; a hand reaching out for hers just before it dissolved into light.
Aelys staggered back, gasping.
"Aelys!" Lira squeaked. "Your pulse—"
"I saw something," she whispered, clutching her head. "Someone. She looked like me."
The crystalline sphere pulsed again, and this time she sensed its message clearly:
A Line Fragment was calling to her.
The Pulse Responds
She steadied her breathing and reached out. The sphere reacted immediately — a thread of light unspooled from it, hovering before her like a living filament. It spiraled around her wrist, not touching her, just… syncing.
A soft tone reverberated through the chamber. Aelys felt her mind expand.
Knowledge rushed in.
Not overwhelming this time — but like a whispered instruction:
Follow the Pulse. Trust the memory beneath memory.
Her hand tingled. A faint sigil formed on her palm, the same spiraled symbol from the door, but incomplete — as if awaiting more pieces.
"This is the first Line Fragment," she murmured.
Lira hopped onto her forearm, eyes wide. "You weren't supposed to find one this soon…"
"I didn't find it," Aelys corrected. "It found me."
But before she could examine the sigil further, the lights flickered.
The chamber trembled.
Lira bristled. "Something's entering the underlayers. A distortion surge."
Aelys turned toward the corridor as a cold wind rushed through it — carrying whispers that echoed like her own voice twisted backward. The air reddened, thin as paper. A dark shape materialized between the flickering lamps.
Not a Forsaken Echo.
Worse.
A Temporal Wraith — a creature formed from collapsed timelines, its form crackling with unstable fragments of memory. It lunged the moment it saw her, screeching with the sound of reversing glass.
Aelys froze.
Lira leapt in front of her, unleashing a burst of ethereal flame that forced the Wraith back.
"Aelys, weave something! Anything!"
"I don't know how!"
"You do now."
Aelys stared at her trembling hand. The sigil glowed. The filament around her wrist ignited with pale light. Suddenly she understood — the knowledge wasn't in her mind; it was in her resonance.
She raised her hand, letting the instinct guide her.
"Phase Ripple!" she shouted.
A wave of bending air surged outward, striking the Wraith and destabilizing its form. It shrieked, collapsing into glitching shards of light.
Aelys panted, stunned.
Lira stared up at her, equally stunned. "You… you improvised a Phase Ripple. On your first try."
"I didn't improvise it," Aelys whispered, staring at her glowing hand. "The Fragment taught me."
The sigil dimmed, the light fading — but the knowledge remained.
She had taken her first real step as a Line Weaver.