Sleep did not come.
Every time I closed my eyes, the image of the partitioned battlefield returned—two forces separated, frozen, spared annihilation. The unnamed spell lingered at the edge of my thoughts like a half-remembered dream.
Safer didn't mean safe.
[Passive erasure detection: Active.]
The system's quiet hum grounded me.
I rose from my bed and crossed to the narrow window. Far below, the Academy courtyards lay bathed in moonlight, runes dimmed to their nighttime patterns. Students slept. Professors plotted. The Archive Below waited.
Then I heard it.
A whisper.
Not sound—but pressure, brushing against my awareness like fingers tracing a scar.
[External contact attempt detected.]
I stiffened.
"Who?" I murmured.
The wards did not react. No alarms. No intrusion.
Which meant the contact wasn't physical.
Memory-based, I realized.
A dangerous method.
The whisper sharpened, resolving into a single phrase that wasn't quite a voice.
—You chose restraint.
My breath caught.
The Authority Fragment warmed, not in warning—but recognition.
"You're not the Archive," I said quietly. "It doesn't speak."
—Correct.
The presence shifted, becoming clearer—not stronger, but more defined. Like an outline drawn around absence.
—We are what remains when Guardians choose to remember.
My pulse quickened.
"An echo collective," I whispered. "Of past Guardians."
—Fragments of us. Yes.
The words carried weight—centuries of it.
—We watched the one who erased himself. We watch you now.
I swallowed.
"What do you want?"
The pause that followed felt deliberate.
—To warn you.
The window frost crept inward, though the night wasn't cold.
—The Academy does not merely suppress the Archive Below. It feeds it.
My stomach dropped.
"Feeds it… how?"
—By studying it. By stabilizing it just enough to prevent release, while siphoning controlled data.
Experimentation.
On something that should never be prodded.
—They believe they can master forgotten spells without paying the price.
I clenched my fists.
"They can't."
—No. They cannot. And when it fails, the backlash will not be local.
Images flickered in my mind—runic chains snapping, wards collapsing, memory tearing across districts like wildfire.
"How long?" I asked.
Another pause.
—Soon.
Not days.
Not months.
Soon.
The presence began to fade.
"Wait," I said quickly. "Why tell me?"
The answer came softer than before.
—Because you built rules. Because you chose partition over erasure. Because you are still… you.
Silence returned.
The frost melted.
The night felt ordinary again.
I stood there for a long moment, heart pounding.
[External contact terminated.]
I turned from the window, my resolve hardening.
The Academy wasn't ignorant.
It was arrogant.
And arrogance, in the presence of forgotten magic, always ended the same way.
I reached inward, touching the unnamed spell in the Archive.
Partition.
Containment without deletion.
"If the Archive Below breaks," I murmured, "I won't let it take the city with it."
Even if it meant drawing the attention of every professor, every mage, every god watching from afar.
I would intervene.
Not as a weapon.
But as a line.
Because tonight, the whispers had made one thing clear:
The Guardian wasn't just remembering forgotten spells.
He was remembering forgotten responsibilities.
And the Academy was running out of time.