The archive was not meant for reading.
That much was obvious the moment Kael stepped past the public stacks.
The air changed first—thicker, colder, heavy in a way that had nothing to do with dust or age. His footsteps sounded wrong here, muffled as if the building itself disapproved of movement.
No guards stopped him.
That was the most disturbing part.
Kael followed the narrow staircase downward, guided not by instinct, not by threads, but by absence. Places where his awareness slipped. Places where the city refused to acknowledge him.
Locks.
Not on power.
On permission.
At the bottom of the stairs sat a single door, old metal reinforced with symbols carved so deeply they scarred the surface. Not runes. Not Path marks.
Declarations.
Kael didn't touch the pendant. He didn't reach outward.
He breathed, focused inward, and stepped through.
The room beyond was small, circular, and lined with shelves that bent slightly inward, as if listening. Each shelf held books bound in materials Kael didn't recognize—leather too smooth, pages too thin, ink that seemed to darken when he stared too long.
At the center stood a table.
On it rested a single, unmarked volume.
Kael's pulse quickened.
Every instinct screamed at him to leave.
He sat anyway.
The moment his fingers touched the book, the threads vanished.
Not hidden.
Gone.
The world did not respond to his awareness at all.
Kael swallowed.
This wasn't suppression.
This was irrelevance.
He opened the book.
The text inside wasn't written in a single language. Words shifted as he read, reforming into meaning rather than sentences. His head began to ache—not sharply, but deeply, like pressure building behind his thoughts.
Gods do not walk Paths.
Kael froze.
Paths are for those who exist within structure. Gods define what structure is allowed to remain.
His breath slowed as he continued.
The book spoke of Authorities—not powers, not abilities, but permissions that reality obeyed without resistance. It described gods not as beings of strength, but as fixed points around which existence arranged itself.
A god does not act.A god permits or denies.
Kael's fingers tightened.
The text shifted.
Where mortals manipulate threads, gods determine which threads may exist.
Images pressed against his thoughts—vast, abstract, impossible to fully comprehend. Oceans that refused to move. Wars that ended because conflict was no longer allowed. Cities collapsing not from destruction, but because they had lost the right to remain.
Kael felt small.
Then the book spoke of Domains.
Places where a god's Authority applied naturally. Not territory—context. Inside a Domain, reality behaved correctly without effort.
The God of Death did not kill.
Things were simply already dead.
The God of Order did not enforce law.
Chaos had to justify itself to persist.
Kael's headache worsened.
He turned the page.
Gods do not appear as they are.
The text explained Aspects—fragments projected so mortals could perceive, worship, bargain, or fear them. Churches did not serve gods directly.
They served Aspects.
Kill an Aspect, and nothing truly changes.
Forget an Aspect, and something far worse begins.
Kael exhaled slowly.
So that's what the churches are…
The next section chilled him.
Gods require Anchors.
Names spoken. Bloodlines remembered. Cities devoted. Rituals repeated.
Without Anchors, even gods faded.
This was where the Royal Family of Argentinis appeared.
Not as rulers.
As inheritance.
Their blood carried ancient agreements—oaths made long before the city was built. Kings were not chosen for power, but for continuity. To forget the throne was to weaken something far older than governance.
Kael leaned back slightly, nausea rolling through him.
The final pages were damaged.
Burned.
Torn.
But one sentence remained.
Those who control without domination are dangerous to gods.
Kael's breath caught.
They do not expand Authority.They narrow it.
The book closed on its own.
The threads rushed back all at once, slamming into Kael's awareness so hard he nearly cried out. He staggered back from the table, hands braced against the wall, heart racing.
The pendant was warm.
Not warning.
Not guiding.
Acknowledging.
Kael laughed quietly, a dry, hollow sound.
"So that's it," he whispered. "That's the ceiling."
He left the room without looking back.
Above ground, Argentinis roared back into existence—noise, light, motion, ignorance. Churches rang bells in the distance. Royal banners fluttered atop towers. Citizens moved on, unaware of how fragile relevance truly was.
Kael pulled his coat tighter and vanished into the crowd.
He now knew what Paths were echoes of.
He knew why the hunt had never truly been about killing him.
And he knew one thing with absolute certainty:
If the gods ever noticed him directly—
It would not be as prey.
It would be as a problem.