The Schismed Citadel

The air within the Schismed Citadel was stagnant, thick with the scent of old ink and something far less earthly, a cloying, metallic tang that settled in the back of Evelynn's throat like the residue of a fever dream. The bookshelves stretched impossibly high, vanishing into shadows that refused the light of the candle sconces flickering at irregular intervals along the walls. Each shelf was laden with volumes that trembled at the edges, as if recoiling from her presence. The spines of the books pulsed faintly, text shifting in and out of legibility, rearranging itself in patterns that should have been nonsensical, yet made a horrifying kind of sense if she allowed her gaze to linger too long.

She forced herself to look away.

Elias sat hunched over the desk, his ink-stained fingers clutching a quill that did not dip into an inkwell, but instead bled its substance directly from his fingertips. The dark fluid snaked across the parchment in fractal patterns, sigils curling in upon themselves before unraveling again, their meaning just out of reach. His lips parted slightly, but no breath escaped. His eyes, sunken, rimmed with shadow, flickered toward her without truly seeing.

"Elias," she said, her voice quieter than she intended.

At the sound of his name, something in him spasmed. His fingers convulsed, the quill tearing through the parchment, ink blooming outward like black veins on diseased flesh. The books along the shelves trembled, some shifting forward as though to listen. The air grew heavier, pressing against Evelynn's lungs, thick with the sensation of being observed by countless unseen eyes.

Her brother's jaw moved, but the words that fell from his lips were not entirely his own.

"Sister... you must not have come."

The voice was layered, fractured, as if multiple versions of Elias spoke at once, some younger, some older, some distorted with an echo of something inhuman. Evelynn swallowed against the rising dread in her chest, her heartbeat pounding like a wardrum in the silence of the chamber.

"I had no choice," she said, stepping closer. "You were searching for the second lock. I need to know what you found."

Elias twitched again, his fingers clawing at the parchment before him, his body stiff with some unseen tension. The ink crawled up his wrist, disappearing beneath the ragged sleeve of his shirt, and for the first time, Evelynn noticed the shifting patterns along his exposed skin. Not tattoos. Not scars. But something far worse, something alive. The glyphs that had once marked the pages of the books around him were now engraved upon his very flesh, writhing just beneath the surface, rearranging themselves with every breath he took.

"The second lock," he murmured, his pupils dilating. "It is not a door, nor a key. It is a name unwritten. A life that should have been, but was never born. It is absence, Evelynn. And absence cannot be undone."

A chill settled in her bones.

"Tell me how to find it."

Elias lifted his gaze then, and for the first time, she saw something stir behind the exhaustion and horror, recognition.

"You already have," he whispered.

The shadows within the Citadel shifted.

Evelynn's breath stilled as the air around her rippled, the walls of the library distorting as though viewed through water. A slow, methodical creaking echoed from the shelves, the sound of something vast and unseen turning the pages of reality itself.

She turned, and the books were watching her.

Not figuratively. Not metaphorically.

Where there had once been titles embossed in ancient ink, there were now eyes, countless, lidless, set into the parchment and bindings, blinking in unison. Some were human, wide with recognition. Others were impossibly alien, slit-pupiled, or swirling with colors that should not exist in any natural spectrum. Evelynn staggered backward, her pulse hammering as the whispered rustling of turning pages filled the chamber, though no hands moved them. The books were reading her, devouring the details of her presence, her thoughts, her very being.

The ink in Elias's veins surged.

"Go," he rasped. "Before it writes you, too."

Evelynn hesitated, torn between the horror of abandoning him and the growing certainty that if she remained, she would become part of whatever unnatural symphony played out in the Citadel's depths. The shadows curled at the edges of her vision, creeping closer, thickening into shapes that were almost human, but not quite, figures half-formed, their outlines smudged, as if they had been erased from existence yet refused to stay forgotten.

The bookshelves groaned.

Elias clenched his jaw, his body shuddering violently as the ink carved itself deeper into his skin. His fingers dug into the parchment, and with a sudden, pained gasp, he scrawled a final word onto the page before him. The ink shuddered, the letters rearranging themselves into something resembling a name, something almost familiar, before the entire Citadel shuddered as if in protest.

The walls screamed.

Evelynn turned and ran.

The chamber distorted around her as she moved, the shelves twisting and stretching, the pathways shifting unpredictably as if the Citadel itself was refusing to let her leave. The books along the shelves gaped open, their pages fluttering in silent mockery, revealing fragmented stories that unraveled as soon as her gaze touched them. Some bore her name. Some bore names she had never known, yet recognized in the deepest marrow of her bones.

Something was chasing her.

Not with footsteps, nor breath, but with inevitability. The whispering deepened, voices folding over each other in a ceaseless litany of unmaking.

"She has read the words.""She has seen the ink.""She belongs to the pages now."

A door loomed ahead, a massive iron gateway bound in rusted chains, standing at the edge of the shifting corridor like the threshold of a world beyond. The moment her fingers touched the handle, the metal pulsed beneath her grip, warm, alive, resisting her intrusion even as something behind her exhaled in disappointment.

Evelynn wrenched the door open.

And the Citadel let her go.

She stumbled into the cold, gasping, the scent of damp stone and sea air flooding her senses. The ground beneath her boots was solid, real. The warped geometry of the Citadel had vanished the moment she crossed the threshold. She turned, breath heaving in her chest, expecting to see the towering structure behind her.

It was gone.

Only the empty alley remained.

Voss stood at the end of the street, watching. His expression was unreadable, but the tightening of his jaw told her he had expected this outcome. He took a step forward.

"You saw him," he said. It was not a question.

Evelynn's hands trembled. The ink had not left her fingertips.

"He's still inside," she whispered.

Voss did not reply immediately. Instead, he regarded her with the same careful calculation he always did, assessing, analyzing, as if weighing the cost of what had been done. Finally, he exhaled.

"The second lock," he murmured. "Did you find it?"

Evelynn looked down at her hands. The ink on her skin pulsed once, as though responding to his words.

Then, with slow, dreadful certainty, the letters began to rearrange.

She had not found the lock.

She had become part of it.

The ink did not remain still. It pulsed, writhed, coiling around her fingers in slow, serpentine motions, as if tasting her skin, sinking deeper into the crevices of her palm. She tried to wipe it away, to smear it against the fabric of her coat, but it would not lift, would not spread, it remained etched upon her flesh, shifting, rearranging itself into symbols that whispered secrets her mind was not yet ready to comprehend.

Voss stepped closer, his sharp gaze flickering to the ink. For the first time since she had known him, a shadow of hesitation passed over his face. Not fear, not quite, but wariness, the way a scholar might regard an ancient text written in blood, or a physician might inspect a wound whose infection defied the body's natural laws.

"What did it show you?" he asked. His voice was quiet, careful, as though he already suspected the answer and did not wish to give it form.

Evelynn exhaled shakily, flexing her fingers. The ink slithered, curling along the tendons of her wrist like living veins. "I found Elias," she murmured. "Or what remains of him."

Voss did not speak, did not move.

"He's still writing," she continued, forcing herself to steady her breath. "The Citadel hasn't let him go. He's been, " she faltered, searching for words that did not exist, "rewritten. The books, the ink… they're using him."

Voss exhaled through his nose, slow and measured. "It is as I feared."

A sharp laugh escaped her. "Feared? You knew this would happen?"

"I suspected," he corrected. "Holyland has few fates, Dr. Blackthorn. You've seen them already. Some are swallowed by the mirrors. Some are rewritten by the books. And some…" His eyes flicked to her hands. "Some are marked to continue."

A chill wrapped itself around her spine. "Continue what?"

Voss did not answer immediately. Instead, he extended a gloved hand. "Come with me. We mustn't linger here."

She hesitated. The ink on her fingers burned, a phantom sensation of something burrowing deeper into her skin. She did not know if she could trust him, not entirely, but standing in the empty alley, with the weight of the vanished Citadel pressing against the edges of her mind, she realized she had little choice.

Evelynn stepped forward.

Voss did not lead her back toward the mortuary. Instead, he guided her down the twisting streets of Holyland, through alleys that should not have connected, past buildings that seemed to shift when she was not looking. The town was awake in its own way, the architecture restless, twitching at the edges of perception like a dream on the verge of collapse.

They stopped before a nondescript building, stone, darkened by centuries of salt and wind. No signage, no marker, yet something about it coiled unease around her ribs.

Voss pushed open the door without ceremony. The hinges let out a groan, as if the building itself protested their entry.

Inside, the walls were lined with glass.

Evelynn stopped cold.

Mirrors.

Not whole ones. Shards. Fragments. Each encased in delicate metal frames, arranged upon shelves like sacred artifacts. Some reflected the dim candlelight, showing nothing but the hollow emptiness of the room. Others were darker, shadows shifting just beneath their surface, figures moving where no figures should be.

The Eschatonic Mirrors.

She turned to Voss sharply. "What is this place?"

He stepped inside, removing his gloves with slow precision. "A collection."

Her stomach twisted. "Of what?"

"Of those who were taken."

The air turned thick, stifling. She stepped closer to the shelves, her pulse thundering in her ears. Each mirror shard pulsed with an unseen weight, pressing against her mind like a whisper at the edge of hearing.

Then, as she passed a particularly large fragment, something changed.

A flicker.

A shift.

And then—

Her reflection was not her own.

Evelynn froze.

The woman in the glass stood as she did, mirroring her every motion, but it was not her. The features were familiar, yes, but the eyes were wrong. Too dark. Too knowing. A second too slow, a heartbeat behind.

And then the mouth moved.

Not hers.

The reflection.

No sound. Only lips forming silent words.

But Evelynn understood them. "You should not be here."