Ink-Stained Ghosts

The scroll Kaelen handed me held more than orders. It held questions I couldn't ask and answers I wasn't sure I wanted.

So I kept it close all night — folded under my pillow, though sleep never came.

Instead, I stared at the ceiling of the servants' room as the others snored around me, and thought about how a man can burn a woman alive and still not remember the shape of her voice when she whispers in front of his fire.

By dawn, I had memorized every word of the appointment.

Elira Avellein

Assigned: Assistant to the Royal Archivist (Acting)

Effective Immediately

Access Level: Limited (Tier II)

Authority: None

And yet… it felt like a weapon.

The Archives sit beneath the palace — a labyrinth carved from stone and dust. It's where secrets go to rot, where truths are buried beneath layers of half-lies, revisions, and rewritten oaths.

I arrived in silence.

No one welcomed me.

No one explained anything.

There was only the door. Towering, iron-ribbed, and older than the throne itself. A single guard unlocked it without speaking and stepped aside. His eyes didn't meet mine. Perhaps he'd been warned.

The air inside the Archives was cold enough to sting. Torches lined the walls, their flames flickering blue. And it smelled of old wax, parchment, and forgotten blood.

I wasn't alone.

A man in a robe stood behind the central desk — stooped, ink-stained, and skeletal, as if the Archives had devoured him slowly over years. He glanced up as I approached and blinked with pale gray eyes.

"You're the new girl," he said flatly.

I nodded.

He squinted. "Bit thin for lifting scroll crates."

"I can manage," I replied.

"We'll see."

He didn't ask questions. Didn't care that I bore the king's seal or came from the same house that tried to strip me in court. His name was Master Therel, and he made it clear that to him, I was nothing but hands — ones he intended to use.

He gave me a ledger, a bucket, and a list of restricted rooms I wasn't allowed to enter.

Then he pointed to the far wall.

"Start with Section E. It's a graveyard of misfiled treaties. If it bites, scream."

Hours passed like centuries.

I worked in silence, fingers blackened with dust and wax. My arms ached from lifting crates. My back throbbed. And yet… a strange calm settled in my bones.

No one spoke to me.

No one looked at me like I was something to mock, or break, or spit on.

The Archives didn't care who I used to be.

And in that, there was peace.

Pain Conversion: 29%

System dormant.

No skills unlocked.

By late afternoon, I found it.

Not what I was looking for.

Not what I expected.

But something that made my breath still and my blood race.

It was misfiled — tucked between a land dispute and a treaty from fifteen years ago. Just a single sheet of parchment, rolled tightly and bound with crimson thread.

No royal seal. No date. No clear title.

I opened it with shaking fingers.

And found my own signature at the bottom.

Queen Delmira Seravelle of Solvane

My name.

My true name.

Written in ink, not memory.

The document was a military requisition — an order I gave two weeks before my execution. But it had never been enacted. Never stamped. Never reported in the ledgers I knew.

Because it was classified.

Hidden.

Why?

What did I try to do?

Who buried it here?

My hands trembled as I scanned the names listed — one jumped out:

General Theros Kain.

My most loyal commander. The man who stood at my side in the final siege. The one I ordered to retreat… and who never returned.

Until now, I thought he died in the rebellion.

But this order was signed and sent to him.

Which meant… he received it.

Which meant…

He might still be alive.

And if he is…

Then someone lied.

I tucked the scroll beneath my bodice, praying the thread didn't tear. My skin burned where it touched — not from the parchment itself, but from something deeper.

From the truth.

The beginnings of it, anyway.

I returned the next day.

And the next.

Every hour in the Archives peeled back a layer of silence I didn't know I'd been wrapped in. Here, I could move. I could read. I could search.

And Kaelen did not summon me again.

Which was fine.

Because I wasn't ready to look into his eyes again until I had something sharp enough to pierce what was left of his heart.

A week passed before I found the next ghost.

A sealed ledger — Eyes Only: Crown Use. Inside, there were handwritten notes.

Most were mundane: lists of noble marriages, trades, foreign dignitaries.

But one line made my pulse thunder:

"Target secured. Vessel prepared. Pain threshold observed: 84%. Conversion not complete."

No date.

No name.

Just that.

My mouth went dry.

They knew.

About the pain.

About the system.

About me.

Pain Conversion: 34%

System dormant.

No skills unlocked.

But I could feel it.

Beneath my ribs. Behind my spine. In the marrow of my bones.

Something inside me… stirring.

Not yet a scream.

But a pulse.

A promise.

And next time Kaelen looked into my eyes — maybe, just maybe — he'd see something familiar.

Something he couldn't quite name.

Something that might devour him whole.