Chapter 9: The Library of Forgotten Truths

The city of Vareth sprawled before them like a sleeping beast, its streets winding through buildings carved from black basalt. The air smelled of salt and something sharper—magic, old and restless, clinging to the stones like lichen.

Elara adjusted the hood of her cloak, eyeing the towering structure at the city's heart. The Library of Thorns wasn't a library at all, not in the traditional sense. It was a fortress, its walls studded with crystalline thorns that glowed faintly in the dusk.

Kael shifted beside her, the silver crown hidden beneath a glamour of shadows. "You're sure they'll help us?"

She snorted. "Help? No. But they'll trade."

"And the price?"

Elara's fingers brushed the fresh scars on her forearm—the mark of their bond. "Nothing we can't afford to lose."

The interior of the library was a labyrinth of floating platforms and bridges, each suspended over a bottomless void by chains older than the city itself. Books lined every surface, some whispering as they passed, others screaming behind locked covers.

At the center of it all sat the Keeper.

She was ancient in the way mountains were ancient—not frail, but immutable. Her eyes, milky with blindness, tracked them unerringly as they approached.

"Elara Silverthorn," the Keeper murmured. "I wondered when you'd come crawling back."

Elara bowed her head. "Keeper."

"And you've brought the Bastard Prince." The old woman's lips curled. "How… predictable."

Kael's hand twitched toward his dagger. Elara stepped on his foot.

The Keeper laughed. "Oh, I like him. He's all teeth and no sense." She leaned forward. "What do you want?"

"The truth," Elara said. "About this."

She held out her marked arm.

The Keeper's smile vanished.

The ritual chamber lay deep beneath the library, its walls inscribed with warnings in a dozen dead languages. The air here was thick with the scent of ink and iron.

The Keeper gestured to the stone altar at the room's center. "One memory each. Freely given."

Kael frowned. "That's all?"

"That's everything," the old woman corrected. "Choose wisely."

Elara went first. She pressed her palm to the altar and thought of the day she'd been chosen as the Silverthorn heir—the pride in her father's eyes, the weight of the ceremonial dagger in her small hands.

The stone grew warm. Then hot. Then *burning*.

When she pulled away, the memory was gone. She could recall the facts—the ceremony, the dagger—but the emotions, the meaning, had been scraped clean.

Kael watched her closely. "Are you—"

"Fine," she lied. "Your turn."

He hesitated only a moment before placing his hand on the altar. His memory was shorter: a single moment of laughter shared with a brother long dead.

The altar took it greedily.

The Keeper nodded. "Payment accepted."

Then she plunged her bony fingers into their marks.

Pain.

Not the sharp, clean pain of a blade, but something deeper—like roots tearing through muscle, like fingers scraping bone. Elara bit her tongue to keep from screaming. Beside her, Kael wasn't so restrained; a raw, animal sound tore from his throat.

The Keeper's eyes rolled back, her voice echoing with the weight of prophecy:

"Two halves of a broken key. One forged in shadow, one in light. Together they unlock the door, but the price is the hand that turns it."

She released them.

Elara collapsed, gasping. Kael caught her, his own breathing ragged.

The Keeper wiped her bloody fingers on her robes. "The amulet and the crown are fragments of the God-King's power. And he wants them back."

Kael's voice was hoarse. "What door?"

The old woman smiled. "The one you've been running from all your life."

They emerged from the library at midnight, the weight of the Keeper's words hanging between them.

Elara flexed her hand, the mark pulsing faintly. "So we're carrying around pieces of a dead god."

"Not dead," Kael corrected grimly. "Sleeping."

"And the door?"

He touched the crown. "I think… I think it's a prison. And we're the keys."

The implications settled over them like a shroud. If they were the keys, then the God-King's followers would never stop hunting them. And if the door opened…

Elara shook her head. "We need to find the other fragments first."

Kael nodded. "Before someone else does."

Above them, the stars burned cold and distant. Somewhere, a door waited.

And it was hungry.