The sun rose over Nareth'Mir in soft golden layers, gliding through carved windows and touching the marbled halls of Saerion's estate with a sleepy warmth. The echoes of the Trial still lingered in the back of their minds — not in words, but in weight. Each had seen something they couldn't unsee. Yet no one spoke of it that morning. There would be time. Or perhaps, there wouldn't.
For the first time in many days, the group did not wake to sandstorms or the howls of something ancient. Instead, they were awoken by the polite but persistent knocks of attending maids, who insisted that breakfast would not wait for wandering swordsmen.
Fenric grumbled. Ayra buried her face in a cushion. Kael was already up, seated near a shaded balcony as if he hadn't slept. He stared east, toward where the trial had ended, his hand resting unconsciously over the rune at his belt — the one that had pulsed when the illusions broke. Whatever force they had stirred wasn't done with them yet.
Sylvi blinked away the haze of sleep and joined him.
As they gathered in the sunlit atrium over a breakfast of fig bread, sugared almonds, and citrus tea, Saerion crossed one leg over the other, glancing toward the horizon through an open arch.
"There's a place I think you should visit," he said.
Ayra raised an eyebrow. "Another ruin?"
He smirked. "No. A library. The Ashen Library."
"A library?" Fenric asked, skeptical.
"Nareth'Mir was not always a forgotten kingdom," Saerion said. "It held secrets. Still does. The Ashen Library is one of the few places that still remembers them. If the map led you here… it may be written in things older than the empire."
Sylvi sat up straighter. "Then we should go."
"I'll send word. The keepers don't allow just anyone."
"I'm coming too," Niera declared, stepping into the room uninvited.
Saerion turned. "You hate books."
"I don't hate books," she replied quickly. "I just hate the boring ones. Besides…" she glanced toward Fenric and smiled faintly, "someone has to keep this one out of trouble."
Fenric nearly choked on his bread.
Ayra narrowed her eyes at Niera, then leaned toward Sylvi. "Oh no. She's choosing violence."
Sylvi hid a laugh behind her teacup.
Fenric cleared his throat. "You know, speaking of trouble… I still don't get how Graveth and Saerion became friends. One's a mercenary who probably bathes in cave water, the other's a noble who probably writes poetry to his morning tea."
Ayra raised a brow. "That's not inaccurate."
"We met during the Siege of Caeldra," Saerion said with a faint smirk. "Graveth was leading a rear charge through the broken east wall. I was on the wall making sure it didn't fall."
"And then?" Sylvi asked.
"He threw me a rope. I threw him a book."
"Wait—what?"
"He needed a map of the sewers. I had the only one. It was bound in a historical ledger of Nareth'Mir."
"And Graveth didn't burn it?" Ayra asked.
"He still has it," Saerion said. "Takes notes in the margins."
Fenric blinked. "That's the most polite argument I've ever heard."
Kael offered a faint smile. "Makes sense. They're both trying to understand the world in their own ways."
By midmorning, Kael, Ayra, Sylvi, Fenric, and Niera had departed from the estate, their path winding through the gentle marble streets of Nareth'Mir's noble ring. Saerion remained behind to handle estate duties, obligations he neither liked nor shirked. Graveth, on the other hand, parted ways at the outer gate—he had taken a rough parchment scroll and a charcoal stub and declared he would map out the city's geometry while cross-referencing it with ancient fault lines. "Something's off in the layout," he had muttered. "Like the capital was built to avoid something."
The Ashen Library stood at the edge of a quiet water garden district, its facade weathered but proud. Carved sandstone pillars framed its heavy doors, and etched above them was an inscription in Old Common:
"Let ash fall where memory rises."
Inside, the scent of dried parchment and old perfume filled the high air. Dust hung like lace in the shafts of sunlight that streamed through rose-stained windows. The silence was thick—but not heavy. It felt reverent.
The place had a quiet intensity that reminded them of the Trial's final moment — when illusion peeled back and something ancient spoke not through words, but through knowing. Here too, knowledge waited behind silence.
The group was greeted by a robed woman in her early thirties, wearing ink-stained gloves and a brass quill pendant. She had deep brown skin, pale golden hair braided over one shoulder, and a quiet confidence about her.
"Welcome to the Ashen Library," she said. "I'm the librarian. My name is Selmira."
"You work here alone?" Sylvi asked.
"There are a few scribes, but I've been here the longest. If you're looking for records on Nareth'Mir's past—there's a wing I can take you to. You'll want the Second Vault: Historical Epochs and Mythic Structures."
Kael nodded. "We're trying to understand something old."
Selmira tilted her head. "Aren't we all?"
She led them down arched corridors lined with stone lions and chandeliers made from translucent bone glass. Scrolls and codices lined the walls, some chained in iron brackets.
Eventually, they reached a small vaulted room with four circular reading tables, each holding a lantern of steady blue fire.
Selmira gestured to a mural on the rear wall. "If you want to know about Nareth'Mir, start there."
Selmira brushed her fingers across the mural's edge. Candlelight shimmered over etched stone — a vast desert, a warrior kneeling, and a colossal figure behind him, motionless, yet eternal.
"You asked about Nareth'Mir," she began, her voice low and solemn. "Then listen well."
The group fell silent. Ayra's usual fidgeting stilled.
"This land… it was once only a village. A forgotten mark in the middle of the burning sands. No banners flew here. No roads led to it. But the people endured — digging deep for water, shielding their children from sun and storm. And at the heart of them was a man. No king. No lord. Just a fighter with a blade, and a promise to his people."
Kael watched the stone image closely. Fenric folded his arms.
"But life in the desert breeds greed. Word spread of fertile wells and blooming crops. A distant empire heard — and sent an expedition. Not a band of raiders… a full host. Hundreds of armored men, war-machines trailing dust behind them. They came bearing parchment, sealed by a royal signet. Surrender the land, or it would be taken."
Ayra scoffed. "He didn't."
Selmira nodded. "He refused."
The silence between the group deepened.
"And so they attacked."
Her voice turned heavy, as if bearing the weight of memory not her own.
"On the third dawn, horns echoed through the sand. Arrows soared. Fire rained. The villagers had nowhere to run — no walls to hide behind, no army to call. Only him. The man who had raised them from drought and silence."
Sylvi's hands clasped at her chest.
"He fought at the front. His sword already broken. Blood running down his chest. Even as they overran the village, he stood. Not to win. Just to shield. And in the final moment, as spears closed around him… he whispered."
She paused, then quoted the words slowly:
Let me protect them. Even if it takes everything.
Kael's fingers curled slightly. The room felt heavier.
"And something heard him."
Selmira stepped aside and gestured to the mural — to the vast, inhuman figure emerging from the dune behind the kneeling man.
"A voice. Childlike. Ancient. It said only three words: So be it."
"And then it rose."
"The Paradox Forge," she said. "One of the Archefracta. Anvil of Impossible Shape. It answered not with words — but action."
Her hand hovered near the depiction of the statue.
"The figure stepped from the sand. Giant, featureless. Holding a sword as wide as a housebeam. And with one motion, it swung."
The group leaned in.
"It sliced the earth. A wave — not of water or fire, but sand itself — surged outward. Towering like a tidal surge. It crashed into the invading army. Swallowed them whole. Not a single scream escaped. Not a single helmet remained."
Ayra stared at the mural. "…It buried them alive."
Selmira nodded.
"After that, the statue stood motionless. Then, it drove its sword into the center of the scorched ground. The sand beneath the villagers' feet turned dark, rich, alive. Water sprang up. Crops flourished. Wounds healed. Bones straightened. The dying could stand again."
Kael's eyes lingered on the center figure — the statue still, its blade embedded in the earth.
"And from that moment," she finished, "that very spot — where the statue still stands — became the heart of a kingdom. A land reborn through denial. Through sacrifice. And paradox."
She turned to the group.
"He was crowned not because he wanted power. But because the land itself answered his refusal. And so, the village became Nareth'Mir — the kingdom that should not have survived… but did."
She paused. "There was another kingdom once. Isareth. Older, wiser. It fell. Vanished. But its echoes are etched in our stone. Nareth'Mir stands… perhaps in its shadow. Or in defiance of its fate."
The group exchanged glances. Kael said nothing — but inside, something stirred.
The forgotten. The buried. The refused.
They weren't just stories.
They were roots.