Ashen Valor's grand library was nothing short of a temple.
Massive stone columns held up a vaulted ceiling painted with constellations. Golden chandeliers flickered with enchanted flame, casting warm light across rows of polished wood tables and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. In a place built for war, this quiet oasis of knowledge felt almost sacred.
Kael stepped through its archway, careful not to let his boots echo too loudly.
It had been a day of heavy sparring and lectures—more of Instructor Marek's brutal drills, followed by a tactics lesson led by a dry old mage with a beard that could trip over itself. But Kael's mind wasn't on the battlefield.
He came to the library for answers.
He still couldn't understand the full scope of the Surya Putra Karn System. Why had it chosen him? What were the deeper powers locked behind its golden interface? There was no guidebook. No mentor. Only scattered clues hidden throughout the world—some in places like this.
> [Quest Activated: Legacy Echo – 1/12 Fragments Discovered]
Objective: Seek knowledge of Karna's lost trials.
Hint: "Seek where light meets silence."
He figured it was metaphorical, but a quiet library filled with morning sun filtering through stained-glass windows seemed a good place to start.
Kael moved between shelves until he reached the back corner—where history texts and mythologies were stored. Most students didn't bother with these; they were too obsessed with spells, martial manuals, or monster atlases.
He scanned a few bindings before selecting a dusty tome titled Children of the Fallen Suns. He took a seat at the furthest table.
To his surprise, someone was already there.
A girl sat at the far end, half-buried in shadows.
Her presence was quiet, like the soft fall of snow. Long white hair draped over her shoulders in silken sheets. A thin black ribbon tied her collar. Her uniform was pristine, dark, and sharp-edged, with a single silver crest pinned near her collarbone—a sign of elite aptitude.
She didn't look up.
Kael's breath caught in his throat, not from recognition at first—but from stillness.
He knew her name, of course. From the moment he saw that hair. That posture. That subtle distance she created between herself and the world.
Sylara Wyncrest.
The Winter Thorn. The one who fought alone. The one who died far too early in the novel.
Kael had spent more time thinking about her arc than anyone else. She never laughed. Never fell in love. She died protecting people who never really knew her.
And yet, she'd lingered in Karan's mind longer than even the hero.
She didn't notice him—or if she did, she didn't care. Her eyes moved smoothly over the pages of a thick blue spellbook, her hand resting delicately near the spine.
Kael sat down without a word, leaving a gap of two chairs between them. He opened his book.
For several minutes, they read in silence.
The air between them was cold, but not uncomfortable. Kael found himself glancing up every so often. Not to stare, but to confirm she was real.
Not a dream. Not a figment of the story.
Just a girl.
Reading in a library.
Finally, after what felt like an hour, she spoke. Quietly.
"You turn your pages too loudly."
Kael froze.
"I—sorry," he said quickly, voice barely above a whisper. "I'll be gentler."
Sylara nodded once and returned to her reading.
Another pause.
Then: "That book's outdated. The section on divine bloodlines was disproved two years ago."
Kael blinked. "Was it?"
She reached into her satchel without looking up and slid a slim, navy-bound book across the table toward him. "Use this one."
He looked at the cover: Celestial Lineage: Revised Histories and Arcane Implications.
He swallowed. "Thanks."
Another nod. Then silence again.
Kael returned to his reading, this time more carefully.
He didn't try to force conversation. He didn't ask who she was or why she was here. He didn't mention that he knew her fate.
Because right now, this was enough.
Just being in the same room.
Just seeing her alive.
She didn't speak again.
But when she stood to leave, she paused for a moment. Her pale eyes met his. Unreadable. Distant. But not cold—not entirely.
"Don't believe everything in the old books," she said. "Even truth can be miswritten."
And then she walked away.
Kael stared after her.
> [New Thread Discovered – Sylara Wyncrest]
Status: Unknown Interest
Fate Anchor Shifted: Chapter 83 → Unstable
Observation: "Some paths freeze before they bloom."
Kael let out a long breath.
He didn't know what that meant yet. But something had changed. Not loudly. Not like a fight, or a spell, or a dramatic reveal.
Just a soft step off the path fate had written.
---
Later that night, Kael sat on his dorm bed, that blue book still in his hands.
He hadn't even opened it again. He just kept staring at the title.
She'd spoken to him. Briefly. But it wasn't her words that stayed with him—it was the way she existed.
Silent. Sharp. Present, yet unreachable.
Just like the first snowfall.
He remembered her ending in the novel—alone, frozen in a collapsed cave, her sword plunged into the heart of a frost wraith, her magic spent. No one was there to mourn her.
Karan had mourned.
He would not let that fate come again.
---