The invitation came wrapped in shadows.
No messenger. No seal. Just a black parchment folded beneath Aedric's pillow, placed while he slept — or pretended to.
One line was written in silver ink:
> "To master the fire within, you must read what the heavens burned."
Aedric turned the parchment over. On the back, a sigil: a flame encased in a chain — the mark of the Sealed Library.
> So it still exists in this timeline…
He remembered rumors of a library buried beneath the Dominion — forbidden even to kings. A collection of books too dangerous to destroy, guarded by those who had long forgotten the taste of daylight.
In the last life, he never found it.
This time, he was being invited.
---
That night, cloaked in a hood of rune-woven shadow, Aedric descended through the hidden tunnels behind the Academy chapel. Magical glyphs hissed as he passed — sensing something old and powerful in him.
After thirty-seven levels of descent, the stone finally opened into a vast underground chasm.
A colossal door of obsidian stood at the center, taller than a cathedral, inscribed with a language no mortal tongue could shape. Chains wrapped around it, thrumming with divine energy.
A single figure waited before it.
A man. Or maybe not a man. His eyes were sewn shut. His body glowed faintly with starlight. He smelled of ink and ash.
"You are the Flameborn," the figure said.
"I am."
"You have seen death."
"I have lived it."
"You seek knowledge."
"I seek truth. And power enough to burn fate itself."
The figure stepped aside.
"The Library accepts you."
With a deep groan, the chains unraveled, and the obsidian doors parted.
---
Inside, the Library of Forgotten Light defied reality.
Books floated in the air, pages turning on their own. Shelves spiraled into dimensions unseen. Lanterns hung from nothing, flickering with memory-flame — not fire, but thought.
Aedric walked slowly, feeling the weight of ages press down upon him.
These were not ordinary books.
They whispered as he passed.
> "You should have died."
"The gods remember your rebellion."
"Will you burn again, prince of ash?"
He paused at a pedestal.
There sat a book unlike the others — bound in dragonhide, sealed with nine divine chains.
The title shimmered:
"The Codex of Ruin"
And beneath it, an inscription:
> Property of the First Flameborn.
Aedric's heart pounded.
> There were others before me…?
He reached out.
The moment his fingers touched the book, a burst of heat exploded through the chamber. Light roared. The shelves screamed.
Visions hit him like lightning.
A world on fire.
Cities swallowed by shadow.
Flame devouring the gods themselves.
And in the center — a lone figure with black flame wings, standing atop a throne of bone.
Him.
But older.
Deadlier.
Unstoppable.
---
Aedric staggered back, breath ragged.
"What… was that?" he whispered.
The sewn-eyed keeper appeared beside him without a sound.
"You saw the truth. Or what could be."
"Was that me?"
"Not yet. Perhaps never. But the Codex knows what the Flameborn can become — and what must be sacrificed to reach it."
Aedric looked down at the book. The chains were gone.
The Codex now obeyed him.
---
Before leaving, he passed one last section — books wrapped in silver silk, humming with cold energy.
He reached for one.
"The Prophecy of the Crownless King."
But before he could touch it, a second hand reached out — soft, pale, feminine.
He turned.
Lyara Nox stood beside him, her violet eyes glowing faintly.
"You shouldn't read that one," she said. "It knows your name."
He stared at her. "How did you get here?"
"I followed the fire," she said simply.
They stood in silence for a moment.
Then she said: "Come. Something is waking. I saw it in my dreams."
---
As they left the Library, Aedric felt it.
In the deepest corner of the Codex… something had stirred.
And it whispered a name.
Caelen.
---