Chapter 18
LYRA
I stared at the glowing words until they blurred. “Then tell me the ones that can.” This time the codex did not answer with paper or a voice in my mind. This time, I was no longer in the Archives.
I was back beneath the silverleaf tree. A woman’s laughter rang in place of the Codex.
Her hair was golden and pulled back in a half braid like my own.
White training leathers served as a second skin and beside her, a man stood with shadows curling at his feet.
His hand brushed hers once. Her fingers twitched in the absence that followed.
They did not look at one another. Did not look at me.
And then they were gone.
The archives shifted again and this time I was standing between glass walls that seemed to be made of light.
And in front of me was the same woman. Only this time she wore a dress so blue that it flowed against the marble floor like water.
Lines and twists of silver inched over the fabric.
A goddess. That was the closest way to describe her.
The vision was gone with a blink and I was back between books.
“What was her name?”
Names have weight beneath the letters.
And yours is not yet ready to bear hers.
I swallowed hard. “Did she…” The words caught. I tried again, “Did she want me?”
Even in death.
Love does not end when a life does.
The ache beneath my ribs split open. All my life I had believed I had been abandoned. Forgotten. Unwanted, and the Codex had undone that belief with two sentences.
My knees weakened. I reached for the edge of the stone pedestal to steady myself. “She’s…” My voice broke before I could finish. I swallowed hard against the tightness climbing my throat. “She’s dead.”
The page remained still. No comforting lie. No softer wording. Silence itself became the answer. A strange grief settled over me. How could I mourn someone I’d never known? How could I miss a woman whose face I had never even seen?
Yet I did.
Gods, I did. “I thought…” I laughed once, hollow and brittle. “I thought she left me.”
The silver-blue ink stirred once more:
She did not choose death but she did not run from it either.
My eyes burned. “What happened to her?” The page remained blank. For a long moment I wondered if the Codex had decided I had reached the end of what it would give. Then, slowly—
New words appeared:
Some truths are earned.
Frustration surged through the grief. “I’ve earned something.”
The ink rippled:
You have.
Another line followed:
You know now that you were loved.
Nothing else appeared. I stared at the page. “That’s it? That’s all I get?” Silence. “No names?”
“No other family?” The page remained still. “No home?” The silver-blue glow beneath the parchment dimmed, as though the Codex itself was growing tired of the questions. I pressed both hands against the stone. “Please.” The word slipped out before pride could stop it.
My throat tightened. “The man.” Silence. “The one beside her, was he my father?”
The Codex was beginning to piss me off. “You know,” I snapped. “I know you know. So tell me.”
I know many things.
I know how kingdoms rise.
I know how they fall.
I know the names of children before they are born and long after they are forgotten.
Knowledge has never been the question.
“If you know so much then tell me.”
If I place a sword in the hands of a child, is the sword a gift or burden?
“I’m not a child.”
No.
The answer carried the faintest trace of amusement.
But you are still learning the difference between curiosity and readiness.
Shadows slipped between the shelves.
“How can you tell me I’m not ready when the answers are about my life?”
Because the answers you seek will not equal understanding.
“Has anyone ever told you how insufferable you are?”
A time or two.
Despite everything, a breath of laughter escaped me. It surprised us both. The silver-blue glow pulsed once. “You’re impossible.” Silence settled between us again. “I don’t know who I am. The only thing I know about my parents is what you’ve shown me.”
I looked down at my hands and felt the magic that flowed between them in a dance of light and shadow. “I don’t even know if Lyra is really my name.”
The pages remained still.
Then—
One page turned. Then another. Then another. Faster. Ink whispered against parchment until nearly a dozen pages had turned themselves. Only then did they stop.
The ink was faded, not from age, but as though someone had tried to erase it and failed.
Only a fraction of it remained untouched:
Whispers speak of a child born beneath the shadows of starlight, a girl with the stars in her blood and the souls of worlds in her bones. Wrought from dusk and dawn, she was neither light nor dark-but both, and something more.
My breath caught. “What is that?” The remaining lines rippled. Letters dissolved before my eyes, rearranging themselves into meaningless shapes until I could no longer read them.
A beginning.
“A beginning of what?”
A story still being written.
I frowned. “Whose story?”
The voice inside my mind was quiet again. “You called me Starborn.”
Maia’s words thundered in my ears. You were just a babe, wailing beneath the starlit sky like you belonged to it.
“Tell me what it means.”
There are truths that shape a life.
And there are truths that shatter one.
Wisdom lies in knowing the difference.
“I thought we were past the damn riddles.” I folded my arms. “So that’s really all I get?”
For tonight.
“That’s not an answer.”
It is the only one you are prepared to receive.
I looked back to the faded line:
Whispers speak of a child born beneath the shadows of starlight…
The words seemed older than the parchment itself. Older than the room. Older than the Sanctum. “Who wrote it?” The page remained still.
Then, slowly:
No hand remembers.
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
Some words are not written.
They are witnessed.
A chill crept over my skin. “It’s a prophecy.” The silver-blue light brightened.
It is.
My mouth went dry.
One of many.
“One of—” I stopped. “There are more?”
Every age births its prophets.
Very few survive to see whether they were right.
The way it said survive made my stomach tighten. I looked back to the faded words. “Has this one already happened?”
The pages fluttered beneath my fingertips:
It has begun.
My pulse stumbled. “Begun?” No answer.
I tried another question. “Has the child already been born?”
The chamber grew impossibly still:
Prophecy does not begin with birth.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Not yet.
“Then tell me one thing.” Silence. “One thing you can actually answer.” The glow beneath the Codex waited. “This prophecy…” My voice softened. “Is it about me?”
You have mistaken the question.
I blinked. “What?”
The question has never been whether the prophecy is about you. The question is whether you become it.
The voice seemed to echo from every shelf in the hidden chamber. Almost absentmindedly, my fingers brushed the edge of the page. “Become what?” No answer. I tried again, “Can prophecy change?” The lanterns beyond the hidden room flickered.
That…is the only question that has ever frightened those who weave fate.
No more ink appeared. No more pages turned.
The Codex had dismissed me. I stood there for what could have been seconds or hours, staring at the ancient parchment until the silver-blue glow slowly dimmed back into ordinary ink.
Nothing about it looked extraordinary anymore. Just an old book resting on older stone. I let my fingertips brush the worn cover once. Not in search of another answer.
Only… gratitude. “For telling me she loved me.”
The cover was warm beneath my hand and for the briefest heartbeat, I could have sworn it warmed a little more.
Then the shelves around me shifted. The hidden chamber folded into itself and books slid back into place with soft whispers of paper and wood until there was nothing left but another normal aisle in the Archives.
I found myself standing alone. The lanterns burned steadily overhead. Somewhere in the distance, an Archivist pushed a cart of books across the stone floor. Life had gone on. As though nothing had changed.
Yet everything had.
I knew my mother hadn’t abandoned me. I knew someone had loved me enough to die without running. I knew there was a prophecy older than kingdoms. And somehow… That frightened me less than not knowing who I was at all. I looked down at my hands.
Light shimmered beneath my skin and a thread of shadow answered it almost lazily before disappearing again.
Neither one felt like a stranger anymore. Not yet a friend but no longer an enemy. I drew a slow breath and stepped back into the main corridors of the Archives. Questions still outweighed answers and they possibly always would. But for the first time since crossing the Veil…
I wasn’t searching for proof that I belonged somewhere. I was searching for the truth.
And somehow, they no longer felt like the same thing.