Chapter 30 #5
The heat pulsed again. My eyes returned to the nameless record.
Seventeen. Light wielder. Elyndor. Twenty-two years ago.
Someone powerful enough to erase her identity from the Sanctum’s records had wanted the world to remember everything about her except her name.
Your mother walked these halls. “This is her.”
Kieran’s grip tightened slightly on my arm. “We don’t know that.”
“My rune reacted.”
“We don’t know why.”
“Why else would it?”
“I can give you a dozen reasons.”
“Then give me one.”
He fell silent.
“Exactly.”
“That doesn’t make you right.”
I pulled my arm away. “Why are you trying so hard to make me wrong?”
“I’m not.”
“It feels like it.”
His restraint slipped. “I am trying to stop you from taking the first thing that looks like hope and building an entire life around it.”
The words cut cleanly. I stared at him. Vareena’s head turned toward Kieran. Even Emrin went still. Kieran’s mouth opened, then closed. He knew. Too late. I took the record from him.
“At least I’m looking.”
“Lyra.”
“No.”
I turned away. He caught my arm. Again. This time I spun back.
“What?”
His voice dropped. “I know what it is to want a dead thing to become an answer.”
For a heartbeat, I heard the wound beneath the words. The anger did not disappear. It loosened. Just enough. Kieran looked at the record in my hands. “I’m not telling you this isn’t her. I’m telling you that if it is, you deserve more than a guess.”
The space between us went painfully quiet. I hated how easily he could do that. How he could make me want to strike him and understand him in the same breath. My voice came quieter. “Then help me prove it.”
“I’m trying.”
Emrin interrupted before I did anything stupid. “There’s another hollow behind the drawer.”
We turned. She had one hand deep inside the compartment. Vareena crouched beside her.
“Behind it?”
“Another hollow.”
Kieran released me. Emrin pulled the drawer farther forward. Stone ground against stone. Behind it was a narrow gap. Inside lay a folded scrap of parchment. Vareena reached toward it.
“Wait.”
All of us looked at Kieran. He stared back.
“What?”
“You’re going to tell us not to touch paper now?” I asked.
“In this place? Yes.”
Fair. He sent a thin strand of Shadow into the hollow. The darkness wrapped around the parchment. Nothing happened.
“Very princely,” Vareena said.
Kieran slowly looked at her. She smiled. He pulled the scrap free. It fell open on the floor. Most of the writing had bled into nothing. Four lines remained partially legible. Vareena knelt. I lowered my Light. The first was destroyed. The second held only a handful of words.
…must not remain within the record…
My stomach tightened. The next—
…if they learn what she is…
I stopped breathing.
“What she is?” Emrin whispered.
Vareena looked at me. Kieran had gone unnaturally still. The final line was darker than the rest, written with enough pressure that the quill had scarred the parchment. No name. No signature. Only six words.
The girl is not to be named.
No one spoke. The silence seemed to grow around us.
I looked from the hidden note to the ruined record.
Someone had cut her name away. Her family.
Her home. Someone had gone into one of the oldest parts of the Arcane Sanctum, removed an entire section of stone, altered a record with magic and hidden the order behind it.
Not destroyed. Hidden. As though even erasing her had needed to be done quietly.
My starlight rune pulsed again. Hard. Kieran saw my hand move toward my ribs.
“This changes nothing yet.”
“It changes everything.”
A sound moved through the chamber. Stone. Grinding. Emrin stood abruptly.
“What was that?”
The drawer behind her slid shut. By itself. Then another. Across the room. Then another. One after another, hundreds of stone compartments began sealing. Vareena shot to her feet.
“Kieran.”
“I know.”
The silver lines in the floor brightened. My Light flickered. Whispers stirred above us. Not one voice. Many. Names. I could hear them now. Thousands of names spoken too softly to understand. The archive remembering. Or warning us. Kieran grabbed the hidden parchment. I caught his wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
“We need the record.”
“No.”
“We can’t leave it.”
“We take that record through the outer ward and I guarantee we find out exactly what may not seek to possess means.”
Another drawer slammed. Closer. Dust rained from somewhere high above. Kieran shoved the nameless record back into its compartment. My stomach twisted as it disappeared.
“Wait—”
He caught my face. Both hands. The movement stunned me silent. His eyes locked onto mine.
“We know where it is.” His thumb pressed just beneath my ear. “We come back.”
The room shuddered. “You promise?”
He held me a fraction tighter. “Yes.”
A dangerous word from him. I believed it anyway. Vareena grabbed my hand.
“Lyra.”
Kieran released me. We ran. Behind us, the ancient archive sealed itself one name at a time. And tucked beneath Vareena’s jacket, stolen from a place built to keep its secrets, six words came with us.
The girl is not to be named.