Chapter 26 Possibilities #3
"Do you think my father destroyed them?"
The question sounded far more personal than she intended.
Ilva's answer came slowly and carefully.
"I think powerful people rarely burn documents themselves."
Eira blinked as the older woman continued.
"But they often create reasons for someone else to do it."
A long silence followed.
For the first time since arriving in the archives, Eira felt something shift inside her. It was not certainty or accusation, but something far more unsettling: the possibility that entire parts of her world had been built on stories chosen for her.
And if that was true, how many other things had she accepted simply because someone told her they were true?
Ilva left her there shortly afterward, not abruptly or dismissively, but with the quiet confidence of someone who understood that certain thoughts required space.
"You don't need me for the next part," she said, gathering several scrolls beneath one arm.
Eira glanced up.
"The next part?"
The older woman smiled faintly.
"Thinking."
And with that, she disappeared between the shelves.
For a while, Eira remained exactly where she was while the documents before her lay forgotten, though her thoughts certainly did not.
History disappears when it becomes inconvenient.
The words lingered longer than she wanted them to.
Eventually she pushed the scrolls aside and rose from the table, deciding that walking felt easier than thinking.
The archives stretched endlessly around her as she wandered without purpose at first, passing shelves of trade records, maps of distant coasts, and journals written by explorers, merchants, sailors, scholars, and people whose names history had almost forgotten.
One shelf eventually caught her attention.
Travel Accounts.
Eira paused before selecting a book almost at random.
Its leather cover had been worn smooth by countless hands, and she settled into a nearby chair before opening it.
Hours passed without her noticing.
The book told the story of a woman who had sailed along the western coast decades earlier. She had not been a ruler, a warrior, or anyone history considered particularly important, yet she had crossed storms, visited distant ports, and described places Eira had never imagined.
The woman had been frightened at times, lonely on many occasions, and wrong more often than she cared to admit, but she had gone anyway.
Eira found herself smiling as she turned one page after another.
The realization came slowly.
People had lived entire lives beyond Frostvein, beyond duty, beyond expectations, and beyond fathers deciding who they should become.
The thought felt both dangerous and wonderful.
A familiar voice interrupted her.
"What did you find?"
Eira looked up and saw Ilva standing beside the table once more.
She wasn't carrying books this time, only curiosity.
Eira glanced down at the open pages and then toward the harbor visible through the distant windows.
The answer surprised even her.
"I thought I was looking for answers."
Ilva waited.
"And?"
Eira considered the question before a faint smile touched her lips.
"Possibilities."
The older woman looked entirely too pleased with that answer.
"As I suspected."
Eira rolled her eyes.
"I dislike how often you seem to know things."
"No, you don't."
"Perhaps not."
Ilva pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down.
Only then did her gaze drift toward a small stack of loose pages resting beside Eira's elbow—the notes she had been carrying for days, filled with observations about the sea, the harbor, the gulls, and the shell she had found on the beach.
Without thinking, Ilva reached for the top page.
Eira immediately straightened.
"You don't have to read that."
The older woman ignored her completely, which was a familiar habit.
Her eyes moved across the page once, then a second time, before she set it down again.
The silence stretched long enough for Eira to regret bringing the notes at all.
Finally, Ilva spoke.
"Don't stop."
Eira blinked.
"What?"
"Writing."
The older woman nudged the pages gently with one finger.
"Don't stop."
Eira looked down at them.
"They're just notes."
"No."
Ilva's answer came immediately.
"They only look like notes because you're still living them."
The words settled more heavily than Eira expected.
Neither woman spoke for a moment as the afternoon sunlight beyond the windows began turning gold and dust drifted lazily through the beams. The archives seemed quieter than before, almost reverent.
Ilva rose without gathering anything or taking anything with her.
Just before walking away, she paused.
"People always believe they're living through ordinary days."
Eira looked up.
The older woman smiled, and it was the kind of smile that belonged to someone who had spent a lifetime watching years become history.
"Then one day they discover those were the days that changed everything."
For a moment neither of them moved.
Then Ilva disappeared once more among the shelves, leaving Eira alone with her notes, the books, the sea beyond the windows, and a strange new certainty.