Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
The cavernous library I used to love so much feels wrong now.
It’s as quiet as the last time we stepped in here, but what was once a beautiful, peaceful silence now feels ominous and heavy.
Dust hangs suspended in the air like ghosts caught mid-breath, and every step I take seems to echo too loudly through the marble aisles.
This place should be sacred—the great heart of the Memosyne, repository of the city’s oldest truths—yet now it feels hollow, like something vital has been siphoned away along with Cyril’s last breath.
I pause near the central desk, letting my hand brush against the gilded metal where he used to sit. His inkwell still stands here, stoppered neatly, like he might shuffle back in at any moment and scold me for being too rough with the parchment.
“He’d hate seeing me here like this,” I murmur, mostly to myself.
Stryx glances up from a shelf a few paces away. “Because you’re miserable or because you’re not hunting his killer?”
“Both.” My voice is low, the words sharp-edged with self-loathing. “I keep telling myself I’ll avenge him. But instead I let his murderer walk free. Just because he’s untouchable.”
I exhale deeply through my nose as I drag myself away from the desk and join Stryx in the stacks.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. He’s cursed Xavier and Vesper, we literally caught him in the act of killing Cyril, and yet for some inexplicable reason, I keep finding myself hesitating when I try to hate him. ”
I open one of the heavy tomes Stryx has gathered, its pages the colour of old ivory, inscribed with curling sigils and faded sketches of ancient symbols. Stryx sets down a stack of scrolls and leans against the table, studying me with a frown.
“It’s because you don’t understand his motive.”
I shake my head slowly. “That’s what frightens me. I don’t know about you, but he doesn’t strike me as a man who wastes effort. Every move he makes feels…deliberate. Purposeful.” I stare at the inked script before me without really seeing it.
“So why kill Cyril? Did he know something he shouldn’t have?”
“Unlikely,” I muse. “If that was the case, then we would be dead too. You know, to cover his tracks.”
She nods thoughtfully, but remains silent, the only sound the flutter of parchment as I turn another page.
I force myself to focus, pushing the unease down where it can’t reach me. Guilt will have to wait. Regret, too. For now, I need to focus on the task at hand. If we can hunt down the truth buried in this labyrinth of words, then finally Rivenéan Ashfell’s empire of secrets might come crashing down.
Hours tick by, the tips of my fingers red and chaffed from turning so many pages, even with the gloves on.
Stryx has become more restless as time passes, and I can’t say I blame her.
Given what happened the last time we were here, I can’t help but constantly check over my shoulder every few minutes, the constant silence of the Archives pressing in on me until I feel so stifled I can’t breathe.
My Shadow watches me always, occasionally whispering awful things in my ear while I try my best to ignore him, but the silence makes it impossible.
Alone with my thoughts and his incessant whispers, I slowly start to spiral, my anxiety reaching the point of overwhelming paranoia.
I slam the Book of Velmoran Societies shut, my frustration getting the better of me.
“We’ve been here for hours and nothing. Not a single reference to anything Raph mentioned.
I must have read every Voyding book about ancient societies and Velmoran histories and there’s not even a vague mention of this stupid cult. ”
Stryx grimaces. “Maybe he was wrong? Or maybe we aren’t looking in the right place?”
I huff a sigh, trying to rein in my temper. “I can’t think straight. I swear these last few days, I’ve slowly been losing control of my emotions, my head is all over the place. Could this be a lasting effect of Mindweaving without my circlet?”
She shrugs, biting her cheek. “I don’t know, maybe? I feel like the obvious answer might not be the right one in this case, though–”
“That’s it,” I breathe, tuning out the rest of her words as my eyes widen. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that before.”
I launch into a sprint through the stacks, a very confused Stryx keeping pace behind me. I skid to a stop at the far corner of the library where the oldest texts are kept, and run my finger along the spines, muttering the titles out loud until I find what I’m looking for.
“Here we go,” I announce, pulling out a tome so enormous I need both hands to carry it. I thump it down onto a nearby table, dust cascading around us from the impact. Stryx coughs, waving the dust from her face before looking down at it with her eyebrows raised.
“A History of the Fracturing?” she reads, confusion etched into her features.
“Not just a history,” I explain. “It’s a history with a primary focus on the Pantheon, written at the time when Echofae were given permission to leave Lunoreth under enslavement.
It’s like you said—the most obvious answer isn’t the one we are looking for.
We’ve been wasting time looking at societies when we should have been learning about the Fracturing itself.
If any restless sentiment came from it, then it’ll be in this book. ”
She bites her lip, her eyes dancing with curiosity.
I check the glossary before thumbing through the pages, keeping an eye out for certain words or anything that could relate to our case, but my confidence quickly starts to waver once I reach halfway through the book and nothing of note stands out.
I’m about to give up and close the book when my eye catches on a page hosting a large illustration of Augustus, the original mortal leader of Velmora, robed in ceremonial garb and stood upon a dais surrounded by worshippers.
My heart starts beating rapidly in my chest as I frantically scan the drawing, my eyes falling onto Augustus’s wrist where a dark mark is inked there.
“No way, it can’t be,” I breathe, staring at a crude yet undeniable rendering of the magpie tattoo. Beneath, the text reads:
THE RISE OF THE FIRST MEMONIC COUNCIL
“Stryx, I think that tattoo might be the symbol for the council,” I whisper in awe. “At least, it used to be.”
A chill runs down my spine and I instinctively check over my shoulder, but there’s nothing there.
I really need to get a hold of myself.
The candlelight flickers against the parchment, turning the ink to liquid shadow as I frantically scan the text below the illustration, my lips moving silently before I begin to read aloud.
“And with the Fracturing, the minds of men were severed from the divine, and order was born from the ashes of chaos. From among them rose Augustus, keeper of the Codex of Thorns, chosen by the Gods to guard the Veil between realms…”
I trail off. “Guard the Veil?” I repeat. “Not destroy it?”
Stryx frowns. “So if Raph is right, then how did this become the symbol of a cult trying to tear the Veil apart? And what in the Voyd is the Codex of Thorns?”
“Maybe,” I say slowly, “the council changed. Over the decades, maybe they grew restless with their limited magic and their purpose twisted. Each generation shaping it into something new, something darker.”
I glance back down at the tattoo. “What if there were always a few—those who still believed that the Faceless God didn’t curse humanity when he was bound behind the Veil, but saved them from limitation?
And now, after lying dormant for nearly a century, they think it’s time to reclaim that so-called power? Maybe this Codex is linked to that?”
Stryx’s ears shimmer faintly as they twitch, her glamour flickering with unease. “You think this cult could be the remnant of the old council?”
“What’s left of it, yes,” I murmur. “A splintered shadow of the first rulers of Velmora. A secret lineage of believers, waiting for their chance to finish what Augustus began?”
Stryx crosses her arms, brow furrowing. “But why now? Why after all this time?”
“That’s what we need to find out. But if those seers were a part of it, is someone trying to stop them? Or could they be…”
I turn the page, desperate for more answers, and find a drawing of a huge tome surrounded by thorns, the page torn in half with the bottom piece missing. Beneath it is a small caption which I read aloud, the words filling me with dread.
“‘Augustus was entrusted as keeper of the Codex, the council tasked to hide the book from those seeking to use its pages to perform rituals to the Gods using the dark magic within. May the Faceless God forever live within his misty cage’– and that’s where it stops.
Someone’s ripped out the rest of the passage. ”
My head falls as frustration eats away at me.
The fact someone’s defaced this book surely indicates that this information is important, but it’s not much to go on without being able to source the rest of it.
Stryx turns the page to continue reading, but it just seems to be examples of some other spells the Codex can conjure. Interesting, but not currently helpful.
“Holy Mother,” Stryx breathes, her ears flicking back and forth in agitation. “These spells are horrendous. There’s one about cursing your enemies, a tranquillising spell that can put someone to sleep for weeks, multiple ways of killing…does this Codex not have any nice spells or rituals?”
“Doubtful,” I mutter, not really listening.
My eyes catch on something in the top left corner of the page, a small passage of text scrawled into the margin.
The words are faint, as if someone pressed a quill too hard and bled the ink dry.
I lean in close to read it and sigh heavily when I realise it’s not in any language I recognise.
Stryx follows my gaze and frowns deeply, whipping her head closer.
“Can you read that?” I whisper, once again checking over my shoulder to ensure we’re alone as the back of my head prickles uncomfortably.
She scrunches her face in concentration, tilting the ancient tome towards the candlelight as she brushes her fingers over the brittle edge of the page. “It’s an ancient language, one used by the Echofae many years ago. I can make out some words.”
I scan the writing as she tries to translate it, and I stop breathing, a cold thread curling slowly down my spine as my gaze catches on a single word.
Corvusoe.
“Stryx,” I gasp. “Please tell me you can translate that.” I stab my finger at the word and she draws in a sharp intake of breath.
“Not exactly. There’s no direct translation. But in this context, the closest words in the old tongue would be…” She swallows. “Black crow.”
For a long heartbeat, neither of us even breathes. Then, a memory comes unbidden, sharp and disdainful into my mind, hitting me like a blade of ice.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” I whisper.
“What is it?” she asks with a frown.
“Riven.” The name leaves my lips like a curse. “When I was taken to his office, all his letterheads had a sigil on. A crest of a black crow.”
The air between us thickens, charged with unease.
Stryx’s voice trembles as she catches on to my train of thought. “You think he’s been the one sending the notes? All this time?”
I want to deny it, to laugh it off and call it absurd. He survived a blood oath, exonerating him from the murders, but I can’t ignore this coincidence, the cryptic warnings, the way he always seems to appear everywhere we go…
My jaw tightens. “He may not be a suspect for these murders, but if he is the one sending those notes, then he is connected to it somehow, like we thought. He has to be the key.”
The candles sputter violently behind us, as though something unseen just exhaled, and I snap the tome shut, fear threading itself through my veins.
“Octavia, he’s the Governor of Aethermere. What if we’re wrong? What if he’s not the key?”
I meet her gaze, determined. “Then he’s the lock I have to break, regardless.”
For a moment, neither of us speak, then once again the candles gutter.
“Do you get the feeling we’re being watched?” Stryx breathes, her voice barely audible.
“I thought I was being paranoid,” I admit, my eyes darting around the stacks surrounding us. “I think we should go.”
I turn to grab the book, when somewhere in the vast stillness of the Archives, a page turns by itself. The hairs rise on the back of my neck, and my Shadow creeps in towards me, barely an inch from my ear.
Run.
Every candle goes out, and we are plunged into darkness.