The library smelled like old wind and thunder, like forgotten dreams trapped between pages. Every step echoed softly against stone, the sound swallowed quickly by the shelves that stretched endlessly upward, disappearing into darkness.
"This is where stories come to wait," Iria said, her voice a hush against the stillness. "Some for centuries. Some for someone specific."
I followed her through the maze, past tomes that shimmered with gold lettering and others that wept ink from cracked spines. The air shimmered, thick with old magic. It danced across my skin like breath, tugging at the center of my chest.
It was pulling again.
But not outward. Inward.
As if something here wasn't just calling to me—it was part of me.
I stopped walking.
"Iria," I whispered. "What is this place really?"
She paused at the base of a spiraling staircase that led to a platform floating above us, suspended by nothing but will. "The Library of Recollection. Built by the first Celestial who tried to catalogue fate." She looked at me, one eye visible beneath the edge of her ribbon. "It failed. But the books remain. Some hold truths. Some hold lies. And some…" she tilted her head, "hold pieces of people."
My skin prickled.
"Come," she said. "Yours is waiting."
---
The higher we climbed, the more the world below dimmed. The air thinned. Not with lack of oxygen—but with the weight of memory pressing in. I could feel stories brushing against my skin, not words, but impressions.
Loss. Triumph. Betrayal. Love.
And something older.
A kind of hunger that didn't come from the body, but from the soul.
We reached the final platform. Only one book sat at its center. No dust. No decay. The cover shimmered like dark glass, and etched into it, as though carved by a whisper, was my name.
Not the name I'd been called growing up.
The true one.
The one I didn't remember ever learning—but knew without a doubt was mine.
"Do I read it?" I asked.
Iria shook her head. "You feel it."
I reached out.
The instant my fingers touched the cover, the world shifted.
---
I wasn't in the library anymore.
I stood in a clearing filled with light—not sunlight, not moonlight—just pure, luminous memory. All around me were echoes. Not people, not quite. Shadows of myself. Different versions. Different choices.
One wore armor laced with ice. Another bled from her palms, magic raw and dangerous. A third wept over a burning city, wings unfurling from her back.
Each was me.
But none were the girl I was now.
I walked forward, feeling them turn toward me.
They didn't speak, not with words. But I heard them. Felt them. Like pages fluttering open one after the other.
You are the echo of a decision made before time.
You are the vessel born not from need—but from defiance.
You are not the answer. You are the proof the gods feared.
The clearing darkened. A voice deeper than thunder spoke from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"Would you choose your fate?"
I opened my mouth to ask what that meant.
But the light shattered.
---
I gasped, back in the library, hand still on the book.
Iria watched me carefully. "Did it show you something?"
I nodded slowly. "It showed me… versions. Of me. And a question."
"What question?"
I hesitated. "If I would choose my fate."
Her expression darkened. "And?"
"I didn't answer."
"Good." She stepped forward, covering the book gently with both hands. "Because once you do, there's no going back."
She guided me away, but the pull from the book never left. I felt it in my spine. In my breath.
I didn't know what I'd seen.
But something had been unlocked.
Not in the world.
In me.
---
We stayed in the library for three more days. Iria taught me how to sense stories—how to find truth wrapped in lies, how to listen for voices inside silence. She wasn't kind, but she was patient. And beneath her sharpness, I saw it—loneliness. Buried deep.
She never said it. But I think she saw in me what she'd once looked for in herself. A reason. A beginning.
On the fourth day, she gave me a map.
Not of the world—but of the ley lines that pulsed through it like veins. Places where magic bled through the seams of reality. Places where fate gathered like storm clouds.
I traced one of them—curving north. Toward the first mountain. The Merfolk city beneath it.
I looked at Iria. "Is this where I go next?"
She nodded. "If you want answers."
"And if I want power?"
She paused. "Then don't just go there. Survive there."
I smiled faintly. "You sound like Sable."
"Good." She turned away. "Then maybe you'll live long enough to be more than a story."
---
We left the library at dusk.
Kael was waiting outside.
He didn't look surprised. Just tired.
"I let you go because I figured you'd need to," he said. "But next time, tell me."
I walked past him. "There won't be a next time like that."
"Because you trust me now?"
I didn't answer.
Because it wasn't about trust anymore.
It was about what I had to do.
And who I was becoming to do it.
---
The wind rose behind us as we walked.
And in the distance, I felt it—
A tide stirring.
A mountain breathing.
The first of the seven was waiting.
And this time…
I was ready to meet him.
Or at least, that's what I kept telling myself.
The truth lingered quieter, buried beneath the surface like a bruise: I had no idea what I was walking into.
We descended into the lowlands the next morning, the terrain growing wetter with every step, the sky growing heavier. Fog hung like breath around the hills, and the ground beneath our boots turned soft, whispering secrets in squelching mud. Kael stayed a step behind me, as always—watchful, silent, unreadable.
"Do the Merfolk even leave the waters?" I asked finally.
"Rarely," he replied. "But they're always listening."
"To what?"
"To everything. Especially what doesn't want to be heard."
There was a weight to his voice, a memory he didn't share. I didn't push. I didn't need to. We were both carrying ghosts now.
By midday, the air turned sharp with brine. Salt and old magic. We reached the edge of a cliff overlooking a black sea that churned without wind. No waves, no gulls. Just silence—and something vast sleeping beneath the surface.
Kael stopped beside me. "Down there," he said, pointing to the water. "That's where your next lesson waits."
I squinted. "I don't see anything."
"You're not supposed to. They don't welcome sight. They welcome offering."
I turned to him. "And what exactly am I supposed to offer?"
He gave me a look that was almost pity. "Something you can't get back."
Before I could ask what he meant, the cliff beneath my feet shifted.
Not the rock.
The world.
Something pulled—like an invisible tether had tightened, yanking me forward. My skin sparked with warning, but it was too late. The magic of the sea had sensed me.
And it was calling me home.