The moment they stepped inside the Chrono-Sanctum, the world forgot how to make sense.
It began with the floor. It wasn't made of stone or wood, but of layered paper — thousands of overlapping parchments stamped with outdated seals, handwritten oaths, and bureaucratic hexes. As they walked, the papers whispered, rustling like gossiping birds.
Ilyan paused. "Did that paper just accuse me of tax fraud?"
Ashwen peered at one. "This one says I failed a test I've never taken. In a subject that doesn't exist."
Groat buzzed faintly in Ilyan's palm. "Standard protocol. The Vault does not accept sincerity without resistance. These are documents of Suppressed Truths — your own and those of others."
The walls pulsed gently, covered in mirrors that did not reflect their faces, only their silhouettes — blurred and flickering, sometimes reversed.
Ashwen reached for her dagger instinctively. "This place gives me teeth-ache."
"Don't touch anything unless it touches you first," Groat warned. "The Sanctum punishes presumption."
The path ahead forked three ways — one tunnel glowed violet, another breathed in and out like a lung, and the third was perfectly dark except for a blinking sign that read: Proceed with panic.
They exchanged glances.
Ilyan pointed toward the middle. "The breathing one seems honest."
They stepped through.
The corridor narrowed. The air thickened with the scent of dust and ink. Strange music played — a string quartet performing underwater. The walls here were lined with cabinets labeled in odd languages, each drawer humming slightly.
From one of the cabinets, a drawer creaked open as they passed. A file floated out and hovered in front of Ilyan.
He hesitated. "Do I read it?"
"You were already meant to," Groat said. "That's why it's here. The Vault works backward sometimes."
Ilyan opened the file. Inside was a photograph — he was younger, thinner, standing in a room he didn't recognize. Ashwen was beside him, but her eyes were hollow, edited out like an unfinished sketch. A note was scrawled on the bottom:
We failed the first time. Don't speak the same lie twice.
Ashwen leaned over his shoulder, frowning. "That's not me."
"No," Ilyan murmured. "But it will be."
They walked on.
The next chamber looked like a courtroom, but the benches were filled with versions of Ilyan — some older, some scarred, some weeping, some laughing. One version had no eyes. Another held a relic shaped like a broken sun.
At the judge's podium stood a tall figure in black robes — face obscured, arms elongated, voice a distant echo.
"Ilyan, you are accused of being inconsistent."
"I try," he said automatically.
"That is not sincerity."
Ashwen's hand went to her dagger again. "Do we fight it?"
Groat's voice dropped. "You cannot fight a ruling. You can only amend it."
The courtroom shimmered. A clerk-version of Ilyan passed him a pen.
He signed the paper.
Nothing happened. Yet everything shifted.
Deeper still, the Vault descended. They reached an elevator with no buttons, only a mirror.
"You need to say it," Groat said.
"Say what?"
"Something true. That you've never said out loud."
Ilyan stared at his reflection. It flickered — sometimes it looked like him. Sometimes it looked like the person he thought he'd been. Other times, something else.
"I miss being meaningless," he whispered.
The mirror cracked. The elevator dropped.
They landed in a chamber made entirely of glass and fog. Thousands of pages fluttered around them, forming wings, serpents, and shapes without names. Each was a relic, unfinished.
Groat guided them. "The Vault stores what the world could not finish — or could not bear to complete."
In the center stood a pedestal. Upon it, a box of white iron. The relic they came for.
But something blocked their path.
A woman. Or a ghost. Or an echo.
She wore a clerk's uniform and no face. Her voice was felt more than heard:
"Name yourself."
Ilyan stepped forward. "I am—"
He paused.
He remembered the relic. The coffin-dream. The name they gave him there.
"I am Ilyan, but I have been called Writhe, and once, long ago... Daughter."
Ashwen turned sharply. "What?"
The faceless clerk nodded. "Sincerity accepted."
The iron box opened.
Inside, a glass quill shimmered with black flame. The Relic of Amendment. It pulsed with a truth not yet spoken.
Ilyan reached out—
—but the ground tore open.
They fell. Not far, not long — but far enough to land in memory.
A city aflame. A child crying. A promise broken and rewritten. And the whisper of a woman's voice:
"You will not save the world by sacrificing yourself. You'll only teach it how to devour you better."
When they woke, the relic was in Ilyan's hand. Ashwen was crouched nearby, holding a dagger in one hand and Groat in the other.
Groat chimed in a little dazedly. "Congratulations. You've amended a truth. That comes with legal consequences and existential migraines."
Ilyan sat up. "What... what was that?"
"The Vault always tests ownership. If it didn't hurt, you didn't earn it."
Ashwen helped him up. "Next time, maybe let me do the soul-scarring retrieval."
He smiled weakly. "Deal."
As they climbed out of the Sanctum, Uvvvaek greeted them again — this time, slightly more silent. As if the city recognized them now.
And resented it.