Chapter Three: Threads in the Archive
Lady Anika Caedra hated silence.
It wasn't because she feared it—she didn't fear anything, not anymore—but because true silence meant someone had swept the noise under the rug. And rugs, in her experience, always hid the blood.
The High Archives of Vaelwyn's Guild Citadel were quiet tonight. Too quiet for a place meant to pulse with scribes, mages, and nervous interns scuttling between glyph vaults. Anika walked the aisles with deliberate steps, her heels tapping lightly against enchanted glass flooring that shimmered with softly burning glyphs beneath.
Her robe was pristine.
Her eyes, sharper than any court blade.
She had read the report from Kharan Veil six times already.
A localized breach. Mask of Whisperstitch detected and neutralized. Mara Park and Jalen Caedra confirmed on site. No civilian survivors. Cleansing requested. End of file.
Too clean. Too contained. Too much like a story tailored for frightened nobles and lazy Guildmasters.
Anika closed the tome in her hands and tucked it beneath her arm.
In her free hand, she held a different report. One not meant for light or scrutiny.
A field log recovered from a dead scribe two days before the breach. Its glyph-seal had resisted decoding for hours—until she used one of their father's old override keys. Jalen didn't know she still kept them.
Inside the report: a diagram. Not of a mask. Not of a creature.
A tree.
A massive glyph-tree of blackened roots and silver veins growing beneath Virelia's capital. Dozens of Choir lines converging at its base like a circulatory system. And in the margins, frantic notes:
They're building something.Glyphs aren't just corrupted. They're reorganized.The Choir doesn't want destruction. It wants form.The Vein is being rewritten.
Anika's blood had run cold when she'd first read that.
Tonight, it boiled.
The High Council had ignored her warnings. Brushed her aside with gentle platitudes and veiled insults about "the emotional bias of family." But if even a fraction of the notes were true, the Guilds weren't facing random incursions.
They were facing a design.
She entered her private study, sealed it with six silent wards, and activated the shadow mirror on the far wall. It shimmered, flickered—and connected. A distorted silhouette blinked into view, cloaked in glitching glyphlight.
"Lady Caedra," it rasped.
"I need another extract from the Vault of Forbidden Patterns," she said coolly. "Glyph Index Rho-13. Mirrorseed protocols. And anything tied to root-based runic behavior."
The figure paused. "That index is locked under Holy classification. Choir-level clearance only."
Anika leaned forward.
"Then bump me up. I am done playing politics while the Choir builds a god beneath our feet."
The figure didn't reply—but after a moment, a second glyph lit behind her ear. Access granted.
Anika's jaw tightened.
Something was wrong with the Vein. It wasn't just bleeding chaos. It was being hollowed out, reshaped. She needed Jalen to trust her, and Mara to stop self-destructing. And if Kazai was already on the move in the Wastes…
Then Alan Keswick was ahead of them all.
"Let the nobles drink their wine," she whispered. "We have war to prepare."
And for the first time in years, Anika Caedra reached into the lockbox beneath her study floor, pulled out her combat gloves, and whispered the name of the blade she'd sworn never to wield again.
"Vaedra."
The glass around her cracked as it answered.