---
The pain didn't stop.
Kael'ith writhed on the cold stone floor of the Archivum, gasping for air that didn't fill his lungs. Visions clawed at the back of his mind—half-memories, half-revelations.
He saw a city built on paper.
He saw a girl with no face writing the names of stars.
He saw a feather dipped in blood, hovering over the word "God."
And through it all, a voice—his own, from a time before time—kept whispering:
"You are the mark. Not the writer. Not the witness. The mark."
---
When the pain finally receded, he found himself lying on the floor, sweat-soaked and trembling.
The book had closed itself.
The quill had vanished.
But something else had appeared—on the inside of his left forearm.
A single black symbol, etched into his flesh like ink burned into skin.
It twisted when he looked too closely, changing shape just enough to suggest it wasn't meant to be fully seen.
Kael'ith stumbled to his feet and staggered to a cracked mirror hanging beside an old scriptor's chair. His eyes—
They were not the same.
His left eye now shimmered faintly, ink-black veins curling at the edges of his iris like smoke.
It wasn't painful.
It was worse.
It felt natural.
---
He tried to leave the Archivum.
But when he reached the exit, the heavy iron door was gone.
Not locked.
Gone.
In its place was a blank wall of stone.
He turned back toward the main chamber—and stopped.
There was a man standing where there had been none.
---
He wore a scholar's robe—but its fabric was wrong.
It shimmered like the surface of disturbed ink, and where his face should have been, there was only a void.
No eyes. No mouth. Just swirling darkness.
"You've written," the figure said. Its voice sounded like pages turning in a dead wind.
"And now, you are known."
Kael'ith tried to speak, but his voice caught in his throat.
The figure stepped forward slowly.
Do you think the quill came to you by chance?" it asked.
"You are the last mark the world forgot."
---
Then the figure lifted a hand.
Black ink rose from the floor around it, forming runes in the air. Ancient. Burning with silence.
"The Archivum is not a library. It is a graveyard for truths too loud to die."
---
And with that, the figure vanished—into the wall, into the air, into memory.
---
Kael'ith stood alone again.
But he was no longer unseen.
Outside, bells began to toll again.
Not twelve.
Not thirteen.
Fourteen.
---
Somewhere, beyond the city walls, an old scribe woke from death and whispered a name that had not been spoken in seven ages:
"Kael'ith Varion… has begun to remember."