It rained inside the Root.
Not water—never something so ordinary. These were droplets of memory, small translucent spheres that fell from nowhere and dissolved upon contact. Each one whispered, but never the same thing twice. A child's giggle. A mother's last word. A choice that could never be undone.
Auron walked slowly, every step through the tangled threads of the Root a defiance of inevitability. The Quill he carried glowed faintly with a pale blue hue, as if it too was remembering. As if it too once had a name.
Page followed behind, hand tight on the hilt of her blade. She didn't speak. She couldn't. The air here made truth heavy.
Lin lagged, her usual smirk muted. She held a cracked teacup like a shield.
"I don't trust this quiet," she finally said.
"It's not quiet," Ceyra whispered. "It's listening."
The Unwritten Root, now exposed, towered above them like a cathedral abandoned by faith itself. Its bark shifted like paper skin, ancient and dry, inscribed with lost verses. Roots snaked out from its base and pierced the world like quills stabbing parchment.
"This place... it exists in denial," Page muttered. "A sanctum for everything that should not be."
"No," Auron corrected gently. "Everything that wasn't allowed to be."
Their guide through the Root was not Ceyra anymore. Something else had taken over. A will within the Root itself. The path bent to their feet, parting before Auron as though the forest had chosen to walk with him.
They came to a chamber.
No doors. No walls.
Just a space of held breath and suspended consequence.
In its center: a pool of ink so deep it bent light.
"It's a font," Ceyra breathed. "The original one. Before the quills, before the scribes. This is where the first story bled."
Auron approached.
"Be careful," Lin said. "You stare too long into metaphor and it gets ideas."
But Auron had to look. He knelt at the pool's edge and peered in.
At first, he saw only black. Then—shapes. Faces. A mother holding a child, faceless. A man with a blade made of apologies. A girl burning pages that bore her name.
And then he saw himself.
Not a reflection. An earlier version. Younger. Unscarred. Smiling.
It said something.
He couldn't hear it.
Page touched his shoulder. "You're shaking."
He stood abruptly, stumbling back. "It knew me."
"You knew you," Lin said. "Dangerous habit. Gets in the way of denial."
Ceyra circled the font. "This is where the Inkborn return. To drink. To rewrite."
"And this is where we end them," Auron said.
Lin looked uneasy. "Ending the Inkborn means disrupting the narrative force that binds this world. You do realize that, yes?"
"I do."
"Good," she said. "Because if we all get erased into poetic irony, I at least want to die with dramatic timing."
That night, they camped beneath the Root's overhang. The branches hung low, whispering lullabies in dead languages.
No one slept.
Page sat beside Auron, close enough to share warmth. "Do you remember anything more?"
"No. But I feel it. Like a book I've read and forgotten, but the emotion stayed."
Page was silent a moment. "Would it matter if you never knew who you were?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he asked, "Why did you come with me?"
She looked at him. "Because I've lived inside other people's stories too long. You were the first one that felt like a question instead of a command."
Lin, listening from behind a root, smiled faintly. "Get a room," she muttered.
Ceyra was gone.
They found her standing in front of the font again, fingers dipped in the ink.
"It called to me," she said. "Not in words. In longing."
"It's dangerous," Auron said.
She looked at him. "So are you."
And then she drank.
The ink surged through her like electricity, her veins glowing black. Her eyes rolled back.
Page grabbed her, but Ceyra's body convulsed—then stilled.
She opened her eyes.
"They know."
The world cracked.
Not metaphorically. Not symbolically.
Reality literally split.
From the shadows stepped three Inkborn.
Not generals. Not foot soldiers.
Archivists.
They wore cloaks woven from timelines, their faces unreadable—pages constantly rewriting themselves.
They spoke in triad.
"You broke the clause."
"You tread beyond the outline."
"You forgot your name."
Lin stepped forward, hand on a flask. "And here I thought we'd get a warning first."
Auron raised his Quill.
Page drew her blade.
The Archivists moved as one.
Combat was not physical.
It was editorial.
They redacted Page's attack mid-swing.
They footnoted Lin into a side monologue.
Auron fought back with creation.
He wrote possibilities—"If she dodged," "If the blow missed," "If time bent."
It worked. Briefly.
But the Archivists were built for this.
One grabbed his wrist.
"You are margin. You are glitch."
Auron roared. "I am question!"
And then the Quill pulsed.
It broke their grasp.
He stabbed the air with it.
A single word:
"REMEMBER."
Light exploded from the Root. The forest screamed.
The Archivists recoiled.
The font boiled.
Ceyra, now kneeling, held her head. "It's breaking open. The first narrative. The truth before language."
Auron ran to her. "What did you see?"
Ceyra looked up.
Tears—real tears—streamed down her ink-stained cheeks.
"You were one of them," she whispered. "You were Inkborn."
Silence fell.
Not awkward silence.
Existential.
Like the world was waiting for how Auron would answer.
Page stood still.
Lin lowered her flask.
Auron blinked. "Then why do I fight them?"
Ceyra touched his chest. "Because you chose to forget."
The Root groaned.
Memories poured from the font—visions cascading:
Auron in Inkborn robes.
Auron standing over a burning village.
Auron arguing with other Archivists.
And finally:
Auron leaving.
Casting his name into the font.
Writing the one word that severed his fate:
"Unknown."
He fell to his knees.
"Then I am no hero."
Lin sat beside him. "Good. Heroes are predictable. We need a wildcard."
Page knelt. "You made your choice. That's the only kind of redemption that matters."
Ceyra stood. "The Archivists will return. With more. We must leave."
Auron looked at the Root.
"No. We finish this."
He approached the font again.
Raised the Quill.
And began to write—not in ink, but in light.
A story.
Not of endings.
But beginnings born from doubt.
The Root responded.
It opened a doorway.
A gate woven from contradiction.
Beyond it: the heart of the Citadel.
Page read the words above the gate.
"Only the forgotten may pass."
She looked at Auron.
"You're ready."
He turned once more to look at them.
Ceyra—haunted but strong.
Lin—madness wrapped in wisdom.
Page—his constant, his anchor.
And then he stepped through.
Alone.
Because only the nameless could enter.
And Auron was, above all things…
forgotten.