⋱⌘⋰ Lore Scrap ⋱⌘⋰
"Don't trust the books with teeth."
⋯⋱⧉⋰⋯
Cael handed her a rune-sealed volume titled "Practical Indexing: Cursed and Otherwise." "Don't read it. Just sort it." Eira blinked. "Is it… safe?" "It's only bitten two people this week. You'll be fine."
Sensing her hesitation, Cael paused at the threshold, one gloved hand resting against the glyph-etched doorframe.
"You've been training for three weeks, four cursed indexes, and one screaming mirror," he said. "If you're not ready now, we're both doomed."
He left her then—at least, in the way Cael ever truly left.
It growled.
The Sorting Room had changed again — new alcoves blinked into existence between old stacks, staircases turning at odd angles like they hadn't made up their minds yet. Vessa had added chalk lines on the floor with very clear instructions: **Don't cross while cataloguing. Unless you enjoy existential collapse.** Eira stepped into the first circle. The book hissed and unlatched its binding. A plume of blue ink rose and began rearranging itself in the air. Symbols, half-familiar, twisted into spidery runes. Eira raised her mirror-plate and squinted. "Right," she muttered. "Rune class D — 'slumber-binding.' That's… good?" The ink pulsed. She tapped it with her quill-bone. The rune absorbed into the page. Success. Sort complete. The next whisper wasn't so kind. It arrived in a jar labeled: **"DO NOT UNSPOOL. Seriously."** She uncorked it anyway. Thread. Long and red and soaked in memory. It whispered lullabies in broken tongues. Eira flinched. The string tried to wind up her wrist. Cael caught it before it looped twice. "You're getting reckless." "I'm getting curious." He didn't argue. Together they unraveled the thread. It belonged to a grief-knot — a category of whisper formed by unresolved mourning. It was looking for the name it lost. "These are rare," Cael said. "And dangerous. If you bind it wrong, it might latch onto your name instead." Eira nodded. But in her mind, she was still thinking about the other name. Julian. "What happened to the last Archivist?" she asked. Cael stiffened. "The Unbound Wing," she continued. "The logs said they went missing." "You shouldn't be reading the old logs." "You locked them. That made me want to read them more." He gave her a look. "Curiosity," she said. "It's my defining trait." He sighed. "She disappeared mid-sort. The whisper was never recovered." "Do you think it took her name?" "I think," Cael said, "some whispers lie in wait for the right voice." That night, Eira returned to her chamber. The grief-knot was still spinning slowly in its jar. She swore it was humming her lullaby.
⋯⋱⧉⋰⋯ To be continued…
⸻ ❖ Archive Fragment ❖ ⸻ *Some rules protect you. Others warn what won't.*
⋱◈⋰ End Chapter ⋱◈⋰