"The words we never dared to speak are the ones that never stop echoing."
From the Preface of the Silent Scrolls.
The world bent strangely as Lucien, Seraphiel, and Cassiel followed the black ink river. It snaked through the barren plains like a wound, its surface reflecting not the sky, but memories of the faces of angels and mortals alike, whispering unfinished prayers.
Lucien's boots stuck slightly as he walked along the bank. "Remind me why nothing in this place can just be normal?"
Cassiel smirked grimly. "Because this isn't a path for the living. It's for stories that were abandoned."
Seraphiel knelt, dipping her hand into the ink. When her fingers emerged, they were marked with ghostly letters, shifting and fading. "These are words from unspoken verdicts, broken promises. The Library will be closed.",
,
Hours or perhaps minutes, for time here was thin and strange passed beforg it.
A colossal arch of stone stood in the distance, eroded and hollow, carved with thousands of half-finished sentences. The words seemed to float above its surface like desperate spirits trying to complete themselves.
Lucien tilted his head. "Charming. Do we knock, or just…?"
Before he could finish, the arch responded. The words rearranged themselves, forming a command:
"Speak the truth you fear the most."
Seraphiel inhaled sharply. "It's a gatekeeper. Each of us has to answer, or we won't pass."
Cassiel frowned. "This is a waste of time."
Lucien's lips curved into a humourless smile. "Truth usually is."
Lucien stepped forward first, because, of course, he would. He looked at the words swirling on the arch, then closed his eyes.
"I fear that every word I've ever spoken, every argument, every plea has only been to hide the fact that I don't believe in justice anymore."
The arch vibrated, and the words burned with soft blue fire. A crack appeared in its base, as if ihad beenaopeneded.
Seraphiel hesitated, but then her voice came steady and low.
"I fear I am no longer the angel they remember. That my exile broke me, and all that's left is someone who will never be worthy of wings."
The words on the arch flickered again, curling like ribbons of smoke, and another crack formed.
Cassiel sighed. "Fine."
His eyes glinted like steel. "I fear that every war I fought, every life I claimed in Heaven's name, was nothing but cruelty disguised as order. I fear I am not a guardian. I am a weapon that never learned to stop."
The arch groaned and split wide open, the hollow space now a dark passage swirling with whispers.
Lucien glanced at them both. "Well, that was cheerful."
The Library of the Unwritten wasn't a building. It was a realm.
Shelves rose like mountains, vanishing into mist. Books floated midair, some glowing faintly, others bound in chains. The floor wasn't stone, but endless pages that shifted with every step.
There was no silence here. Every book murmured, a thousand incomplete thoughts blending into a strange, constant hum.
Seraphiel whispered, "This place is alive."
Lucien's eyes darted from shelf to shelf. "Alive and nosy."
They weren't alone.
From behind the shelves emerged figures tall, robed in black parchment, their faces blank pages. Where they walked, words bled out of the ground.
One Sentinel raised its hand, and an unspoken command echoed directly in their minds:
"State your purpose, intruders."
Lucien stepped forward, his usual smirk tempered with respect. "We're here for the Hymn of Origins. To stop the Song of Ash."
The Sentinels paused. Another voice a chorus of their collective thought rang out:
"The Hymn is forbidden. Even Heaven has no right to wield it. Leave."
Lucien inhaled, eyes narrowing. "No right? That song created Heaven. And now, Metatron plans to unmake it all. Are you just going to stand there and let everything you've been guarding burn?"
The Sentinels tilted their heads.
"Creation and destruction are equal truths. Both must be allowed."
Lucien gritted his teeth. "Justice isn't about allowing everything. It's about choosing what deserves to survive."
He pointed toward the endless shelves. "Every book here is unfinished. Every thought, every voice silenced before its time. If we fail, there will be no voices left, not here, not anywhere. You'll be guarding an empty library."
There was a long silence. Then the lead Sentinel lowered its hand.
"One of you must pay the price to read it."
Seraphiel's voice was firm. "Name it."
The Sentinel replied:
"A memory of who you are. The truest one."
Lucien's jaw tightened. He was already missing pieces of himself from the Oracle's toll. He glanced at Seraphiel and Cassiel. "I'll do it."
Seraphiel grabbed his arm. "Lucien, no. You'll lose yourself."
He looked at her, a shadow of a smile on his face. "Then you'll just have to remind me who I was."
The Sentinel placed its parchment hand on Lucien's head. A burning sensation shot through him, pulling at a memory he didn't even know he had of a child's voice calling his name, a warmth of something like family and then it was gone.
Lucien stumbled, eyes unfocused. "I… I'm fine. Just fine."
A single book floated down from the highest shelf. Its cover was blank, its pages glowing faintly.
The Sentinel said:
"This is the Hymn of Origins. Speak its words, and the Song of Ash will be silenced."
Lucien caught the book, holding it as if it might vanish. "Let's hope it's as good as advertised."
Suddenly, the entire realm trembled. Pages flew like birds. The shelves groaned and shifted.
Cassiel drew his blade. "What now?"
A voice cold, mocking echoed through the Library:
"You think you can steal from me?"
Metatron's shadow appeared, vast and towering, his eyes glowing with wrath.
---
The War of Songs
"Every song is a verdict. Some absolve. Others destroy."
Forgotten Canticle of the First Choir.
The Library of the Unwritten trembled like a living creature, its shelves rattling as if to scatter the intruder's presence. Metatron's shadow loomed across the ink-stained floor, vast enough to blot out the faint light of the floating tomes.
Lucien tightened his grip on the Hymn of Origins, feeling its heat pulse like a heartbeat against his palm. Beside him, Seraphiel drew her gleaming sword, her wings flaring with cautious resolve.
"Metatron," Lucien said, his voice like a blade drawn slowly. "How kind of you to show up. Did you come to return all those lies you borrowed from the archives?"
The shadow solidified, revealing Metatron's form radiant yet fractured. His once-pristine robes were streaked with crimson ink, and his voice thundered like a choir torn apart:
"You are trespassers in a library that was never meant for mortal thought. And you, Lucien Vale, dare to wield a song written before Heaven itself?"
Lucien smirked, though his hand trembled slightly. "Dare? I've made a career out of daring. You'd be surprised how far it gets you when you stop bowing to tyrants."
Metatron raised his hand, and from the shadow behind him emerged a choir of silent angels whose mouths were stitched shut, yet whose presence screamed louder than any voice. They were the Obsidian Choir, the keepers of the Song of Ash, a song not sung, but felt, a melody that unmade anything it touched.
A single note reverberated from their ranks, a hollow, deathlike vibration, and the library's shelves began to crumble. Words bled from the books, dripping like tears.
Cassiel cursed under his breath. "Lucien, you better start singing whatever miracle is in that book, or we're dust."
Lucien opened the Hymn of Origins. The pages shimmered, shifting as if deciding whether he was worthy to read them. The first line of text burned into his mind, and without thinking, he spoke:
"In the beginning, silence trembled… and became sound."
A warm light poured from the pages, coiling around him like threads of fire. The note from the Obsidian Choir faltered for an instant.
Metatron snarled. "You cannot hope to master the First Song, Advocate. It will consume you."
"Wouldn't be the first thing to try," Lucien replied, before raising his voice:
"Let sound break the chains of the forgotten! Let truth awaken!"
The Hymn's second verse burst forth like a storm. Shelves stopped collapsing. Some of the pages that had bled ink suddenly rewrote themselves in glowing script, alive again.
The Obsidian Choir countered. A wave of Ash-song poured over the realm, erasing entire rows of books. Wherewithal, memories and stories turned to dust.
Seraphiel's wings snapped open as she deflected the black melody with a sweep of divine light. "We can't hold this ground forever!"
Lucien's throat burned as the Hymn's third line echoed through him:
"What was written shall not perish, for every voice is eternal in the listening heart."
The words themselves became shields, floating like glowing discs that blocked the Choir's destructive song.
Metatron was no passive conductor. He leapt forward, faster than light, his hand morphing into a spear of pure judgment. Cassiel intercepted with his blade, the clash sending shockwaves through the library.
"You've lost your mind, Metatron!" Cassiel roared.
Metatron's face twisted. "No. I have found clarity. The cosmos demands silence. All creation is a flaw to be erased."
Lucien growled, turning a page in the Hymn. "Yeah, well, some of us like our flaws."
He raised his voice again, weaving the words into a counter-melody that struck like lightning:
"Flaws are the cracks through which light is born!"
The ground beneath them glowed with golden script, pushing Metatron back.
But as Lucien sang, the book's power pulled at him. His voice faltered for a moment as the Hymn forced him to relive every trial, every failure. He saw the faces of those he had lost in the case he had failed long ago, the souls condemned because he wasn't strong enough.
The pages whispered: "Do you deserve to wield me?"
Lucien clenched his jaw, sweat dripping from his brow. "Deserve? Probably not. But if I don't, everyone dies. And I'm not letting that happen."
With that, he shouted the next line, his voice raw:
"By the breath of the First Dawn, I command memory to rise!"
Books burst open, releasing waves of light. Forgotten names filled the air like stars. Even the Sentinels bowed as the Hymn reclaimed what the Song of Ash had destroyed.
Seraphiel stood beside him, harmonising her voice with his, her divine tone blending into the Hymn's melody. Together, their voices cut through the Choir's silence.
Metatron roared, shadows whipping around him. "You think this victory means anything? You cannot kill what is inevitable!"
Lucien grinned despite the blood at the corner of his mouth. "Then I'll just keep arguing until I inevitably get tired of listening."
The battle reached its crescendo.
Lucien turned to the last verse of the Hymn. The words pulsed with unbearable brilliance, almost too much for mortal sight.
"Let all that is true endure. Let all that is false burn away like mist."
When he spoke, the light shattered the shadow around Metatron. The Obsidian Choir dissolved, their silence breaking into a thousand cries of freedom. The dark melody faltered, and for the first time, Metatron looked… I'm afraid.
"Impossible," Metatron whispered.
The Hymn's final note resonated through the Library, sealing itself into every shelf, every page. The Song of Ash was silenced.
Lucien collapsed to his knees, chest heaving. The book in his hands faded into mist, its power spent.
Seraphiel knelt beside him, touching his shoulder. "Lucien… you did it."
He gave her a crooked smile. "Did I? Or did it just… decide I wasn't too much of an idiot to sing it?"
Cassiel looked at the ruins of the Library half restored, half burned. "We need to move. Metatron isn't finished. He'll retreat, but he'll return."
Lucien stood, shaky but resolute. "Good. Let him. I've got a few more verses left in me."