Elara's POV
The night within the Lord's palace never ended—it lingered like a shadow clinging to my skin. After the trial, I had collapsed into the corner of my given chamber. Not a bed. Not a blanket. Only a single candle, flickering and weak, as though afraid of the darkness it was born into.
I hadn't closed my eyes. Sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant fire.
And her.
My sister's scream still echoed through the hollows of my mind. Her eyes in that memory—terrified, defiant, alive. Alive.
She was still here.
Somewhere in this cursed book.
The Book of Forgotten Realms wasn't a story—it was a prison. A maze of realities bent by narrative laws and authorless scripts. And I was no longer just a reader.
I was a character.
> [SYSTEM NOTICE: NEW QUEST - THE FORBIDDEN ARCHIVE] Status: Optional Side Mission Reward: Skill Scroll + Lore Fragment Location: East Wing, Sealed Stairwell
The message appeared in glowing glyphs on the wall. I hesitated. The ink trial had almost killed me—
But I needed answers.
And this archive might hold them.
---
Navigating the Lord's palace was like moving through a hallucination. Hallways changed. Doors blinked in and out of existence. Once, I passed a mirror that reflected a version of me made entirely of paper, her face crumpled, her mouth stitched shut.
I found the East Wing guarded by a massive wrought-iron gate, rusted with time and whispering in tongues I didn't understand.
I placed my hand on the seal.
The ink in my veins burned.
> [Inkbearer Access Granted]
The door creaked open, revealing a spiral staircase descending into endless dark.
Torch by torch, the passage lit itself as I descended.
The walls were lined with chained books. Some whimpered. Some screamed. Some begged me not to open them.
But I kept walking.
Until I reached the bottom.
A vast chamber opened before me. Tall shelves of dusty tomes spiraled into the sky. Floating lanterns dimly lit the rows. In the center, a massive circular pedestal thrummed with locked magic.
Standing before it...
Was Kael.
Or—
The man I thought was Kael.
He looked up, startled. "Elara? What are you doing here?"
"I followed the quest. You?"
He hesitated, then held up a scroll. "Found this after my own trial. The archive opened to me. I thought I'd find something useful."
He looked... different.
Paler. His eyes not as bright. Like something had been drained from him.
"Did you find anything?" I asked, stepping closer.
He shook his head. "Only stories. Half-finished ones. Dead ones."
I approached the pedestal, its lock glowing with fiery script. My fingers tingled as I reached for it—
> [LOCKED: Requires Two Inkbearers to Access Forbidden Lore]
Without hesitation, Kael placed his hand beside mine.
The pedestal opened.
A single book rose from the center.
Bound in red leather. Marked with a phoenix sigil.
I touched it.
And the world tilted.
---
Memory Realm: The First Rewrite
We stood in a classroom. Dusty. Ancient. Empty.
A blackboard bore our names.
Kael. Elara.
But in this memory... we were children.
I turned to him. "Is this real?"
"I... I don't know," he said, voice trembling.
The classroom door burst open.
A figure entered—cloaked in flame.
And from beneath the hood...
My sister.
But older.
Harder.
"Finally," she said. "You found the first rewrite."
I couldn't speak.
"You have seven," she said, walking around us. "Seven chances to fix the story. Seven truths to remember. And seven enemies to survive."
She pointed at Kael.
"One of them is already marked."
Kael gasped. A black rune flared on his neck.
I reached for him, but the vision shattered—
---
We were back in the archive.
Kael staggered, breathing hard. "What was that? Who was—"
"My sister."
"But how?"
"I don't know. But she knows how this ends."
> [LORE FRAGMENT UNLOCKED: The Rewrites of Flame] [Skill Unlocked: Reader's Insight – Passive ability to detect story anomalies]
> [New Quest: Uncover the Marked One] Hint: One of the Three Male Leads carries the curse of the Villain Origin.
My blood ran cold.
Kael looked at me, fear in his eyes.
"Elara... it's not me, right?"
I didn't answer.
Because I wasn't sure anymore.
---
Later that night, I sat cross-legged on the stone floor of my room, the red book in my lap. The pages whispered when I touched them—memories not my own, fates rewritten. Each page a thread, tangled in a web of betrayal and destiny.
Kael had left, but the look in his eyes lingered. He feared himself.
A knock broke my thoughts. A soft one. Unthreatening.
I opened the door to find the second male lead—Auren. The rogue historian.
He raised an eyebrow. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"I might have," I said dryly.
He stepped inside without waiting. "Then let's compare hauntings."
He tossed a folded map onto the floor. "I found something you'll want to see."
A diagram of the palace. A secret passage. A door not marked on any quest.
The map was inked in the same glow as my system.
"Where did you get this?" I asked.
He smirked. "A book tried to eat me. I stabbed it. This fell out."
My eyes narrowed. "You stabbed a book?"
"I improvise."
I couldn't help it—I laughed.
For a moment, the horror lifted.
But only for a moment.
Because the map marked something else too.
A name.
Lucien.
The third male lead.
And beneath it: "The one who remembers all endings."
---
End of Chapter 7 –