LightReader

Chapter 26 - Chapter 26: Letters That Bleed

The Shifting Archive

Cael and Mireth arrive at an ancient subterranean structure marked only in forgotten maps—a "Silent Vault", once used by scholars who feared their own spells.

It's half-collapsed, but inside:

Shelves of floating stone

Books that turn their own pages

And walls that rearrange the written word when looked at too long

Cael is drawn toward a central slab covered in ink-black glyphs—some match his own writing.

"These aren't records," he whispers. "They're responses."

The Glyph That Writes Back

Cael attempts to inscribe a harmless binding glyph onto the floor.

But before he finishes, the walls respond—completing the glyph for him, but wrong.

The glyph pulses, and a phrase appears on the nearest wall in bleeding ink:

"You are not the only author of this tale."

The Vault is alive. And it remembers.

Mireth warns:

"This place reflects Essentia. You've changed. So has the reflection."

Suddenly, footsteps echo through the halls.

Inquisitors

Enter the Inquisitors of Binding Truth—cloaked in stitched-together oaths and bound glyph-skin scrolls.

They don't kill on sight.

They record.

The lead inquisitor, a gaunt man named Magister Elthorn, declares:

"You carry a Seed of the Rift. The world has turned to ink where you step. That is not a crime… yet."

They offer Cael a choice:

Submit to recording—to document all his glyphs under supervision

Or face containment, to prevent further destabilization

Mireth urges him to refuse.

Cael, trying to delay, offers a compromise: one glyph demonstration.

The Demonstration

Cael writes a delayed-effect Void glyph using Void Trace. It doesn't activate immediately.

The Inquisitors misjudge it as harmless.

One approaches—and the glyph blooms behind him, suspending him in stasis for 6 seconds before time reasserts.

The delay proves how unpredictable Cael's new abilities are. Elthorn flinches.

"This is not sorcery. This is inscription without consensus."

They retreat—but not before delivering a warning:

"You are writing outside the bounds of grammar. The world does not tolerate unsanctioned stories."

The Echo Door

Left shaken, Cael and Mireth descend deeper. At the bottom, they find a final locked chamber—one marked by a glyph that appears only when no one looks at it.

They work together, solving a glyph puzzle that involves:

Silence

Shared memory

Sacrificing a written truth

When the door opens, they find… a mirror.

But in the reflection, Cael is writing glyphs he hasn't learned yet.

And the Mireth beside him is missing her eyes.

More Chapters