The air in the endless library had stilled, as if the shelves themselves were holding their breath. The mysterious figure—tall, indistinct, its silhouette stitched together from threads of shadow and lamplight—stood at the far end of the hall, his head bent in thought. A low hum reverberated through the stacks, not from him, but from the Final Page itself, the Anchor that Seth Virell had pried open with trembling fingers and too much desperation.
Seth shifted uneasily, watching the figure's robe ripple like vapor. He had asked his question, and silence had stretched since then, heavy and damning. Aldric's warning about the higher authorities echoed in his ears. He felt, with the sharpness of a knife against his throat, that he was running out of time.
But then something stranger than silence intruded.
The rows of bookshelves, once sharp and infinite, began to blur at the edges, as though rain had smudged their outlines. Words on the spines melted, twisting into half-formed sigils before dripping into blankness. Seth blinked, rubbed his eyes, but the haze only deepened.
"Wh—what's happening?" His voice cracked, bouncing against the vaulted ceiling. He turned toward the figure. "Why is everything—blurring?"
The shadowed man raised his head. For the first time since their meeting, his gaze settled wholly on Seth. The weight of it landed like an iron yoke.
"You are weak," the figure said, his voice resonant and steady, but not cruel. "Too weak. A low Cipher Archivist cannot hold open a Pillar-space for long. The Final Page is an Anchor, but it does not bend itself entirely to your will. It demands Resonance. Without it, it retracts."
Seth staggered, feeling suddenly small. "Retracts? You mean… it's closing?"
The figure inclined his head, the lamplight inside his silhouette flickering like a dying candle. "Yes. You cannot maintain the Page more than a short while. Your frame, your mind, your soul—they lack the weight to hold the space open."
The shelves shuddered, ink dripping from their edges like blood from wounds. Pages fell from unseen tomes and dissolved before touching the floor. The sound of their crumbling was like whispered laughter, mocking his weakness.
"No—wait!" Seth stepped forward, reaching out instinctively. "I still need answers—what am I supposed to do about the church, about their report to the headquarters? You can't just—"
The figure cut him off with a raised hand, a single motion that silenced Seth as surely as a blade to the throat. "Enough. You are not ready. Summon me later, when you have strength. The Final Page does not tolerate overreach. To linger here would shred your mind into loose parchment, written over by madness."
His words carried no exaggeration. Seth felt it in his bones: the Page was not closing because of impatience, but because it recognized him as unfit. The Anchor had its own will, its own instinct for preservation. And it was ejecting him.
The blur thickened. Now even the figure wavered, his form breaking apart into fractured lines like ink struck by frost. His last words fell into the collapsing silence, ringing with command:
"You are too weak. Call me later, when you have energy."
And then the world snapped shut.
Seth's eyes flew open.
The tiled walls of the bathroom surrounded him again, clammy with condensation. He sat hunched against the tub, his palms flat against the cold floor. Sweat slicked every inch of his skin, soaking the collar of his shirt. His lungs dragged in air greedily, each breath rasping as though he had run miles through choking fog.
He stared at his trembling hands. They did not feel like his own—too frail, too fragile to have touched the marrow of reality just moments ago.
Water dripped from the tap into the porcelain basin, slow and rhythmic, grounding him in the mundane.
Seth pushed himself up unsteadily and stumbled toward the sink. His reflection greeted him: pale face, lips nearly bloodless, eyes sunken with exhaustion. He splashed water onto his cheeks, gasping as the chill shocked him awake.
The memory of the Page lingered. The blur, the melting shelves, the figure's words—too weak. It was like a curse that had been branded into his soul. He could not shake it.
"Too weak," Seth whispered aloud, gripping the sides of the basin until his knuckles whitened. The words echoed back, a mockery. "Too weak to even hold open what's already mine…"
He squeezed his eyes shut. He had glimpsed the Twilight Matron and lived. He had stepped into a Pillar and spoken with a figure who tread closer to the heart of reality than any mortal. And yet—he was dismissed, discarded, cast back into his fragile shell because of weakness.
A harsh laugh broke from his throat, short and bitter. "Archivists are supposed to be stronger than Divine Ascendants… and here I am, panting like a dog after minutes."
He dried his face with a towel, though his skin still burned with the heat of shame. His mind replayed the figure's warning: if the churches learn you bear a Pillar, the entire Aetheros will fall into war.
His gut twisted. For the first time since this spiral had begun, Seth wished he could undo it all. To return to the days when a few shillings and an empty pantry were the sharpest of his worries. But the Page existed. The Pillars existed. He could no more return than tear his own heart from his chest.
Stumbling back into the bedroom, he collapsed onto the luxurious bed the church had provided. The mattress swallowed him in softness, but it was no comfort.
He lay staring at the ceiling, sweat drying on his skin, every muscle shivering with spent energy.
"What if the priestess learns? What if Aldric suspects? What if they already felt the tremor of the Page when I opened it?"
Each question gnawed at him, pulling threads loose from his composure. He tried to reason with himself: the Final Page was subtle, its pull hidden from ordinary eyes. But the priestess, the church, the higher authorities… they were not ordinary.
His pulse quickened.
He rolled onto his side, dragging the blanket over his head as though it could shield him from the storm tightening around him. The library's blur haunted his vision, painted against the darkness of closed eyes.
Sleep came not as peace, but as collapse.
He drifted down into it, body aching, mind weary, as if the Page had drained not just strength but years of his life. His last coherent thought before unconsciousness claimed him was not of the priestess, or Aldric, or even the looming threat of headquarters.
It was of the mysterious figure's promise.
"Call me later."
"A promise, or a warning?"
Seth slept. The city beyond his window went on breathing—gas lamps flickered, carriages rattled across cobblestones, unseen hands shifted pieces on the grand board of Aetheros.
And in the shadows where no lamplight reached, something watched.
Something that remembered the Anchor.