The Archive of the Sound Clan lay beneath the eastern wing, hidden behind layered stone and resonance locks that dulled vibration by design. Few disciples were ever brought here. Even fewer were permitted to read without supervision.
Vale entered in silence.
Elder Rin walked ahead of him, holding a lantern whose flame burned steadily, without flicker or hum. The light cast long shadows across shelves carved directly into the stone walls. Scrolls, tablets, and bound volumes rested in ordered rows, untouched by time not because they were preserved by magic, but because no one came often enough to disturb them.
"This section predates the Covenant's current authority," Rin said quietly. "Some of these records were written before doctrine hardened into law."
Vale acknowledged him with a nod, but his attention had already settled on the shelves.
At first glance, the archive appeared complete. Dates were meticulously recorded. Events were categorized with academic precision. Wars, treaties, disasters, anomalies—everything a historian would demand was present.
Yet something felt wrong.
Vale reached for a scroll at random and unrolled it slowly.
It described an incident that had occurred centuries ago. An atmospheric disturbance spanning three regions. Armies halted mid-march. Weather patterns disrupted without elemental fluctuation. Casualties minimal. Resolution unexplained.
Vale frowned.
There was no attribution.
No name of a caster. No ruler credited. No clan, sect, or race associated with the event.
He checked another record. And another.
The pattern repeated.
Each account described something extraordinary, something that should have demanded recognition. But wherever responsibility should have been assigned, the record fell quiet. The language became vague. Passive. Carefully detached.
"These aren't incomplete," Vale said at last. "They're edited."
Rin stopped beside him. "Go on."
Vale turned a page, his movements precise. "The events are preserved. The outcomes are preserved. Only agency is removed."
Rin did not deny it.
Vale felt a faint pressure in his chest as his Aether Ring tightened, not resonating, not reacting, but narrowing, as if bracing against an unseen boundary.
"This isn't neglect," Vale continued. "It's intentional omission."
"Yes," Rin replied. "Names allow continuity. Continuity allows questions."
Vale scanned faster now, pulling scroll after scroll, his eyes trained not on what was written, but on what was consistently absent. Wherever the phenomenon could not be explained by bloodline inheritance or elemental classification, the records shifted tone. Language softened. Responsibility dissolved into abstraction.
One scroll, older than the rest, caught his attention.
The ink was darker. The script firmer, as though the scribe had written with care rather than obligation.
It described a moment when the air itself had behaved unnaturally. Not violently. Not erratically. Simply with intent.
Vale read the line twice.
The phenomenon did not echo. No resonance was recorded. The air behaved as though it had been instructed.
Vale's fingers stilled.
"Instructed," he repeated quietly.
Rin extinguished the lantern.
Darkness filled the archive, heavy and deliberate. Not silence exactly, but something close enough that the distinction mattered.
"Names are dangerous," Rin said from the dark. "They allow the world to remember that someone once stood above explanation."
Vale closed the scroll carefully, even though he could no longer see it.
"They didn't erase history," he said. "They normalized it."
Rin relit the lantern. The flame returned, unchanged.
"That is how power survives," the elder said. "Not by destruction, but by editing relevance."
Vale returned the scroll to its place.
He understood now. The Covenant had not burned records. They had curated them. They had preserved every event while removing the possibility of recurrence.
What remained was history without precedent.
History without names.
They left the archive together.
Behind them, the shelves stood undisturbed, filled with accounts of miracles no one was meant to claim, victories no one was allowed to own, and power that had been quietly stripped of identity.
Outside, the air moved gently through the corridor.
It made no sound.
Vale noticed.
And somewhere far beyond the Sound Clan, something old and patient seemed to listen—and find nothing to answer.