The library is cold. It smells of dust and secrets. I bypass the sections on politics and warfare, heading straight for the restricted archives at the back—the iron-caged shelves that hold the texts predating the Great War.
I find the volume I need:The Heresies of the First Age.The leather binding is cracked, the pages yellowed and brittle.
I carry it to a reading table and light a single candle.
I turn the pages with careful fingers. Here are the accounts of the Vrakken, the winged horrors that drove us from the surface. Here are the first mentions of the Gargoyles. And here...
Purna.
The illustration is faded, a woodcut of a human woman surrounded by a halo of chaotic lines. The text is written in Old Elvish, complex and archaic.
...born of human blood but touched by the raw Aether. They are not conduits; they are sources. Their magic is not a gift of the Thirteen, but a theft of the natural order.
I read on, my eyes scanning the descriptions of their powers. Elemental manipulation. Shapeshifting. Healing.
Nothing about silence. Nothing about empathy weaponized as a poison against Chaos.
I turn the page.
There are rare accounts,the text reads,of Purna whose power manifests not as an outward force, but as an internal gravity. They do not cast spells; they rewrite the emotional reality of those around them. These are the most dangerous. They do not fight the darkness; they absorb it.
I stare at the words.Absorb it.
Is that what she is doing? Is she drinking the Chaos from my blood?
If so, she is not just a threat. She is an existential abomination. If she continues to absorb The Serpent’s influence, she will eventually sever the bond entirely. She will make me mortal.
The text offers a solution.
The only cure for a soul infected by a Purna is the purification of the vessel. The heart must be excised and burned in the fire of the patron deity.
Kill her.
The instruction is clear. It is logical. It is necessary. If I kill her, the silence ends. The Serpent returns. My power returns. I can crush Malek, secure my legacy, and rule Lliandor as I was meant to.
I look at the candle flame. I imagine the noise returning—the screaming, the grinding pressure, the madness that nibbles at the edges of my sanity every hour of every day.
I imagine going back to that.
My hand trembles.
I close the book. The heavy thud echoes in the empty library.
I stand up, picking up the heavy volume. I walk to the large hearth where a fire burns low.
I should kill her. It’s the only way to save my life as a Lord.
But the thought of the noise returning makes my breath hitch. The thought of losing the quiet, of losing the strange, steadying presence of the girl sleeping in my bed... it feels like stepping off a ledge into a void.
I cannot go back. I am already ruined. I am a drug addict staring at his last fix, knowing it will kill him, and unable to walk away.
I toss the book into the fire.
The dry paper catches instantly. The flames curl around the leather, turning the ancient knowledge into ash. I watch the face of the woodcut woman blacken and crumble.
"My Lord."
I spin around.
