The parchment crumbled in my fingers even as I finished reading, turning to dust instead of ashes, the particles fallinglike grey snow onto the stone floor. Theron must have cursed it to do so, to leave no evidence of this note, no trail for Natalia to follow back to me. The weight of his message settled over me like armor, heavy but necessary, and I felt my resolve hardening like steel in my chest, forged in the fire of his sacrifice. I had to risk the lower archive, had to venture into that forbidden space. Whatever was down there, it was pivotal to understanding not just Theron's death but the entirety of the Council's carefully constructed deceptions.
Slipping out of my quarters under the pretense of needing fresh air and time to think, I moved with purpose through the corridors, head bowed as if I were merely considering the day's tasks and duties, just another Keeper lost in thought, just another pawn on the board. I let my expression settle into one of somber contemplation, the perfect mask of a dutiful servant grieving her mentor while remaining committed to the Order's sacred mission.
The lower archive wasn't simply a library. It was where knowledge went to be forgotten, where truths too dangerous to burn but too volatile to share went to languish in deliberate obscurity. It was a place of enforced secrecy, lying beneath layers of defenses that were deceptively mundane, relying more on fear and indoctrination than on locks and wards.
The door, when I reached it at the end of a corridor few Keepers ever ventured down, was unlocked, a detail that seemed shockingly lax for a place hiding such dangerous knowledge. Or perhaps it was simply faith, arrogant and unshakeable, that no one would dare look, that the conditioning ran deep enough to serve as its own lock. Whichever it was, I slipped inside, letting the heavy door close behind me with a soft click that felt far louder in my suddenly sensitive ears.
Dust motes floated lazily in the thin strands of pale light that filtered down from high, narrow windows set deep into the stonewalls. Shelves towered over me on all sides, dense with volumes bound in greying, cracking leather and stacked alongside scrolls that might have been written a century ago, their edges brittle and yellow. The smell was overwhelming. Old parchment and mildew, forgotten ink and the particular mustiness that came from knowledge left to rot.
As Natalia saw this place, I realized, it was simply a graveyard of dangerous stories, safely buried where they could do no harm. But as Master Theron must have seen it, it was a sanctuary of secrets waiting patiently to be discovered by someone brave or desperate enough to look.
Even here, buried beneath layers of dust and deliberate forgetting, there was structure, a kind of forgotten order to the chaos, the ghost of an organizational system that had once made sense. I walked past row upon row of forgotten histories, my eyes scanning spines and labels for anything that might fit Theron's cryptic instructions, anything that spoke of prophecy or queens or truths the Council feared.
There, hidden at the very back of the archive beneath a layer of grime so thick it looked like grey fur, lay the entrance to a second chamber. A doorway I would have missed entirely if I hadn't been looking for it specifically. Pulling aside the musty drapery that concealed it, releasing a cloud of dust that made me stifle a cough, I descended the narrow stairs beyond, feeling my way in near-darkness as the light from above faded to nothing.
The air grew progressively cooler as I descended, each step taking me deeper into the mountain's heart. It became more sterile too, carrying that peculiar quality of spaces long sealed from the world above. The stonework grew older, rougher, untouched by any restoration or maintenance. These were the original foundations of the Citadel, I realized, the bones upon which everything else had been built. The walls were shadowed by time and deliberate neglect, their surfaces bearing the marksof ancient tools. Though the stones were meant to suppress life, to enforce isolation and discipline, here, below the Citadel proper, they ironically insulated and preserved as well, creating a perfect hiding place for forbidden truths.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of descent, I reached the end of the stairs. An old gate blocked my path, its bars thick and spotted with rust, speaking of centuries of disuse. But when I reached out tentatively to test it, it swung open with a rusty groan at my touch, the hinges protesting but yielding. Beyond it lay a single room, and in that room, illuminated by some source I couldn't immediately identify, were the forbidden treasures Master Theron had whispered about in his final message.
The chamber was smaller than I had expected, more intimate than imposing. It felt like a confessional or a tomb, a place designed for last words, for final testaments, for truths too important to die with their keepers. As I stepped fully inside, candles around the perimeter flickered to life as if responding to my presence, their flames dancing without any visible source of ignition. They revealed a cluster of books and scrolls laid upon a central stone altar with what looked like deliberate reverence. Above it, inscribed upon the bare rock of the wall in letters that seemed to catch and hold the candlelight, was the symbol of Pandora—the familiar box I'd seen in countless Citadel texts, but here rendered differently, with a key descending into the mouth of the container rather than locking it shut.
My heart thundered in my chest, each beat seeming to echo off the stone walls. There had been a small part of me, I realized, that had doubted all that Master Theron had hinted at, a part that, even now, desperately wished my world still made sense, that the comfortable lies could somehow still be true. But the evidence before me, laid out with scholarly precision, shattered that last fragile hope.
I moved reverently to the altar, my feet carrying me forward almost without conscious thought, my eyes roving over the titles embossed on aged spines and written on scroll labels in faded ink. Each volume told stories of The Unbound Queen, that figure I'd been taught was merely a cautionary myth, a warning against pride and disobedience. The words leaped out at me from pages and parchments, each crumbling leaf and ink-blotted note a revelation threatening to unmake what little understanding I had left of my purpose, my identity, my entire life's meaning.
Grasping one of the books with trembling hands, my fingers brushed its tattered spine with the reverence of a disciple touching holy scripture, handling something sacred that had been profaned by its concealment. Here, stained by time and touched by the hands of scholars long dead, was my truth, or at least, a truth that the Council had decided I should never know.
One partially destroyed text, its edges charred as if someone had started to burn it before thinking better of complete destruction, mentioned "the daughter who will choose chains of love over chains of duty." The message resonated with the violent force of a lightning strike to my soul, sending tremors through my entire being. It was speaking of me, it had to be. The prophecy wasn't warning against me; it was describing me, predicting a choice I hadn't yet made but could feel approaching like a storm on the horizon.
Another volume, bound in faded leather that might once have been royal in its richness, spoke of "four consorts bound to the crown of Olympus", a union that wouldn't just free the princes from their imprisonment but restore cosmic balance, rekindle the magic that had slowly been dying from the world, see Olympus reborn not in dominance or conquest but in symbiosis with the mortal realm. It described a partnership, not a subjugation. A marriage, not a war.
This was no prison designed to protect the world from monsters. The princes were not criminals deserving of eternal torment. Just like Master Theron had tried to tell me, this was a plan for connection, for healing, for restoration, betrayed by mortal greed and fear and twisted into something unrecognizable. The truth rattled through my being like thunder, pulsing brighter than the golden veins that now wrought themselves into my flesh, undeniable and transformative.
Natalia had known. The realization hit me with crushing certainty.
How much, exactly, I couldn't be sure. She might have known every detail or only the broad strokes, but she had known enough. Enough to silence Master Theron when his questions grew too pointed, enough to corrupt the truth of every syllable I'd ever spoken in faithful chorus with my fellow Keepers, enough to shape my entire life around a lie.
Stunned by the weight of these revelations, barely able to process the implications cascading through my mind, I barely registered the soft footsteps approaching down the stone stairs.
"Aria?"
Ellie's voice, though whispered to barely above a breath, jolted me from my spiraling thoughts. I spun to find her standing at the entrance to the chamber, her eyes wide and luminous in the candlelight, staring at me like I was a stranger she was seeing for the first time. There was fear in her expression, yes, but also something else, a desperate, fragile hope that I might have answers to questions she'd been too afraid to ask.
"Ellie—" I started, my voice rough with emotion. "I told you before, everything we've been taught is a lie. Everything the Council has told us about our purpose, about the Gate, about the princes—it's all carefully constructed deception."
She shook her head slowly, not in denial but in the stunned processing of someone whose entire worldview was shattering like glass. "You're right," she said finally, her voice small but steady. "And now I see what you meant. I see why you've been questioning, why you couldn't just obey anymore."
She stepped forward with careful, measured steps, as if approaching something holy or dangerous, perhaps both. She halted near the altar, her hand reaching out tentatively, and her fingers traced the edge of a piece of gold-leafed parchment, following the decorative border with something like wonder.
"My mother spoke of a prophecy," Ellie said softly, her voice carrying the weight of a confession. "It was muted, always whispered, never said aloud in places where others might hear. But it was always there in the shadows of our home, in the way she would look at the Gate sometimes. She spoke of a silence that must be broken, of chains that bind us all, not just the princes, but the Keepers too. We're prisoners as much as they are, just in a different kind of cell."
The light in her eyes had shifted as she spoke, the familiar certainty and bright faith I'd always seen there was now mingled with doubt and fear, but also with the dark resolve of someone who had stepped beyond the edge of safety and found themselves still standing, still breathing, still capable of choosing their own path.
I met her gaze with renewed determination, feeling something settle in my chest, a conviction that was somehow both terrifying and exhilarating. My choices, I realized, weren't being made in solitude after all. Ellie's presence here, the trust we'd shared since childhood, the bond that had survived even my transformation—she had chosen too, though she might not fully realize it yet. She had chosen truth over comfort, friendship over duty.
"Whatever happens, Aria," she continued, her voice gaining strength, "we can't go back to who we were. Even if we wanted to, even if we tried, those people, the perfect, obedient Keepers we were, they're already gone. We've seen too much, learned too much. The only path is forward."
"Then let's ensure we have a future worth living," I replied, my voice steady now, anchored by her solidarity. "Let's make certain that whatever comes next, it's built on truth rather than lies."
