Page 268 of House Ignis

Runes smoldered faintly along their wings, pulsing like veins beneath granite.

When I stared too long, the shelves seemed to shift.

Rows rearranged themselves in slow, breathing movements, the architecture bending and reshaping like something alive… something aware.

“Gods,” I breathed.

“This place is wrong,” Aether growled, his voice echoing through the cavernous expanse like distant thunder.

Still, he moved first, padding cautiously down the spiral steps. His tail lashed in sharp, agitated sweeps.

“Books shouldn’t breathe.”

But they did.

A tome near my shoulder fluttered open without warning, brittle pages whispering as glowing glyphs surfaced briefly across the parchment before fading back into ink.

Further ahead, another book snapped shut with a violent crack that ricocheted through the silence like a warning.

The floating flames swirled closer. Curious. Studying.

At first, I thought they were dust motes. Then one brushed my lips and flared into a tiny, glowing symbol.

The symbol ignited.

Every breath I took shimmered them into life—glowing sigils spilling from my mouth like smoke, curling upward before embedding themselves into the stone archways.

“Shit,” I whispered. “It knows we’re here.”

“Of course it is,” Aether muttered darkly, his golden eyes burning like twin suns in the gloom. “Every powerful library collects collateral. You don't just read these secrets; you pay for them.”

The deeper we went, the louder the whispers became.

They weren't random murmurs anymore—they were intentional. Soft. Seductive.

Ava… Ava Pyreson… flame… heir… queen…

The words slithered along the edges of my thoughts like warm breath against my ear.

“Ignore it,” Aether snarled, pressing his massive shoulder against my leg. His fur bristled so sharply it crackled with static magic.

“Do not respond. Do not listen. And for the love of all gods, do not think loudly.”

Gods, it was hard. Every aisle tugged at me differently.

Invisible hands seemed to pull my attention toward specific shelves—histories bound in cracked, weeping leather; blood-inked grimoires that pulsed faintly like living organs; scroll cases that smelled disturbingly like scorched skin.

And all of it… all of it was calling to something inside me.

The aisles narrowed the farther we walked. Spines pressed closer, and shadows bent at impossible angles. The floating flames darted ahead, weaving paths through corridors that refused to remain consistent.

One moment the way stretched straight and clear; the next, it folded inward, sealing into a dead end before twisting again into a spiraling maze of stacked tomes and shifting runes.

Aether’s hackles rose so high he looked monstrous, a creature of nightmare rather than a companion.

“This isn’t a library,” he said, his voice low and vibrating with instinctive dread. “It’s a hunting ground.”

I snorted softly, forcing a bit of levity into my tone to smother the tight coil of fear forming in my stomach.