The page turned.
Not by Dae's hand. Not by wind.
It turned like it had been waiting.
The ink bled across the page, shapes unraveling, not like words — more like memory straining to be remembered. Like something had clawed its way through time to be seen again.
The Book of Knowledge pulsed with heat, and the ring on his finger flared with a soft, terrifying glow.
A single symbol burned at the center of the parchment.
A circle, split in three.
Then bled beneath it — the name.
Caladra.
And for a split second… Dae didn't feel like himself.
He felt… larger. Older. Like something behind his eyes had just blinked for the first time in centuries.
—
The script below the symbol was ancient. Older than the Vault. Older than the academy.
But Dae understood it. Not fluently. Not clearly.
But deeply.
Like a dream in a language you'd never studied but could still sing.
"The Caladra Protocol: Last safeguard of the Origin Cycle. Activated only upon recursion breach or temporal overwrite. Engaged through Absolute Will. Consequences irreversible."
The ink shimmered again.
New lines bled into view.
And what Dae read next didn't feel like it belonged in a book.
It felt like it was written in his bones.
"Creation must not remember itself.
To awaken the ring is to undo the seal.
To undo the seal is to return the fracture."
He stared at his hand.
The ring pulsed again — but this time, not just with light.
With something like… grief.
—
"Pix," he whispered, voice tight, "run symbol recognition."
Pix's voice glitched, flickered, then went silent.
Dae blinked.
"Pix?"
No response.
Instead, a whisper answered him.
Not from the book.
From inside him.
"I remember you."
His breath caught.
"An?"
No reply.
Only a feeling.
Like someone had just left the room before he could say goodbye.
Again.
—
He slammed the book shut, heart racing.
He needed answers. Something real. Something outside his own spiraling mind.
He grabbed his jacket, shoved the book into his satchel, and stormed out of the dorm.
Rea looked up from her bed but said nothing.
She didn't need to.
She saw it in his eyes.
Dae was slipping.
And this time, he wasn't sure he wanted to hold on.
—
The hallway was eerily quiet. Post-repair lights flickered softly above, trying to pretend nothing had happened. But the smell of burnt mana and scorched stone still lingered in the walls.
Students were avoiding the east wing now.
Too many cracks. Too many screams that never got an explanation.
Dae headed straight for the spiral stairwell down to the academy archives.
At least, that's what he told himself.
But halfway down, his hand brushed against the wall.
And the wall… turned into a door.
Again.
—
The Vault of Echoes didn't just appear anymore.
It invited him.
—
It didn't open with a sound. It didn't creak. It just wasn't there one moment — and the next, it was.
Cold air rushed out.
And Dae stepped in.
—
The Vault had changed.
It was wider now. Deeper.
Like the memories it stored had stretched out, made room.
Voices brushed the walls — faint, fragmented, like broken data files struggling to reconstruct.
Dae didn't flinch anymore.
He walked through them.
They whispered names he didn't recognize.
Except one.
Kaelion.
—
The pedestal was still there.
Where he'd found the Book.
But something else hovered above it now.
A flickering orb of violet-blue, encased in rings of static energy.
He reached out—
It shattered.
And from it… emerged a figure.
—
Not shadow. Not light.
Somewhere in between.
A man, draped in the tattered remains of a council robe. Silver-white hair falling over pale, cracked eyes.
He didn't look up at first.
Just whispered, "So it was you."
Dae stepped back, heart pounding.
"You're—?"
The figure finally lifted his head.
And Dae froze.
Because he recognized him.
Not from a file.
Not from a memory.
From the dreams.
From the tower.
From the boy crying into the void.
—
"You were council," Dae said slowly.
The figure smiled. But it was sad. So, so sad.
"I was. Once. Before they called us traitors. Before we said no."
"No to what?"
The man nodded to the book.
"To forgetting."
—
Dae's hands trembled.
He didn't know why, but tears blurred his vision.
"I don't understand," he whispered. "Why me?"
The figure tilted his head.
"Because the ring chose you."
"I didn't ask for it."
"No one ever does."
—
The man stepped forward — and Dae felt no threat, only exhaustion.
"Kaelion," he said.
And Dae blinked.
"That's your name?"
"No," the man said gently. "That was yours."
The air went still.
—
"You gave it up," the figure continued, "when you agreed to forget. When you offered your mind as the lock to the door."
Dae's knees buckled.
He dropped to the ground.
"What door?"
The man knelt beside him.
"To the end."
—
The next hour passed like a fever dream.
The figure didn't talk like a teacher. He didn't explain things in order.
He spoke in riddles and blueprints and half-memories.
But through the haze, Dae understood three things:
1. The Book of Knowledge was a fragment of something older. The first relic of Creation.
2. His ring wasn't a tool. It was a prison key.
3. And somewhere — buried in the academy, or maybe himself — the final lock still remained.
—
"I can't do this," Dae whispered, chest heaving. "I'm not strong enough."
The man smiled.
"You're not supposed to be. That's why you had them."
He waved a hand — and around them, flashes of faces blinked into the air.
Rea. Kio. Selene. Isha. Even An, smiling from a memory that wasn't allowed to exist.
"They were your echoes," the man said.
"They still are."
—
Dae reached out to one of the flickering images.
Selene.
She looked back at him.
And this time… she remembered.
He swore she did.
—
"You're fading," Dae said suddenly.
The man nodded.
"I was only bound here until the seal cracked. Now that you've touched it…"
"You're leaving?"
"Not leaving," he said softly. "Becoming part of the book again. You'll find me in the margins."
Dae clutched the satchel.
"Please. Stay."
The man placed a hand on Dae's shoulder.
"You'll find me in your will. That's where all real knowledge hides."
—
The man smiled one last time.
And vanished.
Feet first.
Then chest.
Then eyes.
And as he faded, he whispered:
"Remember, Kaelion:
To create is to defy endings."
—
Dae stood alone again in the Vault.
But not empty.
He felt it now.
The ring pulsing with purpose.
The book humming with power.
And the pages — no longer blank.
The Vault of Echoes had opened.
And what it showed him next…
Was a memory he was never meant to see.
—
To Be Continued in Chapter 27