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The hidden chamber beneath the city was lit by pale blue flames that cast no warmth.
Old magic saturated the air, thick and oppressive, the kind that made mortal lungs ache and mortal minds falter. The walls were carved from stone so ancient it predated the kingdom itself, covered in symbols that had been forbidden for centuries.
At the center of the chamber hung a cracked crystal mirror, suspended by blackened chains that groaned softly with each faint tremor. The mirror's surface rippled like disturbed water, reflecting distorted images: faces that weren't there, places that didn't exist, futures that hadn't happened yet.
The room itself felt wary, as if it knew something terrible was about to unfold.
Overseer Malachi stood before the mirror, silent and still.
His features were sharp and hawkish, his face marked by a deep scar that ran from his left eye to his jaw. Ink-black robes hung from his frame, embroidered with glyphs that hurt to look at directly. But it was his eyes that dominated his presence: cold gray, devoid of warmth, capable of dissecting a person's soul with a glance.
Behind him stood three hooded subordinates, motionless and wordless. They were tools, not advisors. Instruments to be wielded when needed and discarded when broken.
Malachi's gaze remained fixed on a small wooden table to his left.
Broken fragments of enchanted steel lay scattered across its surface. Once, they had been conduits for curses and fate manipulation. Now they were nothing but twisted metal and shattered purpose.
Kent was dead.
Not just dead. Erased. Along with four elite operatives who had served the Order of Redemption for years.
Malachi felt no grief. Only humiliation. And irritation.
Resources had been invested. Preparations made. Layered curses woven with care and precision: fear to cloud judgment, misfortune to twist circumstance, fate-binding to ensure the desired outcome.
Invisible threads meant to control destiny itself.
All of them severed. Instantly. Cleanly. Without resistance.
This was no ordinary interference.
Malachi reached out and touched one of the broken steel fragments.
His magic flowed into it, probing the remnants of what had been. He felt his own work scraped away like paint from canvas. Nothing remained but residual emptiness, a void where his power had been dismissed as if it were trivial.
"Impossible," he murmured.
One of the hooded subordinates shifted slightly. "Overseer. Should we send scouts to investigate the site?"
"No."
The word was final.
Sending scouts would alert whatever had done this. Better to approach personally, with preparation and control.
Malachi closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink deeper into the broken steel.
The fragments remembered.
He saw flashes of the incident, distorted and incomplete but enough to piece together what had happened.
Kent's team entering the abandoned mansion. Princess Celine captured and restrained. Everything proceeding according to plan.
Then a shift.
A sudden, incomprehensible narrative shift that bent reality like light through warped glass.
An unseen presence entered the scene.
Malachi's curses, woven with months of effort and forbidden knowledge, were dismissed. Not dispelled. Not broken. Dismissed. As if they were inconvenient rather than insurmountable.
And then came the absurd detail that made Malachi's jaw tighten.
A shoe.
His enchantments, designed to bind fate itself, had been destroyed by someone throwing a shoe.
The vision showed Kent's final moments. Not the physical death, but the emotional collapse. Terror. Awe. The realization that he was facing something beyond comprehension.
Then silence.
Malachi opened his eyes.
His subordinates watched him carefully, waiting.
"This was not magic," Malachi said quietly. "Not as we understand it."
"Overseer?"
"The power that intervened was not Ascended. Not divine. Not even demonic." He turned to face them, his gray eyes sharp. "It was something else entirely. Narrative authority. Conceptual manipulation. The kind of power that edits stories rather than burning them."
The three subordinates shifted uneasily.
Narrative arts were forbidden for good reason. They were dangerous in ways that conventional magic could never be. A fire mage could burn a city. A narrative practitioner could make it so the city had never existed at all.
"Can such power be countered?" one of them asked.
Malachi didn't answer immediately.
He walked to a large table on the opposite side of the chamber and unfurled a map of Myreth. The capital city spread across the parchment in intricate detail: districts, streets, landmarks.
He placed both hands on the map's edges and let shadow magic flow from his fingertips.
Dark tendrils spread across the surface like ink in water, searching, probing, seeking the resonance of the disturbance that had shattered his plans.
The shadows swept through the noble district. Nothing.
Through the merchant quarters. Nothing.
Through the administrative sector. Nothing.
Then they stopped.
A quiet commercial street near the edge of the city center. Unremarkable. Forgettable. The kind of place people passed through without noticing.
The shadows trembled there, refusing to go further.
"There," Malachi said.
One of the subordinates leaned forward, studying the location. "Overseer, there is nothing significant in that district. Small shops. Residences. No magical academies. No noble estates. No temples."
"Exactly."
The subordinate fell silent.
Malachi traced the street with one finger, his expression thoughtful. "Power that wishes to remain hidden does not announce itself. It settles in places people overlook. Blends into the mundane. Becomes invisible through sheer ordinariness."
He pressed his palm against the map, and a faint pulse of magic spread outward.
Information filtered back to him through the shadows. Buildings. Businesses. Residents.
Most were exactly what they appeared to be.
But one location made the shadows recoil.
A bookstore.
Malachi's lips curved into something that might have been a smile if it had contained any warmth.
"A bookstore," he said aloud.
"Overseer?"
"The source of the disturbance. A bookstore." He lifted his hand from the map and the shadows dissipated. "How appropriate."
He marked the location with a dark rune, a sigil visible only to those who knew how to look for it.
The moment he finished, something unexpected happened.
A sensation he hadn't felt in years crept up his spine.
Cold dread.
Not fear of death or failure. Something deeper. The instinctive recognition that he was looking at something that could unmake him not through violence but through erasure.
Malachi suppressed the feeling immediately, burying it beneath layers of control and certainty.
He was Overseer Malachi. He had spent decades mastering forbidden arts. He had walked paths that broke lesser minds. He had bound fate itself to his will.
A bookstore would not intimidate him.
"Prepare a binding ritual," he ordered. "Seventh-tier containment. Veiling magic for approach. I want no trace of our presence until we're ready to act."
"Overseer," one of the subordinates said carefully, "Kent was no novice. If this entity eliminated him so easily..."
"Kent was a pawn," Malachi interrupted. "A useful tool, but ultimately expendable. I am not Kent."
The subordinate bowed and fell silent.
Malachi selected three of them to accompany him. The rest would remain here, maintaining the ritual circle and preparing contingencies.
He walked toward the chamber's exit, his black cloak billowing behind him.
Anticipation hummed through his veins. Not anxiety. Curiosity. Hunger for challenge.
It had been too long since he'd faced something truly dangerous. The Order's work had become routine: manipulating nobles, orchestrating conflicts, ensuring the kingdom remained weak enough to control but stable enough to sustain.
This was different.
This was a mystery.
And Malachi had always excelled at unraveling mysteries.
He paused at the threshold and looked back at the cracked mirror. Its surface rippled, showing fragmented images of possible futures.
In one, he saw himself standing victorious over a broken enemy.
In another, he saw nothing but darkness.
The mirror couldn't decide which was true.
Malachi turned away.
"We move at nightfall," he said. "Quietly. Precisely. This entity has already demonstrated it can dismantle conventional approaches. We will not give it the opportunity to do so again."
"And if it proves resistant to containment?" a subordinate asked.
"Then we escalate." Malachi's voice was calm, clinical. "There are always higher authorities to invoke. Deeper magics to deploy. If necessary, we will dismantle the entire district to excise this anomaly."
He stepped through the doorway and began ascending the stone stairs that led back to the surface.
His subordinates followed in silence.
As they climbed, Malachi's mind worked through possibilities and contingencies. The entity at the bookstore possessed narrative authority, which meant it operated on different rules than conventional magic.
You couldn't overpower narrative authority with raw force. You had to outmaneuver it. Find the edges of its influence and exploit them. Bind it with laws it couldn't rewrite.
It would be delicate work.
Malachi relished delicate work.
They emerged into a nondescript building in the lower administrative district. From the outside, it looked like a records archive. Dusty. Boring. Exactly the kind of place people avoided.
Perfect camouflage.
Malachi dismissed two of the subordinates with a gesture and kept one with him as he walked to a window overlooking the city.
Myreth spread out before him, lit by evening lanterns and the last rays of sunset. Somewhere in that sprawl of stone and light was a bookstore that had destroyed months of careful planning with casual ease.
Malachi felt the cold dread try to surface again.
He crushed it.
Fear was for those who didn't understand their own power. He had spent years accumulating knowledge that others feared to touch. He had sacrificed pieces of his humanity to gain control over fate itself.
A bookstore, no matter how anomalous, would not break him.
"Overseer," the remaining subordinate said quietly. "The reality distortion centered on that location... it's subtle, but it's there. The space around it bends in ways that shouldn't be possible."
"Good," Malachi said. "That confirms our target."
"Should we approach with caution?"
"We will approach with overwhelming preparation." Malachi turned from the window. "Gather the binding materials. I want seals prepared for conceptual containment. Wards against narrative manipulation. Anchors to prevent dimensional displacement."
The subordinate bowed and left to carry out the orders.
Malachi remained at the window, watching the city as darkness crept across it.
He had always believed that knowledge was the highest form of power. That understanding the mechanisms of reality allowed you to rewrite them.
This bookstore represented a mystery.
And mysteries, by definition, could be solved.
The irony was lost on him entirely.
Malachi straightened his robes and walked toward the stairs that would take him deeper into the building, where his ritual materials were stored.
Tonight, he would prepare.
Tomorrow, he would act.
And soon, the anomaly would be contained, studied, and ultimately controlled.
That was how Overseer Malachi operated.
That was how he had always operated.
Across the city, in a quiet office above a haunted bookstore, Levi Warwick sneezed violently.
"Ugh." He grabbed a handkerchief and wiped his nose, glaring at nothing in particular.
Luna looked up from where she was napping on his desk.
"Who the fuck is badmouthing me?" Levi muttered.
Luna blinked slowly, utterly unimpressed, and went back to sleep.
Levi shook his head and returned to his tea, completely unaware that somewhere beneath the city, someone was planning his demise.
The Library hummed softly around him, patient and waiting.
The story was about to get interesting.