The silence after the incomplete creature dissolved was no relief.It was worse.
It felt as if the Silent Spiral had stopped even pretending to behave normally. The vibrations running through the floor, the columns, the air itself were all aligned in one direction: incoming.
The true Second Fragment was rising.
Marikka felt the vibration the way one feels a storm before it breaks: in the air, in the bones, in that part of the mind that knows when it's time to stop asking questions and start running.
For once, Cedric was the fastest to react."I strongly suggest—wholeheartedly, fearfully, and desperately—that we LEAVE. Right NOW."
Aurelian brushed a hand over the wound on his shoulder, left by the page-blade. The bleeding had stopped thanks to a thin thread of sealing ink drawing a runic symbol on the fabric."I agree. This area is too exposed."
Marikka touched the cover of the book. It vibrated not in disagreement but in confirmation.
Elsewhere.Deeper.Hidden.
Cedric threw his hands in the air."Deeper?! THAT'S your idea of hiding better? Going TOWARD the thing that's climbing up here?!"
The book added a single, crisp concept.
Protection.
Aurelian nodded, understanding more than the vibration itself revealed."There's a chamber nearby. Not on any official map, but… the Letters tend to remember it."
Cedric stared."The… Letters?"
Aurelian didn't answer. He gestured for them to follow the narrow corridor branching off from the hall of the stone table. The columns here were thinner, closer together, like a forest of compressed parchment.
The vibrations from below grew stronger with every step.
Not just power.Not just age.
Familiarity.
As if the Second Fragment already knew exactly who it was seeking, and considered every obstacle an annoying delay.
Marikka tightened her grip on the book. The vibration still pulsing on the back of her hand—the mark left by the glowing shard—beat in rhythm with the tremors of the Spiral.
Key.
Not as a title.As a sentence.
Cedric walked behind her, too close, as if trying to hide inside her shadow."Please tell me we're heading somewhere full of people. Alive people. With spells ready, shields active, barriers, maybe a cafeteria."
Aurelian glanced back."No. We're heading somewhere no one goes."
"Fantastic. Of course we are."
They reached a narrow arch set between two motionless columns—old ones, older than the Spiral itself. Faded lines of text covered their surfaces, only a few scattered letters still visible.
Marikka felt the shift in vibration the moment she crossed the threshold.
This chamber remembered being a sentence once.
Now it was a pause.
Inside, there were no shelves. No desks. No reading stands. Just a wide circular space where the ceiling vanished into darkness. The floor was covered in thin strips of paper like fallen leaves. A breeze that didn't exist made them flutter faintly.
The letters on the floor belonged to no word.They crawled in small clusters, insect-like.
Cedric froze."Why are we standing in a nest of… grammatical ants?"
A small letter A climbed his boot, studied him for a moment, then dismissed him and scuttled toward the center of the chamber.
Aurelian was the last to enter. He traced a symbol of air with two fingers, and the archway behind them darkened as if a translucent sheet of ink had stretched over the stone.
"The Hall of Fallen Letters," he murmured."Here gather the remnants of text that has been deleted. But they don't always stay dead."
Marikka placed the book on the ground. Its vibrations changed instantly on contact with the floor.Not fear.Recognition.
Old.Before.Similar.
Cedric crouched, watching as the tiny letters hurried toward the center of the chamber."Why are they gathering? Shouldn't they be wandering around cluelessly like… me?"
Marikka laid her palm on the ground.
The Letters weren't just stray symbols. They were rejected meaning, cut away from the Rewrite, left to decay.
And now they were agitated.
Very agitated.
It comes.It comes.It comes.
The vibration repeated like a broken choir, sung by hundreds of forgotten symbols. Marikka felt their emotional residue: confusion, longing, desperation to belong to something readable again.
Cedric shrank back."They're saying what I think they're saying?"
Aurelian nodded."They feel him. The Fragment approaches. And they remember."
"Remember what?" Cedric asked, terrified and fascinated."That they loved him? Hated him? Worked together before having a grammatical divorce?"
The book vibrated once.
Father.
Marikka's stomach twisted.
The fallen letters began to climb. Not fly—crawl upward along the air itself as if it had invisible edges. They spiraled toward the center of the room.
Cedric clutched a scroll he didn't know how to use."Aurelian? Can we actually defend ourselves from… that?"
Aurelian lifted the metal shard, runes glowing faintly blue-inked."I don't know. But I can slow it. Maybe."
"You know," Cedric said, "I usually prefer when masters lie in these situations."
The vibration from below changed.No longer approach.
Entry.
The chamber grew colder.The faint lights above stretched into vertical lines, as if someone were straightening a page too full of text.
The clustered letters rose as one, forming a column of unstable symbols. For a moment, Marikka saw something resembling a shape.
Not a body.Not a face.
A structure.A draft.A possibility.
Then she felt the vibration.
Not like the incomplete creature.Not like a Custodian.Not like the Athenaeum.
Something deeper.Older.Satisfied.
At last.
Marikka staggered, clutching her chest.The book trembled violently, sliding across the floor.
Cedric collapsed onto his back."That… that sound. I don't like when someone says 'I've been waiting for you' and I have never met them in my life."
Aurelian's expression hardened."It's him."
The column of letters rotated, symbols rearranging but forming no words—only a pattern.
Marikka sensed the vibration.
Not directed to the Athenaeum.Not to the world.
To her.
Key.
Not a question.A confirmation.
She knelt beside the book.It reached out to her with trembling resonance.
Answer.
"I… I don't know what to say," she whispered.But vibrations did not require spoken words—only intention.
Cedric edged closer."Whatever you're about to do, PLEASE do it slowly."
Aurelian shaped a runic figure in the air using the metal shard. It spun, forming a weak barrier between them and the spiral of letters.
"This won't stop him," he said."But it may soften the blow."
"Great," Cedric muttered. "We'll die politely."
Marikka closed her eyes.
She sent a simple vibration.
I am here.
The Hall fell silent.The letters froze.
The spiral opened like an inverted flower, revealing a dense core of opaque darkness. It wasn't a hole or a void.
It was information.
A presence.
The Second Fragment.
Its vibration tore through Aurelian's runic shield like wind through paper.
Key detected.
The phrase carved itself into Marikka's mind.
Cedric clutched Aurelian's arm."I don't like when things detect me. I prefer being unimportant."
The Fragment turned toward her.Sightless.Certain.
Rewrite status: incomplete.Anomaly present.Interference of the First Fragment: active.
Marikka clenched her teeth. These weren't messages.
They were diagnostics.
The Athenaeum reacted.The walls contracted slightly—an involuntary shudder.
Its vibration was crystal clear:
I do not want him here.
The Fragment ignored the place.Ignored the letters.Ignored the others.
Proposal: synchronize with the Key.
Marikka's eyes widened."Synchronize? What does that mean?"
The book vibrated violently.
Reject.
Pressure increased. Cedric swayed."Everything feels… upside down. Like reading ten books backwards at the same time!"
Aurelian nearly crushed the metal shard with his grip."Marikka. You must choose. If you accept, it will enter you. If you refuse, it may react."
"React how?"
He did not answer.Or couldn't.
The Fragment contracted, compressing itself. The spiral of letters fell like dark snow. Only the opaque core remained.
It moved.Toward her.
Partial synchronization possible.Request: contact.
The book shrieked in vibration.
Danger.But also… response.
Marikka realized she would not get another chance to understand what a complete Fragment truly was—not a shell, echo, or mistake.
The Second Fragment was part of the original Rewrite.And it wanted her.
"Just… partial," she whispered. "No full merge."
Cedric made a strangled noise."Why are we making deals with something that talks like contract terms?!"
Aurelian didn't stop her.
That scared her more than anything.
The core descended until it brushed her hand.
There was no pain.
There was memory.
A city that never existed.A sky written into being.A library that was also a tribunal.A voice saying:
The world will be corrected.
Marikka screamed silently.
Cedric grabbed her shoulders."Marikka! MARIKKA!"
The opaque core withdrew slightly, as if tasting only a fragment of what it sought.
The next vibration was different.
Partial synchronization: successful.The Key contains traces of Ariath.New priority: locate other anomalies.
Aurelian stiffened."Other… anomalies?"
The Fragment did not respond to him.It rotated, sensing upward through the Spiral.
This world is unaligned.It must be completed.
The letters writhed, terrified.The Athenaeum trembled.
Marikka, still breathless, felt a final vibration addressed only to her.
I will use you.
Then the core vanished.
It did not explode.It did not dissolve.
It simply was no longer there.
The Hall of Fallen Letters remained empty—save for Cedric's ragged breathing,Aurelian's tense gaze,and Marikka's pounding heartbeat.
The book trembled in her hands.
It has begun.