The entrance to the Sealed Archives lay deep beneath the oldest wing of the Bastion—so deep, in fact, that few Guardians even knew it existed. The corridor that led there was narrow and lined with smooth, white stone, untouched by time or corruption. There were no torches. No sigils glowing in welcome. Only silence.

  Matrim and Narianna walked side by side, their footsteps echoing down the ancient hallway. Narianna held the scroll Calthira had given her tightly in one hand, the seal of the High Lady glimmering faintly beneath her fingers.

  “I thought I knew the Bastion,” she said quietly. “But I’ve never been down here.”

  “Seems like they wanted to forget this place,” Matrim replied.

  Narianna gave a short nod. “Or pretend it never existed.”

  The corridor ended at a massive stone arch carved with symbols even older than those on the gate. It didn’t shimmer or resist them. It just stood, waiting.

  Narianna stepped forward and placed the scroll into a narrow recess in the wall.

  The stone pulsed. Once.

  Then, with a deep groan, the wall split down the center and slowly slid apart, revealing a chamber cloaked in shadows and stillness. Dust hung thick in the air. Cold air wafted out, tinged with the scent of old parchment and dried magic.

  Matrim followed her in cautiously.

  The room stretched wide and tall, lined with shelves of stone and crystal containers sealed with metal bands. Each shelf held ancient scrolls, rune-inscribed tablets, and delicate memory orbs flickering faintly with trapped echoes.

  In the center stood a single pedestal, its top engraved with a ring of unknown sigils.

  A Guardian blade rested on it.

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  Narianna’s breath caught as she approached it. “This is a Vigil blade.”

  Matrim tilted his head. “I thought the Vigil of the Veil was an oath, not a force.”

  “It was a force,” Narianna said, reaching out to touch the hilt. “A secret one. Formed after the Severance War to watch the seal… to make sure the gate stayed buried.”

  She didn’t lift the blade. She left it untouched, out of respect—or fear.

  Matrim moved past her toward the shelves, brushing his fingers over a stone tablet covered in spidery writing. “How far back do these records go?”

  Narianna began scanning nearby scrolls. “Farther than any living Guardian would admit.”

  They worked in silence, opening sealed scrolls and deciphering fragmented records. It was slow. Much of the text was written in an archaic dialect, the words layered in protective runes meant to ward off prying eyes.

  But it wasn’t long before they began to uncover a story—disjointed at first, but soon undeniable.

  The gate had not simply been sealed to contain something dangerous.

  It had been sealed to bury a mistake.

  A weapon.

  A being of immense power—born of leyline manipulation gone too far. Not a god. Not a demon. Something in-between. A remnant of a time before Silvermoon’s order, created by accident, nourished by magic, and abandoned by its creators when it proved too wild to bind.

  They found a name, half-erased in one scroll, scrawled over by trembling hands in another.

  Erythos.

  The Veil-Breaker.

  Matrim whispered it aloud. “This is what they were afraid of.”

  Narianna nodded. “This is what we were never meant to find.”

  One tablet bore the final record of a Vigil captain. It was carved, not written—likely the last thing he managed to do before the gate was sealed again.

  "The being speaks in dreams. It remembers the roots. It seeks the key—the one who resonates. We have buried it. But it sleeps shallowly."

  Matrim’s stomach turned. “It’s not just waiting.”

  Narianna stared at him, realization spreading across her face. “It’s looking.”

  They stood there in the silent archive, surrounded by the voices of the long-dead, as the truth settled over them like dust from the ceiling.

  Erythos hadn’t been sealed just to keep it away.

  It had been sealed because it had already begun to reach into the world—and now, it had found Matrim.

  He stepped back, suddenly needing air, but the silence of the archive pressed against his lungs like water.

  Narianna’s voice grounded him. “If it’s tied to the leylines, and to you... then every time the Court stirs the nexus, it grows stronger.”

  Matrim looked at her. “Then we’re running out of time.”

  Narianna gripped the hilt of her sword. “Then we stop them. We stop it.”

  Matrim turned to the pedestal, the Vigil blade still resting atop it.

  He reached out—and this time, he took it.