It took hours before the name stopped echoing.
Even after we left the chamber, its rhythm lingered—like a heartbeat beneath my skin. I couldn't sleep. Not with the whisper still brushing the edge of my thoughts.
So I returned to the archives.
Not the sanctioned ones.
The forbidden shelves beneath the library's foundations—sealed off with labyrinth wards, known only to royal scholars and recordkeepers. But Serena knew the path, and tonight, she came with me.
We passed the glyph wards one by one. The deeper we went, the colder it became. Not temperature, but something older—time itself thinning.
She lit a rune-lantern. "You're sure it said Kirevar?"
I nodded.
She didn't ask how I knew the spelling. Somehow, I just did.
We found it in a binding ledger. A forgotten volume listing containment sites from the First Accord.
Kirevar wasn't a person.
It was a binding class—a magical signature assigned to what the ancients called "uncontainable truths."
"Designed not to seal power," Serena read aloud, "but to seal memory. To make the world forget."
The entry ended with a line scored so deeply it nearly tore the page:
"Kirevar: last used 417 years ago. Target status: still resonant."
I stared at it.
Still resonant.
Still active.
Still… calling.
Serena placed her hand over mine. "If it's waking, they'll try to silence it again."
"No," I said. "They'll try to silence me."
And this time, I might not survive.