The steps out of the Archive were heavier than those that had led in.
Izen emerged into the broken underways of Luminos Prime—a tunnel beneath the city's false suns, long sealed, half-flooded with shadow-water that rippled without wind. Here, the city's light didn't reach. The sunstones embedded in the upper ceiling had long cracked, leaving only flickering pulses that sparked randomly like distant lightning. Reflected in the still black surface below, the broken world above looked whole again—until you blinked.
Grinless followed quietly behind him, matching each of his movements half a second late. It didn't seem bound. Not in the way Velrith had described. It felt… cooperative, but watching, always one degree too aware. Like a journal that sometimes flipped its own pages.
Izen stepped onto a slab of old stone and paused.
A realization struck him.
He could still feel Seril.
Not just the name. The echo.
A pressure on his chest, like the memory of a fire that hadn't been fully extinguished. He didn't remember her face, not clearly. But he remembered the way she held something tightly in her arms. The way her hands had trembled when she tried to speak a name and only ash came out.
"Is this what it means to be a Reaver?" he whispered aloud.
No one answered. But the shadows near his boots shifted in a slow curl.
He moved forward again.
The tunnel narrowed, curving like a ribcage. On one wall, an old Binder sigil had been carved—now cracked, bleeding a thin ooze of black from its center. Above it, the ceiling had partially collapsed. Daylight trickled down from a sunwell—a narrow shaft that connected to the street level. Distant footsteps echoed above.
Izen stopped beneath it.
He hadn't seen the sky in… how long had it been?
He looked down at his hand. The ink beneath his skin had stilled now, like settling river-mud. The Sequence had stabilized. Velrith had said that was important. That only then could he survive the first Scribing. He didn't feel stronger. Just heavier. Like something had been stitched into him—too deep to remove.
The thought of leaving the tunnel made him pause.
Up there, the world hadn't changed. Up there, he was still Lightless. Still Izen Callow, street rat, shadowless waste. The boy who had been caught too many times and gotten away too few.
But now… he wasn't quite that anymore.
He reached for the ladder embedded in the tunnel wall. Rusted. Bent in places. He climbed.
—
When he emerged, the light hit him harder than expected.
Luminos Prime's air was sharp, sun-hot, and thick with the scent of polished stone and ozone. This district—Tarn Verge—sat on the city's inner rim, just outside the noble light circuit. That meant shadow-lengths were allowed to fall naturally here. Not long, not fully wild, but real.
As he stepped into the street, a few glances fell on him. A passing vendor, pushing a cart of shadow-touched fruits. A child holding a shadow-kite. An old man whose third shadow dragged behind him like a chained dog.
Izen pulled up his collar.
They couldn't see Grinless. Not yet. Unless it wished to be seen.
But they could see his. His own shadow. The one trailing just behind him, flickering with faint violet at the edges.
And that—more than anything—drew eyes.
Too many eyes.
He moved quickly, slipping between alleys.
He didn't go far. He couldn't. Not without direction. He needed food. Shelter. He needed to find out what had changed. What had been reported. Whether the Guild was already hunting for the boy who'd stolen a Memory Coin and vanished into shadow.
He ducked into an old shadow-market stall built into the wall of a red-brick building. It was run by a half-blind Veilkin woman who sold thread-shadow charms and whisper-ink journals.
She looked at him once, blinked slowly, and then muttered, "You stink of echo, boy."
"I need inkleaf. Cheap."
She raised an eyebrow. "Inkleaf? What for?"
He stared at her.
"Ah." She leaned back. "One of those now."
She passed him a bundle wrapped in cloth. Pale green leaves, dusted with black. He handed her the last of his coin—not much. Not enough. But she didn't argue.
As he turned to leave, she spoke again.
"You'd best get to the Shattered Hall."
He paused. "The what?"
"The Hall. Where the Scribes gather. They'll find you eventually. Better if you walk in standing than dragged in screaming."
He frowned. "They're real?"
"Of course they're real." Her tone turned dry. "You think Reavers just wander around the city, scribbling echoes into bricks?"
He hesitated. "Where is it?"
She smiled faintly, revealing a row of ink-stained teeth. "Ask the shadows. If they like you now, they'll answer."
—
It took most of the day.
He wandered, searching alleys where shadows gathered thickest. Speaking to puddles that rippled in reverse. Listening for the sound of words without speakers.
Eventually, he found it.
A doorway carved into a mural on a dead-end wall. The mural depicted a ruined library consumed by a wave of black ink. A hundred faceless figures stood around it, their shadows scrawling across the stone. He stood before it, uncertain.
Then the wall shimmered.
And the doorway opened.
—
The Shattered Hall was neither hall nor shattered.
It was a hollowed cathedral, sunken into the bones of the city, its floor cracked with old battle marks. Ink-slick stairs wound downward. Glyphs glowed along the edges of the chamber, whispering secrets in languages he couldn't read.
And the scribes?
They watched him enter with eyes like libraries. Men and women—and others—not all human, not all whole. Some had no mouths. Others had too many eyes. All of them bore moving ink in their veins. And none of them smiled.
Except one.
A boy with silver rings braided into his hair and a grin wider than Grinless's.
"New Reaver," he called from atop a pillar of stacked books. "You brought your Core?"
Izen nodded slowly. Grinless stepped out of his side, half-materializing.
The boy whistled. "Oooh. That's a wild one."
"What is this place?" Izen asked.
"The beginning," the boy said. "Also the end. Also a very dangerous question."
Izen frowned. "Who are you?"
"Call me Luro. Scribe of Sequence Eight." He hopped down, his robe fluttering. "And now your handler."
"Handler?"
Luro patted Izen's shoulder.
"You're new, kid. You're dangerous. And you're not supposed to exist. So we'll try and keep you alive until the Guild decides whether you're an asset or an accident."
Grinless hissed.
Luro blinked. "Well. I guess he disagrees."
The scribes around them returned to their writing.
Luro grinned. "Let's get you to a desk. You've got a lot of remembering to do."
Luro led him deeper into the cathedral of stone and silence. The scent of ink was overwhelming—old ink, fermented over centuries, thick in the air like incense burned by forgotten gods. Faint candlelight flickered in wall sconces, but there were no flames. Just shadows shaped like fire, burning quietly without heat.
The corridor widened into an annex, its floor cracked and scribbled with overlapping glyphs and memory rings—binding circles, dozens of them, etched into the marble. Each ring glowed faintly with a different color: violet, crimson, deep green, ink-black. They pulsed in time with something low and beating beneath the stone. A heart, maybe. A machine. Or a memory that refused to die.
Luro threw open a door at the far end.
"Welcome to the novice wing," he said.
The room inside was small, half a cell, half a study. A narrow writing desk, already stained with years of use. A basin filled with still inkwater. A set of chalks and scribes. No bed. No pillow. Just function.
"This is mine?"
Luro shrugged. "For now. Unless your Core eats it."
Grinless, who had been trailing behind silently, turned its head at the comment. Its grin widened again, stretching past what a face should allow. Luro didn't flinch, but Izen noticed a flicker of ink pass across his wrist like a defensive gesture.
"I'd keep it leashed, if I were you," Luro added, gesturing lazily. "Some of the scribes here are fragile. They don't like new ones showing up with wild Core Shadows. Especially not Lightless-born ones."
Izen tensed. "So they know?"
"They all know," Luro replied. "You're a ghost walking. A myth breathing. You don't just wake a Core as a Lightless unless something ancient pushes you across the veil. The Guild will want to see you. Study you. Maybe bind you. Maybe break you."
Izen looked down at his hands. The violet ink pulsed faintly under the skin again. He could feel it settle and rise, like waves hitting a distant shore. Always there. Always watching.
He sat at the desk.
A thin journal had already been placed there.
Empty.
The cover was black and marked with a silver glyph: a quill impaling an eye.
He hesitated. "What am I supposed to write?"
"Not supposed to," Luro said, heading for the door. "Need to. Every Reaver records what they survive. Echoes fade fast if not given structure. Memory slips. Names unravel. The Archive holds what we give it, but only if we give it willingly."
"I don't even know what's mine anymore."
Luro paused.
"You do," he said quietly. "You always do. You just have to bleed for it."
He left, the door clicking shut behind him.
Izen stared at the book. He opened the first page. Blank.
His hand trembled as he picked up the scribe's pen. It was heavier than it looked. Made of iron and shadowwood, with a reservoir that filled not with ink, but with thought. He dipped the nib into the inkwater. It drank greedily.
He placed the pen to page.
The ink resisted at first.
Then gave way.
Seril.
The name bled onto the page, curling into shape.
He felt something shift.
A whisper passed through the room, like someone breathing over his shoulder.
Grinless moved to his right and crouched, mimicking the motion. Watching. Smiling still.
Seril.
The girl in the ash.
The scream that never found a name.
Izen didn't know what he was writing. Not consciously. His hand moved without full control. But the words formed. They spilled. Descriptions of the village. The sky. The fire. The weight of grief on someone else's shoulders.
And then, another name emerged.
The Pale Bell.
The moment the phrase formed, the glyphs on the desk flared.
A new pulse echoed under the stone.
Izen looked up.
The wall to his right—stone only moments ago—cracked.
A figure stepped through.
Not Grinless. Not a scribe.
This one was taller. Robed in void-colored threads. No face. No voice. Only a silver mask shaped like a screaming mouth.
"Who—"
The figure raised a hand. Ink bled from its fingertips and struck the desk.
The journal flared white, then blackened.
Grinless screamed.
Not aloud. But in Izen's mind. A piercing wail of memory threatened to split him in half.
He fell to the floor, clutching his skull.
The masked figure stepped closer.
But before it could strike again, a line of silver light carved through the ceiling.
A chain whipped down. Hooked the figure. Ripped it backward.
And then—
Silence.
Luro stepped in from the door, hand wrapped around a glowing chain-sigil. His hair was scorched at the edges. His eyes wide.
"Well," he said. "Looks like they're sending Inkers now."
"Inkers?"
"Memory Reapers. Shadowless enforcers. The Guild uses them to erase unstable Scribes. Usually not this early."
Izen coughed, still on the floor. "They tried to kill me?"
"No," Luro said. "They tried to erase your journal. Worse."
Grinless stood now between Izen and the door, its limbs longer than before, its back arched like a feral beast. The ink on its form shifted constantly, writing names that disappeared the moment they were read.
"You just bound a living echo," Luro said grimly. "Something old. Something forbidden."
Izen stared at the book.
The page where he'd written Seril's name was gone.
Not blank. Gone. As if it had never existed.
But his memory of her remained.
Worse—her presence remained.
Luro knelt and touched Izen's forehead. For a moment, their shadows merged.
Then he whispered, "You're not just a Reaver. You're a Scribe of the Hollow."
"What does that mean?"
Luro stood slowly.
"It means the Archive can't hold what you've bound. And that the world just changed."