The moment Varien pulled open the cupboard door, something in the room shifted.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic.
Just a quiet tightening in the air — like the world had taken one slow, careful breath.
I sat straighter without meaning to.
Varien walked across the room and didn't go to the shelves where she kept our usual lesson books. Instead, she stepped toward the tall wooden cupboard in the corner — the one she only touched when something mattered.
She pulled the creaking door wider.
Her hand reached to the very top, brushing through dust and old parchment. When she turned back, she held a thick volume wrapped in dark, faded red leather. The edges were frayed. The gold lettering almost gone.
Only one word remained:
History.
But above it — a blank, torn space, as if another title had once been carved there and then ripped away.
I felt my stomach tighten.
Whenever she brought this book out, something important followed.
Varien placed it gently on the desk. No noise. No rush.
Almost like the book itself didn't want to be disturbed.
"Today," she said, "we will read something different."
Different.
That word echoed in my ribs.
She opened the book, and a soft cloud of dust shimmered up, catching in the morning sunlight.
No one spoke. Even Rasaz froze mid–whisper.
Varien flipped a few pages until she found the one she wanted. Her finger rested on a line, and her voice slipped into the quiet:
"On the fiftieth day of the year five hundred and ninety-seven,
the earth itself was undone.
The high was brought low, and the low was lifted high.
What was fair became foul, and what was foul seemed fair.
All that had been seen vanished from sight,
and all that had been hidden came forth into the open…"
Her voice flowed through the room, calm but heavy — like she was reading a memory instead of a text.
I barely breathed.
Because every word felt too close to what I had seen in the nightmare.
The earth undone.
The world overturned.
What should be seen disappearing.
What shouldn't be seen stepping into the open.
A cold tremor moved through me.
When she finished the passage, she closed the book softly — but the sound felt loud inside my chest.
"What do you make of this?" she asked.
Silence.
Then Jinia, of course, lifted her chin.
"I think," she said, "that it's vague. Dramatic, but vague. What exactly happened? Who was there? It doesn't explain anything."
A few students murmured agreement.
Varien nodded, thoughtful. "And you, Sibefer?"
Of course she'd ask me.
My mouth went dry as everyone turned to look. I hated this feeling — being held in the center of the room like a candle flame.
But lying felt worse.
"I think…" I forced the words out slowly, "it was describing a moment when something changed before people were ready to see it. Something real, but unseen."
Varien's eyes softened. "Go on."
"Maybe the writer didn't understand it," I said. "Maybe they only felt it."
Jinia scoffed quietly behind me.
Varien didn't scold her — she rarely scolded anyone — but something in her gaze sharpened.
"And you, Cabe?" she asked.
He lifted his eyes from his desk, expression unreadable.
"What we see is almost always incomplete," he said simply.
Varien tilted her head. "Meaning?"
Cabe ran a thumb along the edge of his sleeve.
"It means people explain things in the safest way possible. If something too big happens, they call it something else — a storm, a war, a shift in the soil. Even if that's not the truth."
My throat tightened.
Because last night, I had done the same.
I had called the voice a dream even when something inside me screamed otherwise.
Varien looked at each of us.
"Some of you," she said softly, "will live ordinary lives. You'll work the land, raise families, and forget these lessons."
A pause.
"Others will find yourselves standing in moments the world does not have the words to explain."
Her gaze lingered on me for a heartbeat too long.
Something inside my chest curled inwards.
Before anyone could respond, the bell outside the cottage rang — sharp and jarring compared to the silence in the room.
Students stood, chairs scraping against the wooden floor. Rasaz stretched, Nybi yawned, Rolas whispered something to Cabe. Jinia snapped her book shut.
Everyone moved toward the door.
Except me.
I was still staring at the red book.
Still hearing the nightmare twisting through the edges of my thoughts.
I finally stood, trying to blend into the flow of students —
But Varien's voice cut through the noise:
"Sibefer."
I froze.
"Stay a moment, will you?"
Everyone else slipped outside.
The door closed.
And suddenly it was just me, Varien…
and the book with no name.