My eyes stayed on the road where the dust was slowly settling.
Eimeh's words didn't leave with the soldiers—they clung to me, like something unfinished.
A choice had begun forming inside me, one I didn't yet understand.
Her voice drifted through my mind like wind—not clear, but lingering.
Almost an hour later, as the crowd thinned, Eimeh asked quietly:
"By the way… weren't you supposed to go somewhere today?"
I blinked, as if she'd shaken me out of a dream, and tapped my forehead with my palm.
"Oh—right. I almost forgot. I was supposed to go to the library. I need to speak with the librarian."Bottom of Form
A small, crooked smile pulled at my lips.
"Come on. Let's go together."
We passed out through the western gate and walked beyond the bright, bustling market of noble cloth merchants. Ahead of us, the Grand Library of Mythandri rose into view—gleaming and magnificent, like a silent palace among the stone-paved streets.
My steps slowed as we reached the entrance.
I lifted my head.
The building was carved from silver-grey stone, with tall wooden doors and a glass roof that glittered under the daylight. On the square façade, unframed windows held pots of petunias—flowers cascading and tangled, like branches stolen from a voiceless dream.
Two rows of stairs framed the building's sides, but the only real entrance was the main door, where guards stood watchful and still.
I stopped. My voice came out with a small tremor.
"Do you think I could really work here?"
Eimeh stepped forward, studying the great building, then the guards around it.
They were royal guards—deep crimson uniforms, polished black boots to the knee, golden helms marked with the emblem of a sword driven into a mountain.
"Seeing them…" she said softly, "I can't help thinking of Cabe. And Rolas. And Nybi."
She paused.
"They wore deep blue uniforms. Gold breastplates. Bronze helms."
I gave her a brief smile, though my tone was serious.
"You mean the guards," I said. "Yes."
I looked back at the huge door.
"But that's not what I was asking, Eimeh."
She blinked, caught off guard, and drew a slow breath.
"Look… we came from the slopes of Berda," she said. "This is the heart of the city, right under the castle walls. I've heard the librarian isn't exactly… warm. And people like us… they don't really take us seriously here."
My eyes stayed on the silent, heavy door.
I smoothed a fold of my jade-green robe.
"I didn't come to be taken seriously," I said. "I just… want to try."
Eimeh managed a faint smile, but I could read it—there was no hope in it.
Without another word, I stepped away from her and toward the great door.
When it opened, another world waited inside.
The library was even more breathtaking than the stories. They said King Lafimon loved books; maybe that was why the Grand Library of Mythandri had been built right beside the royal palace.
Even the kingdom's emblem came from that belief—a sword driven into a mountain. He often said:
"Every sword raised in the air marks a life spent for the Myths.
And a mountain only means something when it stands behind those lives."
Some elders called such words naïve. They said a king who lost himself in poetry and books would fall behind on the battlefield.
But standing there, beneath the fractured light of the glass dome, I thought… maybe his belief wasn't so meaningless.
The building was circular, rising three full floors.
Each level held smaller rooms inside it, their walls lined with wooden shelves that seemed to breathe in the heavy silence.
A spiral staircase, like an old exposed root, wound its way up through all three levels—a narrow, twisted path with no easy escape.
Almost no one came here.
This was a refuge for history—a place where maps and chronicles were kept, not a hall for daily noise.
The roof was a dome of glass—not a single unbroken sheet, but a mosaic of uneven squares and rectangles, scattering sunlight across the floor in fractured pieces, like shards of a broken puzzle.
In silence, I walked past apprentices—young men and women in earth-colored robes, some with weary eyes, some openly curious. Special guards stood by certain doors, opening them only for those deemed trustworthy.
By the time I reached the third floor, I was out of breath.
At the end of the corridor stood a plain wooden door—the librarian's chamber.
I knocked three times, softly.
A heartbeat later, an old, calm voice came from inside.
"Come in."
I stepped in.
An elderly man with a slightly bent back and a sharp-boned face sat at a desk. He wore a simple brown robe, and a small pair of spectacles perched on his beak-like nose. His hair, snow-white and forgotten by time, flared lightly around his head.
Papers were piled in front of him—maybe a hundred, maybe two.
He lifted his gaze, but said nothing.
I froze.
Not from fear. From the weight of the moment. I didn't know how to begin.
My voice was there, stuck in my throat, but the words… ran.
Still leafing through scrolls, he muttered under his breath:
"How long do you plan to stand there, girl?"
His voice was dry, but not without feeling.
"I—I'm sorry, Master Librarian," I blurted. "I actually came to ask about… work. I'd like to work here. In the library."
He lifted his head. Through the narrow frame of his glasses, he studied me for a long moment—wordless, without any clear judgment.
After several seconds, he said:
"You're late."
He set one of the scrolls down.
"We had only one vacancy. Yesterday it went to a girl from the villages. She insisted so much that in the end, I agreed."
I didn't step back. But something inside me sank.
There was something in his voice, in his gaze, that hooked my curiosity. I took a small step forward.
"May I… know her name?" I asked quietly. "The girl."
He was silent for a heartbeat. Then his eyes sharpened.
"Will knowing her name help you?" he asked. "No, girl. There is no place for you here."
Anger tightened in my throat—silent, hot.
I lowered my head and turned toward the door.
"If you're so eager to know…" he added, almost lazily, "her name was Rasaz. Rasaz Sadal."
My foot faltered mid-step.
It felt like the floor had opened under me.
My eyes trembled. My heart clenched.
Rasaz?
The girl who always mocked me for loving books and libraries?
The one who once said that even working in a flower shop was too much for her—now the librarian's assistant?
My mouth opened, but no sound came.
I walked out without a word, as if all the sounds in the world had been snuffed out at once.
I sank onto a wooden chair by the wall—a chair old enough to feel like it had always been there.
My eyes saw nothing. The world spun.
Then a voice—soft, warm, male—spoke near my ear:
"Miss? Are you all right? …Miss?"
I lifted my head.
A young man stood in front of me.
Slender, sun-browned skin, black hair tied back, eyes that shifted subtly with every word. A loose gray robe marked him as an apprentice. The narrow nose and small spectacles made him look a little like the old man inside.
"I'm fine," I said softly. "Better than ever."
He hesitated—silent, but unwilling to look away from me.
For a moment I thought he'd leave, but instead he said:
"If you're not truly fine, you might want to rest for a while. Behind the second floor, there's a half-shaded terrace… well, an old room that feels like one. Almost no one goes there. Except me. It's quieter."
I almost walked past him.
But I stopped.
"What's there?" I asked. "Really?"
He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking.
"It's just an old room," he said at last. "Or… maybe not entirely. They say it's the oldest chamber in the library. The ceiling's domed, one wall is partly burned. Sometimes it feels like something in there is breathing. But it's not a book. And it's not a person."
A faint smile touched his lips, as if he doubted his own words.
"Some people say there used to be a tree there," he added. "A long time ago. A tree that isn't there anymore, but its presence never quite left. Maybe it's just a story."
Instead of answering, I just nodded.
Something deep inside me shivered.
A strange, lost familiarity—like remembering a place I'd never visited.
From above, the librarian's voice echoed down the corridor:
"Amado! You foolish boy! Where are you wandering now? Get back to your work!"
The young man winced slightly, then looked back at me with a small, apologetic grin.
"Well," he said, "I guess you know my name now."
He took a step back, then added, more gently:
"If you ever come back… take the left corridor on the second floor. You'll see a half-burnt wooden door."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and disappeared between the shelves.
The librarian's voice still rang faintly above me as I started down the wooden stairs.
My mind felt strange—crowded and empty at the same time.
Between the second and first floors, something caught my eye.
A corridor.
Unlike the others, no lamps were lit there. No signs hung above the entrance. It looked like a forgotten passage pinned between two silent walls.
I stopped.
Something inside me turned toward it.
Not a word. Not a clear call. Just a pull.
Familiar and foreign at once.
I stepped into the darkness.
With every step I took, the silence grew thicker, like the library itself had held its breath. The walls were different here—no smooth stone, no polished shelves. Rough surfaces, streaked with old, dried moss.
At the far end, a heavy wooden door waited.
Half of it was wrapped in thin, silver threads—not spiderwebs, but something that looked like tangled roots pushing out from within the wood and clinging to the stone, as if no one had opened this door for years.
I raised my hand and touched it.
It was cold.
And somehow… alive.
I pushed gently.
The door opened without a sound.
Inside, the room was half-dark.
Light slipped through a crack in the ceiling and fell in a narrow beam onto the center of the floor.
There, in that pale circle of light, something stood.
A tree.
Not large, not small.
Just… utterly unlike any tree I'd ever seen.
Its bark was dark with threads of silver running through it, faintly pulsing like a buried heartbeat. The branches didn't reach upward. They curled inward instead—like arms wrapped around something invisible.
There were no leaves.
No flowers.
Only a silence so deep it almost felt like sound.
I stepped closer, my mouth suddenly dry.
Inside me, chaos and calm collided.
Something glimmered on the tree's surface—
a mark, like a burned ring.
A small circle, hollow in the center.
Not like a wound that had closed.
More like a memory that had been erased.
Then a sound rose—
without rising.
Not from the tree.
Not from somewhere in the room.
From inside me.
You have not learned yet…
But you have come.
I stumbled back a step. My heart slammed against my ribs.
But I wasn't afraid.
The voice wasn't unfamiliar.
Not completely.
You do not know my name…
But your mark is in me.
My fingers moved on their own.
They slid to my forearm, pressing over skin that was still bare.
Nothing was there.
Not yet.
But my body remembered something my mind didn't—
as if, one day, a mark would burn its way into that very place.
The tree stayed silent after that.
No more words.
No movement.
But something had woken up inside me.
Not fully.
Not clearly.
More like a seed, placed in damp earth.
I stepped back, slowly.
Closed the door.
The soft click of wood settling into place felt like a seal pressed into my chest—
and the library fell quiet again.
But the silence didn't stay behind.
It followed—like something that had already chosen me.