📖 Chapter Two Draft
The city did not notice when Elion vanished.
Velreth was built to forget.
Morning fog spilled between the tiered streets as citizens moved through their rituals—trading memories at sanctioned kiosks, reciting preservation mantras, swallowing tonics brewed by the Order to dull emotional excess. Above them, the upper towers shimmered faintly, their runes glowing like distant constellations.
None of them looked down.
None of them felt the tremor when the Vault sealed beneath their feet.
Darkness folded around Elion like wet cloth.
She fell without falling, suspended in a space that had no direction, no weight, and no mercy. Whispers scraped across her skin—thousands of voices layered into one endless murmur.
Forgotten names.
Forgotten promises.
Forgotten screams.
She gasped as her boots touched solid ground.
The chamber stretched endlessly in every direction, lined with shelves carved from obsidian stone. Glass vessels rested upon them—each one filled with swirling silver mist that pulsed like living breath.
Memories.
Elion staggered forward, drawn to the nearest vessel. As she reached out, images erupted inside the glass.
A mother laughing beside a cooking fire.
A soldier collapsing in the mud while calling for someone who never arrived.
A child staring at an empty doorway long after the war ended.
Elion recoiled, heart pounding.
"This is what they took," she whispered.
"No," Mara's voice answered gently behind her. "This is what they saved."
Elion spun around.
Mara stood several paces away, her outline flickering like candlelight struggling against wind. Here, inside the Vault, her form seemed both stronger and more fragile—shadows coiling around her wrists like chains pretending to be jewelry.
"You said it needed a keeper," Elion said. "You never said it was… this."
Mara tilted her head. "I never had the chance."
Silence stretched between them, thick with history neither of them fully owned anymore.
Elion forced herself to meet Mara's gaze. "You said I chose the Order over you."
"You did," Mara replied simply.
Pain flickered across Elion's expression. "Then why bring me here? Why not let me stay ignorant?"
Mara stepped closer. The air grew colder with every step.
"Because the Vault is dying."
The words echoed through the endless chamber like a crack spreading through ice.
Elion frowned. "That's impossible. The Vault is the foundation of Velreth."
"It was," Mara said. "Before the Order grew greedy."
She gestured toward the shelves. Several vessels had begun to fracture, thin veins of darkness spreading through the silver mist inside them.
"They've been removing too much," Mara continued. "Not just dangerous memories. They're extracting love. Loyalty. Grief. Anything that binds people strongly enough to challenge their authority."
Elion stared at the damaged vessels, horror tightening her throat. "They're hollowing the city out."
"They're hollowing the Vault," Mara corrected. "And when the last memory fades, Velreth will collapse with it."
The chamber shuddered faintly, as if agreeing.
Elion clenched her fists. "Then we stop them."
A sad smile touched Mara's lips. "You still think like a soldier."
"What else is there?" Elion snapped.
Mara reached toward her again, but stopped halfway, as if touching Elion might erase her faster.
"To remember why you became one."
The contact sent a shock of sensation through Elion's body. Not pain. Not pleasure.
Recognition.
Another memory surged forward—unbidden, unstoppable.
A hidden courtyard drowned in twilight.
Mara kneeling beside a fountain, tracing forbidden runes across Elion's palm with trembling fingers.
"If they find out," Elion had whispered.
"They will," Mara replied softly. "But I'd rather be erased than live a life where I never loved you."
The memory shattered.
Elion stumbled back, breathing hard. "Stop doing that."
"I'm not controlling it," Mara said. "You're awakening."
"Then make it stop," Elion demanded.
"I can't."
Before Elion could respond, the Vault trembled violently. Several vessels shattered at once, spraying silver mist across the floor like spilled moonlight. The whispers intensified, rising into a chorus of panic.
Mara's expression darkened. "They've begun the Extraction."
"Extraction of what?" Elion asked.
Mara looked directly at her.
"You."
Cold dread settled into Elion's bones.
"They can't reach me here," she said.
"They don't need to," Mara replied. "They're erasing you from the city entirely. Every record. Every memory. Every trace that you ever existed."
Elion staggered back, mind reeling. "Why would they do that?"
"Because you entered the Vault willingly," Mara said. "That makes you a threat they cannot control."
Above them, the obsidian ceiling split open, revealing a spiraling column of blinding white light. Shapes moved inside it—figures robed in ceremonial armor, their faces hidden behind masks etched with expressionless smiles.
The Order of Silence had come.
"Elion," Mara said urgently, "listen to me. If they complete the purge, you won't just be forgotten. You'll dissolve into the Vault itself."
"And if I fight them?"
"You'll destroy what little balance remains."
The light expanded, swallowing the shelves nearest to it. Memories inside the vessels screamed as they disintegrated.
Elion reached for her fallen blade. It materialized beside her hand, its metal humming in response to the Vault's distress.
"For years," she said quietly, "I believed protecting Velreth meant obeying the Order."
She rose slowly.
"Now I think protecting Velreth might mean destroying it."
Mara's eyes widened. "Elion, if you strike the Vault—"
"I won't," Elion interrupted. "But I will defend it."
The masked figures descended from the light, their boots never touching the ground as they drifted toward her.
"Keeper Candidate Elion," one intoned, its voice layered with unnatural harmony. "You are commanded to surrender your identity for archival dissolution."
Elion lifted her blade. The metal vibrated, silver mist curling along its edge like breath in winter air.
"I already surrendered once," she said.
Mist gathered around her, swirling faster, responding to something deeper than magic—recognition.
"I remember how that ended."
The first enforcer raised its hand. Light sharpened, condensing into a spear of pure remembrance aimed at her heart.
Mara screamed her name.
The chamber trembled. Glass vessels rattled violently across the endless shelves, their contents glowing brighter as if desperate to be seen.
The world seemed to pause.
The archive held its breath.
And Elion stepped forward to meet the strike.