The last time Erica smelled smoke, her life split in two.
Not the sharp, burning kind—this was cold smoke. Old smoke. The kind that clung to your clothes long after the fire was gone, like a memory refusing to die.
She stopped beneath a flickering streetlight, rain sliding off her hair and down the back of her neck. The campus road was empty, and her phone sat at 1%—a cruel little red warning.
Typical.
She'd been running on caffeine and silence for weeks. The kind of silence you practice when people ask, "Are you okay?" and you learn to smile quickly enough that no one looks closer.
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag.
Then she saw it.
A storefront she had never seen before—though she had walked this street a hundred times.
A narrow shop wedged between two buildings, half-hidden by hanging vines and grime. Its sign looked less like paint and more like a scar:
SUDIM BOOKS
The letters were too sharp, too clean, as if they'd been carved into the air itself.
Erica frowned. "That wasn't here yesterday."
The door was open.
Not wide open. Just open enough to feel like a decision someone else had already made for her.
She took a step closer—
—and something inside moved.
Not a person.
A shadow, sliding across the floor like ink poured on glass.
Her breath caught.
"Nope," she whispered, and tried to keep walking.
Her feet didn't.
She crossed the threshold.
A bell should have chimed. It didn't.
Warmth wrapped around her, but it wasn't cozy warmth—it was the heat of a room that had been waiting too long for one specific person to arrive.
The smell hit again: paper and smoke.
The shelves rose impossibly high, vanishing into darkness. The space inside was larger than the building outside. That shouldn't be possible, and yet… it was.
"Hello?" Erica called.
Silence.
Then—somewhere deep between the shelves—a slow, deliberate sound.
A page turning.
Her skin prickled. She should leave. She knew she should.
But her eyes kept drifting forward, like the air itself was pulling her gaze.
Books lined the nearest shelves in neat rows, but many had no titles. Some were tied with red thread. Others were bound in thin chains—decorative at first glance—until she noticed tiny symbols etched into every link.
Runes.
Not just decoration.
They were… measurements.
Like the chains were counting something.
On a table in the center of the store sat a single book.
Just one.
As if the entire bookstore existed to point at it.
Its cover was black—not leather-black, not paint-black. Black like a hole where light forgot how to return. Ash dusted the edges like it had crawled out of a fire and refused to stay dead.
No title.
No author.
No price.
A book that refused to introduce itself.
Erica's throat tightened. Her mind searched for logic, for reason.
Prank. Prop. Art piece. Weird antique.
Then her hand moved anyway—slowly, unwillingly—like her body had signed a contract without telling her.
Her fingertips touched the cover.
It was warm.
Warm like skin.
She jerked back, but the cover clung to her fingers for a fraction of a second—like it didn't want to let go.
And then she heard it.
Not in the air.
Inside her skull.
A whisper, soft as breath against her ear:
Erica.
Her heart lurched. Her name had never sounded so wrong.
"Who's there?" she demanded, louder than she meant to.
The bookstore stayed silent.
The book's pages began to turn on their own.
Slow at first.
Then faster—fluttering like panicked wings.
With each flip, the shadows in the corners deepened. The far end of the store stretched away as if the room were growing, making space for something that needed more than normal walls.
Erica backed up. Her heel bumped the table.
The pages stopped.
One sheet lay open—gray, like ash pressed flat.
Letters appeared on it, one by one, as if an invisible hand was writing in fresh ink.
YOU ARE LATE.
Erica swallowed. "Late for what?"
New words bled into place.
FOR THE WORLD THAT IS WAITING TO BREAK AGAIN.
Outside, the streetlight flickered—visible through the front window.
Once.
Twice.
Then it died.
Darkness swallowed the store in a single breath.
Erica spun toward the entrance.
The doorway was gone.
In its place: a wall of shelves packed tight with books, as if the store had never believed in exits.
Her pulse slammed. "This isn't funny!"
The book creaked like an old spine bending.
The open page turned black.
And from the center of that blackness, a thin crack of gray light appeared—like reality splitting at a seam.
The crack widened.
Light spilled out, curling into the air like smoke with intent.
It drifted toward her wrist.
Erica stumbled back. "Don't—"
The smoke touched her skin.
Cold.
Then burning.
Pain speared up her arm, bright and clean, and she bit down on a scream as the gray smoke sank into her like ink into paper.
A symbol formed.
A broken circle.
Branches spreading outward like scorched roots.
A sigil.
The moment the last line sealed itself, the air shifted.
The bookstore felt… weighed.
Like gravity had doubled.
Like the room was holding its breath.
And the black book displayed one final sentence in silver, sharp enough to cut:
WHEN THE SIGIL CHOOSES YOU, RETURNING IS NO LONGER A CHOICE.
The silver flared—
—and the world tore.
Erica was yanked forward by something older than fear, something that didn't care if she begged.
Her thoughts smeared into gray. Her scream vanished into silence.
Then—
Impact.
Cold grass pressed into her palms.
She coughed, dragging air into her lungs like she'd been drowning.
She looked up.
A violet sky, deep and endless.
Two moons.
One smooth and pale.
The other cracked, like something had clawed at it from the inside.
Wind swept over her face carrying wet stone, flowering trees… and something metallic beneath it—like coins.
Or blood.
Erica pushed herself upright, shaking.
The sigil was there on her wrist.
Gray.
Raised.
Real.
And it pulsed once.
Like a second heartbeat.
A rustle sounded behind her.
She whipped around.
A colossal stone gate towered nearby, carved with glowing blue symbols. Beyond it rose a city of spires and bridges—castle-like buildings lit with floating lanterns that drifted through the air like fireflies.
She took a step back, trying to force her mind into logic.
This was impossible.
"Don't move!" a voice snapped.
Figures emerged from behind the gate—six, maybe more—wearing dark robes with silver emblems. In their hands were short wands that sparked faintly, as if their owners couldn't keep the magic still.
At the front stood a man with sharp eyes and a scar along his jaw. He raised his wand, but not at her face.
At her wrist.
His expression shifted—caution to shock to something dangerously close to fear.
"That mark…" he breathed.
The others murmured. Someone took a step backward.
"No," a woman whispered. "It can't be."
Erica forced her voice to work. "Where am I? What is this?"
The man didn't answer her questions.
He stared at the sigil like it was a weapon that remembered how to kill.
Then he spoke like he was naming a curse.
"You're within the borders of Astria Academy of Magic."
His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
"And if that is what I think it is…"
He met her eyes.
"…you weren't summoned by chance."
The sigil pulsed again—harder.
Cold flooded her veins, followed by a whisper in her mind—warm as breath, cruel as a smile:
At last.
You've arrived.
Erica's knees nearly buckled.
The man stepped closer, wand still raised, voice lowering as if the air itself might repeat him.
"Listen to me," he said. "Do not let anyone see that mark."
"Why?" Erica whispered.
The man's face tightened.
"Because in this world," he said, "magic is not cast by words."
His wand sparked, and the blue symbols on the gate answered like they were listening.
"It's cast by contracts."
He looked back at her wrist.
"And that sigil…"
The lanterns above the city dimmed, just slightly, as if even the light was afraid.
"…ended a kingdom."
He exhaled, and the words fell like a final verdict:
"And now it's back."