I was still stunned.
It wasn't simple surprise. It was that uneasy feeling of recognizing something that should never have been familiar. As if a memory that wasn't mine were slotting pieces into place inside my head, one by one, with a patience that irritated me.
A tale. That was what I held in my hands.
But a tale based on something real.
"The mausoleum really was the first to fall…" I murmured, my eyes running over the worn lines of the page. "But… shouldn't it have been in the Black Forest?"
I frowned.
The question hung in the library air for a moment, and then something deeper, quieter, answered before I had even finished forming it.
'Wait.
' I stood. The chair scraped across the floor,
rrrnk
, the sound echoing far too loudly in that nearly dead space.
I crossed the side corridor in quick strides and entered the adjoining room. The shelves there were lower, better organized. Maps, scrolls, parchments catalogued by region and date.
I ran my fingers along the labels until I found what I needed.
I returned to the table already unrolling the parchment, my fingers stained with ancient dust. The tale's map still lay open beside the book. I set the two side by side, aligned their edges, and leaned over them.
The air caught in my chest.
One was a general map, recent, showing the Black Forest and the surrounding territories, drawn with the austere precision of someone who had charted the land on foot. The other was the illustration inside the tale, traced in darker, older ink, its borders lightly ornamented in the style of the scribes of Jotundrim.
They were the same map.
Not similar. The
same
.
The bend of the river to the north. The recession of the tree line in the east. The rise of the central terrain, that gentle swell modern maps called a plain but which had clearly been a different kind of land, centuries ago. Every detail matched. Every line answered the other like a perfect visual echo.
With a single difference.
On the tale's map, in the far southwest, where the dense forest gave way to an open plateau, right at the threshold where the ancient woods touched the first shadows of what the records called the Demon Forest, there was a symbol. A small mark, encircled by a name written in archaic Jotundrim.
Ashenvord.
On the current map, at the same point, in the exact same position, as if someone had simply copied the location and swapped the label:
The Waiting Grounds.
"By Velmior's beard…" The words left me as a breath, almost soundless.
I passed my fingers back and forth over the two names, comparing the scale, the proportions, the distance between that point and the natural landmarks around it. The forest, the river, the relief: everything confirmed it. There was no room for misinterpretation. There was no way to blame a coincidence of scale or some cartographic imprecision.
'It really is the same place.'
I straightened, trying to breathe calmly.
"Okay… old maps… someone could have used the tale's illustrations as a geographic reference… it's not impossible… Or the tale itself is based on some ancient map…"
But that wasn't it. Or at least, not only that…
I leaned in again, this time studying the smaller details, the ones that leap out only when you stop seeing the whole and start seeing the parts. There was more. There was much more.
The markings the tale's map showed as towers, seven of them, arranged in a specific pattern around the central core of Ashenvord, corresponded, with a precision that turned my stomach cold, to the seven structures the current records of the Waiting Fields described as "ruins of uncertain origin, possibly decorative."
The orientation was identical. The proportional spacing, identical. Even the tower the tale marked as partially destroyed matched the one the modern records cataloged as "compromised structure, restricted access."
And then there was the central corridor.
In the tale, it ran from north to south, cutting through the heart of Ashenvord and ending in a chamber the text called only the Hall of Oaths. In the Waiting Fields, there was a corridor exactly like that. I had walked through it myself on the first day, thinking nothing, recognizing nothing.
Until now.
That was when I felt it.
I didn't hear it, didn't see it. I
felt
it.
A pain.
Small at first. A tightness on the left side of my chest, like a muscle contracting for no reason. I ignored it. But it didn't ignore me back. It climbed, slow and deliberate, up the left side of my neck, as though something were coiling around inside my flesh. It wasn't a cramp. It wasn't tension.
It was hot.
Like embers covered by skin far too thin.
My hand went to my neck on instinct, fingers pressing the burning spot, and the pain didn't vanish. It only settled in, pulsing in time with my heartbeat as if it had always been there and I had simply never paid attention.
I forced my focus back to the maps.
The mausoleum.
I had expected to find it marked somewhere on the interior map: a chamber, a wing, anything. But there was nothing. I searched every line, every symbol, every possible legend. The tale mentioned it, the text mourned it, but the fortress map recorded it nowhere.
Because there was nowhere to record it.
Galdrick's words came back slowly, like smoke seeping under a closed door.
"The mausoleum was never lost… it has always been here. On the threshold between the Black Forest and the Demon Forest."
It wasn't a building. It never had been. It didn't exist on this plane to begin with, and so no map could contain it, no wall could enclose it, no ruin could mark it.
It was somewhere between the layers of what existed, waiting, exactly as the name of the place suggested.
The pain in my neck tightened a little more.
I took a step back from the table, trying to ignor
"This… can only be Sylas making a joke…"
But the conviction died before I even finished the sentence,
The silence returned as abruptly as it had been broken.
I stood motionless for a moment, my eyes still on the maps, my fingers resting on the paper as if they needed the physical contact to anchor my thoughts.
'If this is real…'
I gathered the maps slowly, aligning their edges with excessive care, the kind of gesture the body performs on its own when the mind is too busy to supervise the hands.
'If the Waiting Fields exist on top of Ashenvord, if that fortress is still breathing down there, beneath all of this, then this place must be riddled with passages. Ancient corridors. Routes no one has mapped because no one knew there was anything to map.'
It was the only explanation that made sense. The only one that fit without being forced.
Because there was something that had bothered me since the first day, something I had filed away
The old man I met on the first day.
One moment he was there, the next he wasn't, and none of the visible routes explained how fast he vanished.
I had put it down to his natural speed. After all, this was a fantasy world. But however well trained a person might be, that didn't explain how he could hide without anyone finding him.
But underground passages would explain it. Hidden entrances behind bookshelves, panels that gave way at the right touch, stairs descending into corridors the tale's map showed with uncomfortable clarity.
'That would justify how he disappears,
I thought.
Though it doesn't explain the speed at which he walks when he's in plain sight. Nor that posture. Nor…'
The smile.
The image of it came without warning. Not his whole face, only the smile. That corner-to-corner smile. And the bright eyes, alive in the way they took in everything around them.
But dead in another way. Dead in a way that took time to notice, like a lit window that, only when you look closely, reveals that the light comes from candles and from nothing that breathes.
A shiver ran up my spine.
Quick. Involuntary.
I shook the thought off before it could go too far. That wasn't a mystery to be solved overnight, or one that even needed solving.
I turned my eyes back to the book open before me, spread across three tables set side by side.
Finally, the last story. "The Legend of the Lady of Mont Fallen," I murmured, as I prepared to turn the page.
The pages were wide, dense, heavy, demanding space and attention. It wasn't the kind of reading one did absentmindedly. My fingers still rested on one of the margins when,
CRAAACK—!
The sound tore through the silence like a blade through dry parchment.
My body jolted, turning toward the door, which flew open with unnecessary force and slammed against the wall,
BANG
, scattering the echo throughout the library.
Footsteps entered right after. More than one set. Light, but numerous, carrying a restless energy that didn't belong in that place.
"And to think it was true!" The voice came first, shrill, slightly piercing, with an enthusiasm that bordered on irritating.
I raised my eyes just enough to see the figure leaning in the doorway, as if stepping onto a stage. Her gaze swept the room until it stopped on me, or rather, on the open book spread across the tables.
A crooked smile appeared. "He really spent ten whole days in the library?"
Others appeared behind her, filling the space with murmurs that quickly took shape.
"Yes, nobody's seen him anywhere else."
"We went to his room. They said he'd moved out!"
"Library rat…"
"And he's the patriarch's son, too."
The voices spread among the shelves, breaking the silence like small cracks multiplying across intact glass.
Still, I didn't move. My eyes returned to the pages, even though I was no longer really absorbing their content.
I ran my fingers over the surface of the paper, firmly enough to keep my focus, lightly enough not to damage something that had clearly survived far longer than anyone there.
"Did he really spend a year and a half in the forest?"
"He must've hidden like a rat."
"Had to. Nobody survives out there without luck."
"Yeah… luck."
With every comment, they drew a little closer. Light, dragging steps, undisciplined, and yet invasive. The space around the table began to shrink, filled by presences that didn't know how, or didn't care, to respect the silence of the place.
'Why can't they just shut up…?
' I thought, turning another page,
fshhhh
, an automatic gesture, though somewhat painful because of the sensation in my neck. '
Don't they know this is a library?'
"Hey."
I ignored it. But the pain grew…
"Hello."
Nothing, but it surged again…
"Are you deaf?"
"Can't you hear?"
The voices gained weight, irritation, as if my lack of reaction were a provocation. One of the steps came harder this time, heavy enough to make the wooden floor vibrate slightly.
And then, without any warning, a hand shot out and grabbed the edge of the book.
The tug didn't tear it away completely, that would have been impossible given its size, but it violently shifted the open section, forcing the pages partly shut with a dry, aggressive sound. The impact ran across all three tables, echoing like a needless blow.
I raised my eyes slowly.
I don't know whether it was the dark circles under my eyes, the ceaseless pain on the left side of my neck that had been creeping down to my wrist, or the fact that a pack of idiots had no respect for the sacred place we were in, or perhaps a bit of all of it, but I could tell that.
The boy, looking at me, drew back a little, hesitant.
He was thin, with eyes too quick for his own good, and the kind of lopsided smile that exists only when there's an audience.
It didn't take him long to recompose himself, though.
"What the hell is in here that's more important than us?" he asked, the irritation plain in his voice.
I took a deep breath, keeping my rhythm steady. I straightened in the chair, letting the silence stretch between us one second longer than he expected.
"Didn't anyone teach you it's rude to make noise in a library?" My voice came out low, controlled, but sharp enough to cut through the murmuring around us.
A few exchanged glances. Not out of respect, but out of hesitation.
I stood calmly, resting one hand on the table to steady the pages.
"And besides… if you need attention that badly, maybe you should look for a mirror. Not a library."
I extended my hand, pointing toward a mirror on the corner wall.
"Just be careful not to break it… They say it brings seven years of bad luck…" I paused, but went on. "Though, with a face like yours, there's nothing you could do about that anyway, right?"
The boy hesitated, eyes narrowing as he weighed the situation. For a moment, he seemed to consider pressing on. Then he scoffed and dropped the book back onto the table with a dry thud.
"Just because you're the patriarch's son you think you're something…" he grumbled, crossing his arms.
I adjusted the pages carefully before answering, as if that took higher priority, and to me, it did.
"If I thought that, you wouldn't still be standing here." The reply fell simply, without raising my voice, but the effect was immediate.
He had no comeback ready, and it showed in the slight delay of his reaction.
"You think that's funny?" he pressed, irritated.
A short laugh escaped me, involuntary.
"No. I'm just surprised."
"Surprised at what?!"
"At the caliber."
This time, the discomfort was more evident. One of the taller ones approached from behind and put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly, testing.
"Are you going to apologize or not?"
I glanced at the hand, then turned my eyes forward. "No."
The answer came out clean, with no room for negotiation.
"Because of you we were stuck here for a year!" another burst out.
"That's what they told us!"
"We could only leave once everyone came back!"
The voices swelled again, but they no longer carried the same impact. Because, at that moment, something else caught my attention.
Movement.
Behind them.
Silent.
Fast.
"I would never belittle you…" I began, my voice lower now, almost distracted, as my eyes fixed on something beyond the group. "Nor lie… nor put anyone at risk without reason…"
"What are you talking about—?" the leader began.
"…nor would I let my friend treat you as food."
The silence that followed was immediate, but not from understanding. From confusion.
"What?"
I tilted my chin slightly. "That one there."
They turned almost in unison.
Atop a bookshelf, motionless, the cub was watching. Its light gray fur caught the light in an almost metallic way, and its golden eyes stayed fixed, alert, far too calculating for something so young.
It didn't growl, didn't make a sound, but there was a presence there, a subtle pressure in the air that needed no noise to be felt.
Then it bared its teeth.
Slowly.
Unhurried.
Without warning.
Two of them recoiled at once.
"I-is it yours?" someone asked, almost in a whisper.
"Axel," I called, casually. "Don't bite anyone. We can't let their blood stain the books…"
"What kind of beast is that…?" murmured the boy in front of me, clearly less confident now.
"A cub," I replied. "But he's hungry. And he doesn't have much patience for noise."
That was enough.
"I think we've said what we came to say," the leader hurried to add, trying to regain control.
"Good," I answered, finally looking straight at him. "So have I."
I ran my hand over the book's cover, like someone closing a matter.
"Now… silence."
There was no argument. They began to back away, one by one, muttering something under their breath, but without their earlier confidence. This time the door closed far more carefully,
clack
, as if they had finally remembered where they were.
The silence returned gradually, filling the space they had left behind.
Axel came over and lay down beside the tables, resting his muzzle on his paws.
I stroked his head, feeling the warmth of his fur.
"Good work."
I opened the book again, spreading its pages once more across the three tables.
And this time, no one interrupted.
The peace returned, not fragile as before, but firm. Not found…
earned
.