The path beneath our feet was no longer crystal but packed earth, dark and rich, threaded with roots that glowed faintly when we stepped near. The air grew cooler, tinged with a scent I couldn't name, something like ozone and old parchment and the moment before a storm breaks. Trees rose on either side, their bark etched with glyphs that didn't move when I looked directly at them but shifted in my peripheral vision, carrying on conversations I couldn't hear.

  Caelwyn walked ahead of me, her silver hair swaying with a rhythm independent of her steps. She moved like someone who had spent more time in libraries than on roads, careful, slightly hesitant, as if expecting the ground to sprout questions she hadn't prepared for.

  I found it endearing.

  "The Library of Atalinthus," she murmured, more to herself than to me, "was constructed approximately an aeon ago, during the height of the Titan civilization. The architectural style suggests influence from the eastern schools of geomancy, though the structural integrity…" She stumbled over a root, caught herself, and continued without pausing. "…suggests additional reinforcement from binding magics that have since fallen out of practice."

  "Are you okay?" I asked.

  The root was unexpected. “As I was saying, the binding magics would have required…”

  "I meant you. The stumble."

  She glanced back, her pale blue eyes flickering with embarrassment. "I am uninjured. Thank you for your concern." she said, A pause. "I am not accustomed to traveling. My work is primarily archival."

  "I noticed."

  She wasn't sure how to take that, so she simply turned forward and kept walking. I hid a smile.

  We walked in silence for a while, the path winding deeper into the ancient forest. The glyph-covered trees gave way to something stranger, formations of stone that looked like they had once been buildings, now worn by time into shapes that echoed purpose without revealing it. A curve that might have been an arch. A flat surface that could have been a floor. Roots wrapped around everything.

  "The Titans," Caelwyn said eventually, her voice softer now, less recitation and more reflection, "built to last. They thought in terms of millennia, not decades. Even their ruins feel... intentional. As if they're waiting for something."

  "What are they waiting for?"

  She considered this. "I don't know. Perhaps waiting for someone...."

  The words settled over me like a cloak. I thought of my village, the small wooden houses, the gardens that would be overgrown within a year if no one tended them. Mortals built to be replaced. Titans built to endure.

  We passed through a grove of trees whose leaves chimed softly in a wind I couldn't feel. Caelwyn's pace slowed, and I noticed her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, knuckles pale.

  "You're nervous," I said.

  She stiffened. "I am... exercising appropriate caution."

  "Same thing."

  A long pause. Then, quietly: "Perhaps."

  I let the silence stretch, giving her space. After a few minutes, she spoke again.

  "The Library of Atalinthus is mentioned in only three surviving texts from the Titan era. Three. In a civilization that documented everything, every spell, every treaty, every family lineage, this place appears exactly three times." She glanced back at me, and for the first time, I saw something other than scholarly precision in her expression. Something that looked almost like fear. "The first mention describes its construction. The second describes its purpose: a repository of magical knowledge so complete that any question could be answered within its walls. The third... the third simply says it was sealed. No explanation. No reason. Just... sealed."

  I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the air. "And no one's been inside since?"

  "No one. The location was lost for millennia. The Fairy King found it again only recently, through means he has not chosen to share." She paused. "Before the previous creator, the fairy king sent many mages and warriors, but all of them failed. Many failed, and those that returned never received the grimoire; some even lost their minds."

  The words hung between us, heavy and cold.

  "And you're just telling me this now?"

  "You did not ask."

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  I couldn't argue with that. I also couldn't help the small, unexpected laugh that escaped me. Caelwyn looked back, puzzled.

  "Sorry," I said. "It's just, you're very literal, aren't you?"

  "I am... precise. It is a requirement of my position."

  "I know. I'm not making fun." And I wasn't. There was something almost comforting about her precision, her need to categorize and explain. In a world of impossible magic and cosmic wars, Caelwyn operated on rules. Facts. Known quantities. I understood the appeal.

  We walked on. The ruins grew denser, the stone formations taller and more intact. I caught glimpses of what might have been statues, worn beyond recognition, their features erased by millennia of wind and rain. A face with no eyes. A hand raised in greeting or warning, fingers broken off.

  "Atalinthus," Caelwyn said suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to her, "is not just a place. It was also a person. The first demigod, son of Eninshigal and Cassonia. He who created the Festival of Magic."

  "I remember. The Fairy King told me some of it."

  "Did he tell you that Atalinthus vanished?"

  I stopped walking. "Vanished?"

  Caelwyn stopped too, turning to face me fully. In the dim, shifting light of the forest, her pale eyes seemed almost luminous. "After the Festival was established, after he had taught generations of Titans and fathered children of his own, Atalinthus simply... ceased to appear in any record. No death announced. No succession noted. No tomb constructed. He walked into his Library one day and was never seen again."

  The silence that followed was absolute. Even the chime-leaves had gone still.

  "Some say he's still there," Caelwyn whispered. "Waiting. Guarding something. Or being guarded from."

  I thought of the grimoire waiting for me. Of the seals no one could break. Of the other mages who hadn't returned.

  "What do you think?" I asked.

  Caelwyn was quiet for a long moment. Then she straightened, adjusted her robes with a precise motion, and said: "I think that seven thousand years is a very long time for anyone to wait. I think the Fairy King believes you are meant to find answers there. And I think…" She hesitated. "I think my opinions are less important than my duties. I am to guide you. I am guiding you."

  It wasn't an answer, not really. But it was all she would give.

  We walked on in silence, the ruins growing thicker around us, the path leading steadily downward into the earth. And somewhere ahead, hidden and waiting, the Library of Atalinthus held its secrets.

  I touched the river stone at my chest and kept walking. The forest opened without warning.

  One moment we were walking through dense, root-choked woodland, the trees pressing close on either side. The next, the ground fell away and the ruins spread before us like a body half-buried in its own grave.

  I stopped. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

  This was nothing like I had imagined.

  In my mind, the Library of Atalinthus had taken shape as something grand, a towering structure of polished stone, perhaps, or one of those impossible crystalline formations like the Spire. A place of power, of majesty, of secrets waiting to be unveiled.

  What lay before me was none of those things.

  The building, if it could still be called that, was half swallowed by the earth. Its upper levels had long since crumbled, leaving only jagged stumps of walls reaching toward the sky like the fingers of a drowned thing. Massive roots, each as thick as my body, wound through every crack and crevice, pulling stones apart with the slow, patient strength of millennia. The entrance, what I assumed was the entrance, was a dark maw half-blocked by fallen masonry and the skeletal remains of what might have been trees, or statues, or both.

  It did not look like a place of power.

  It looked like a place that had been forgotten on purpose.

  "This..." Caelwyn's voice came out thinner than before, stripped of its scholarly precision. "This is not what the texts described."

  "Texts are old," I heard myself say. "Things change."

  "In seven thousand years, yes. But this…" She gestured, her hand trembling slightly. "This is not decay. This is erasure. The Library was built to last. It should not look like this."

  I didn't have an answer for her. I barely had words at all.

  The silence pressed in around us, heavy and watchful. I realized suddenly that the chime-leaves had fallen quiet, that the ambient hum of the fairy realm had faded to nothing. Even the air felt still, as if the ruins were holding their breath.

  Waiting.

  Caelwyn straightened her robes with a motion that was almost violent, as if she could physically compose herself back into confidence. "We should approach carefully. The structural integrity is…"

  "Uncertain. I know." I took a step forward. Then another. The ground underfoot changed from packed earth to something harder, stone, worn smooth by ages of wind and rain, etched with patterns I couldn't quite make out. "Stay close."

  "I am the guide," she murmured, but she fell into step beside me without argument.

  We moved toward the entrance, picking our way through rubble and root. The closer we got, the more I noticed details I had missed from a distance. Carvings on the fallen stones, worn to near-invisibility but still present—curving lines that might have been words, shapes that might have been faces. A fragment of what looked like an arch, its peak adorned with a symbol I almost recognized. The wheel, maybe. Or something older.

  The entrance loomed before us, dark and silent. Up close, I could see that the blockage wasn't as complete as I'd thought, there was a gap, narrow but passable, between a fallen pillar and the twisted roots that had grown around it. Beyond that gap, only darkness.

  I stopped at the threshold. Or what passed for one.

  Caelwyn hovered at my shoulder, her pale eyes fixed on the dark opening. "The texts mention protective wards. Ancient magics designed to keep out the unworthy. If they still function…"

  "Then we'll find out." I touched the river stone at my chest, felt its solid warmth against my skin. "You don't have to come in. You could wait here, keep watch."

  Something flickered across her face, fear, yes, but also something else. Something that looked almost like offended pride. "I was sent to guide you. I will guide you."

  "Even if it's dangerous?"

  "Especially if it's dangerous. That is when guidance is most needed."

  I almost smiled. Almost. "Okay. Stay behind me. If something feels wrong, tell me immediately."

  "And if something is wrong?"

  "Then we deal with it."

  I took a breath. The air tasted old—dust and stone and something else, something I couldn't name. The scent of a place that had been closed for longer than human civilization had existed.

  I rested my hand against the stone at my chest and looked into the dark.

  And stepped forward.