They traveled at night.
Always at night.
Juno charted the blind spots between mana towers and patrol routes with the precision of someone who had once planned her own escape—but never followed through. Until now.
They used false glyphs. Suppressed their bond signature. Moved like ghosts beneath a sky of watching stars.
It wasn't far in distance.
But it was far in reality.
---
The further they went, the stranger the ground became.
No birds.
No wind.
The trees grew crooked—twisted toward an invisible point.
And every few miles, the air shimmered like cracked glass.
As if the world itself was remembering something it had sworn to forget.
They passed broken shrines with glyphs carved upside down.
Old sigil rings buried under roots—Academy-issued, but too rusted to be recent.
And always… the pulsing hum of something beneath them.
Juno spoke quietly on the third night:
"We're walking into something old."
Lyle nodded.
"Older than the Academy."
"Older than the Codex?"
He hesitated.
"Maybe not."
---
On the fourth day, the coordinates led them into a ravine—hidden by shifting stone.
And there, carved into the face of the canyon, was a doorway.
No handle.
No seam.
Just a perfect circle, etched with the same symbol from Lyle's book.
> A spiral, split in three.
He reached out—
And the Codex opened on its own.
Glyphs poured into the air like liquid thought.
And the door responded.
It sank, not opened—into the rock.
And what waited beyond was not a room.
It was a stairwell of stars.
---
Down they went.
Deeper than the cliffs should've allowed.
Lyle's steps felt weightless.
Juno's breath caught every few minutes, like the air changed every ten paces.
Neither of them spoke.
They didn't need to.
They knew:
> This wasn't a place meant for anyone.
And then, the stairwell ended.
In a circular hall lit by a single floating orb.
Beneath it, a figure sat cross-legged.
Clad in layered robes of shadowsteel.
No face visible.
Only a voice.
"Lyle Greenbottle," it said.
"You weren't supposed to find me yet."
Juno stepped forward.
"Who are you?"
The figure tilted its head.
"I am what remains of the Veiled Architect."
"You're dead," Lyle said.
"Not quite," it replied. "But not quite alive either. Like the Codex, I persist between choices."
The orb floated down to eye level.
And for the first time, Lyle felt it.
Not power.
Not magic.
But intention.
> Something wrote this into existence. Something human. Something broken.
The Architect reached toward him.
And a ripple passed through the Codex—pages flipping.
Revealing one hidden beneath all others.
Blank.
Except for a question:
> "Would you rewrite the story… if it meant losing yourself?"
---
Lyle stared at the question.
Then at Juno.
Then at the Architect.
And said:
"I don't want to rewrite anything."
"I want to finish what they started."