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Lord of the Secrets
Chapter 1 – The Day the Key Turned
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Rain.
It had been falling for three days without pause, soaking the crooked streets of Duskvale. Each drop rattled against the hospital window like impatient fingertips tapping on glass.
Valerian Goldenlux sat on the bed, hands limp at his sides, staring at the IV drip feeding into his arm. His hair — pitch-black and damp from the earlier storm — clung to his forehead.
He didn't remember how he got here.
The nurse said he'd been brought in after a traffic accident. But when he asked who had saved him… she only smiled, pressed her index finger to her lips, and whispered:
"Shhh."
That was it. No explanation. No details. Just that one silencing gesture.
It made no sense.
Valerian wasn't the type to pry — not anymore. Not since his mother's death. Not since the classmates' jeers had hollowed him out. Dumb. Useless. Waste of space.
He'd stopped reacting. Stopped feeling.
But now… there was something in that smile. Something wrong.
The lights flickered.
A low, wet sound echoed from the hallway. Not footsteps. Not wheels on tile. More like… claws dragging across bone.
Valerian's gaze drifted to the door just as it creaked open.
And there it was.
Nine feet tall, skin like stretched shadows, two heads — one human, one beast — twisting on a single neck. A tail curled behind it, lined with something that looked like shattered glass. And in its hand…
A key.
Not a rusty iron thing, but a shimmering length of gold and black, its teeth carved in impossible shapes.
Valerian's mouth went dry. His heart pounded, every instinct screaming run.
The creature's human head spoke first, its voice deep and unhurried:
"Unlock your true self, Lord of the Secrets. Exchange truth for sorrow. Knowledge for pain."
The beast head followed, its words a guttural snarl:
"Or keep your empty life and remain forgotten."
It stepped forward. No — reality bent forward, the world folding to make room for its presence.
The key was offered to him.
Valerian wanted to refuse. His body shook. But his fingers closed around the cold metal on their own.
Unlock your true self.
The words dug into his mind like hooks.
Slowly, almost against his will, Valerian lifted the key toward the air in front of him — and turned it.
Click.
Sound stopped. Light stopped. Breath stopped.
Something ancient woke in the silence, and a thousand locked doors swung open all at once — in his mind, in the world, in the bones of the universe itself.
The last thing he heard before everything shattered was the nurse's voice, far away but impossibly clear:
"Welcome, Lord of Secrets."
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Lord of the Secrets
Chapter 2 – Threads That Shouldn't Be Seen
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When Valerian opened his eyes, the world was… wrong.
The hospital room was still there — bed, IV drip, rain-tapped window — but it was drowned in threads.
They hung from the ceiling, the floor, the walls, from every object and every living thing.
Thin, gleaming filaments of color: some white as moonlight, others dark as spilled ink, others so vibrant they seemed to hum in his skull.
The strangest part? Each thread had whispers.
Some were muffled, like words behind glass.
Some were so loud they dug into his brain.
"He's not really my son…"
"…I stole it and buried it behind the church…"
"…if they find out, they'll kill me…"
He clutched his head. The voices weren't coming from people talking — they were secrets.
Truths, lies, memories… all leaking into his mind as if the threads were veins pumping raw knowledge into him.
The nurse walked in. But she wasn't the same nurse.
Her face was calm, polite. But wrapped around her neck was a thick rope of crimson threads, and in the center, a knot shaped like a screaming mouth.
He blinked, and words appeared above her head, burning like gold fire:
[Name Erased: Identity Locked by Level 3 Seal]
"What… what is this?" Valerian's voice trembled.
The nurse tilted her head. "You see them. Good."
Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "Don't pull on the wrong thread. You might not like what unravels."
He backed away, his foot brushing one of the dark threads that snaked across the floor. The instant his shoe touched it, his mind was dragged elsewhere —
— a graveyard at night.
Rain falling on a single unmarked grave.
A child's voice, crying: "Please… don't tell…"
The vision snapped, and he staggered back, nearly tearing the IV from his arm.
"You've been given the Key of Aeons," the nurse said softly, as if discussing the weather.
"It opens more than doors. It opens the marrow of the world."
Valerian's throat was dry. "Why me?"
"Because only the broken can carry the unbearable."
Her words sank into him like ice.
Before he could speak, the light outside the window bent — not dimmed, bent — and the two-headed beast appeared again, its form flickering like bad film.
"Your first secret to claim," it rumbled, tossing him a black envelope sealed in wax.
The wax bore a symbol: a single eye, weeping blood.
Valerian caught it, feeling the paper twitch under his fingers like something alive.
The nurse whispered in his ear: "Open it… or burn it. Either way, the cost will find you."
And for the first time, Valerian felt it — the weight of the key in his pocket, pulling at him, as though eager for its first turn.
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Lord of the Secrets
Chapter 3 – The First Lock
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The black envelope twitched again in Valerian's hand.
It felt heavier than paper should — not in weight, but in consequence.
He broke the seal.
A sharp sting ran through his fingertips, like the wax had bitten him.
A drop of blood fell onto the parchment inside, and the ink began to move.
Words carved themselves into the page in a jagged script:
> TARGET: Elias Vorn, Deputy Minister of City Security.
SECRET: The place where the Ashveil Children are buried.
REWARD: Access to the First Lock.
CONDITION: None may know you took it.
The moment he read it, something shifted in the room.
The threads came back — thousands of them — but one thread in particular burned red-gold, stretching out of the envelope and disappearing through the wall.
The Key of Aeons in his pocket trembled, urging him to follow.
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Night.
Valerian trailed the red-gold thread through the rain-slick streets, each step feeling less like walking and more like trespassing into somewhere reality hadn't meant for him to be.
The thread led to a polished office building, far too clean for the surrounding neighborhood. Security cameras swept the street like watchful eyes.
Valerian's hand brushed the Key.
The world tilted.
The locks on the front doors clicked open by themselves, and the glass shimmered briefly before allowing him through without a sound.
Inside, the thread wound its way up a staircase, through a hallway, and into an office where a man in a grey suit sat at a desk, sipping brandy.
Elias Vorn.
The thread attached to him wasn't just tied around his heart — it pierced through it, coiling deep into his mind.
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Valerian stepped forward, unsure how to begin.
Then, instinct took over.
He touched the thread.
The office vanished.
He stood in a dark forest, the smell of wet soil choking him.
Shallow graves stretched for miles — small, unmarked mounds of earth.
Tiny hands reached from the dirt.
Voices whispered: "…cold… hungry… alone…"
Valerian gasped, yanking his hand back. The vision snapped.
Elias Vorn was still in his chair, oblivious, sipping brandy.
But now Valerian knew. He knew where the forest was. He knew what was buried there. And the knowledge burned in his mind like molten lead.
The thread in his hands disintegrated into ash — the secret was his now, erased from its owner.
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A sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes.
Images flickered — his mother's smile, her voice calling his name… then gone.
He couldn't remember her face anymore.
The cost.
The Key pulsed in his pocket, satisfied.
From somewhere distant, the two-headed beast's voice rumbled:
"The First Lock is open, Lord of the Secrets. Many remain."
Valerian staggered out of the office, the weight of the stolen truth and his missing memory crushing him in equal measure.
And for the first time, he wondered — when he was done unlocking the world's lies… would there be anything left of him?
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