The Margins breathed cold.
It was not air, not truly. More like the Archive exhaling words that had not yet learned how to be spoken. The walls rose high and smooth, carved with outlines of books whose spines bore no titles. Only faint grooves, as if letters were about to be pressed but never were.
The young man's breath came shallow. Shared Breath pulled each inhale thinner, feeding two lungs instead of one. His chest ached. The girl slumped against the wall, her book flickering ember-red against her ribs. Alive, but dim.
He pressed his palm to the Chronicle. His shield [Ash-Stone] was gone, traded away for the door. His hands still trembled.
The Archivist drew shapes across the cold floor with her quill, sigils that glowed and faded. "You are weaker," she said without looking up.
"She's alive," he shot back.
The Archivist's gaze lifted. Ink-black, patient. "For now. But weakness here is contagious. You write for her again, you will write yourself into her ashes."
The girl stirred. Her voice was dry as dust: "Not… ashes." She blinked, slow and heavy, fixing her pale eyes on him. "Name?"
He hesitated. "I don't have one."
Her cracked lips twitched. "Then I'll call you…" She faltered, breath catching. "…Ink."
A strange warmth passed through him, absurdly fragile. Ink. Not a true name, but a word. A thread.
The Archivist stood, skirts whispering. "Idle names weigh less. Keep them that way."
He ignored her. "And you?" he asked the girl.
Her hand brushed her charred book. The name had been burned off. Only fragments flickered like stars before vanishing again. She shook her head. "Don't… remember."
He swallowed. He understood that emptiness too well.
The walls stirred. Whispers slithered out from the carved grooves. He leaned closer, and for a moment, almost saw words: promises never spoken, victories never claimed, fates unborn.
The girl whimpered and pressed her book to her chest. "They're… loud."
The Archivist's voice sharpened. "Do not answer them."
"Answer?"
"They are unborn. They crave inscription. If you speak to them, they will follow you like dogs, begging for ink. Enough of them, and your page will drown."
The whispers thickened, like fingers brushing the back of his skull. He clutched the Chronicle tighter. Unwritten can open what is shut. The Archivist's words echoed. Was this what she meant? These unborn destinies—locked, sealed, yet waiting?
A sound cut through the whispers.
Not whisper. Not sigh. Clatter. A chain dragged across stone.
The Archivist stiffened. "It followed."
The air behind them tore like paper. A seam split the wall, and black fire licked the edges. The Librarian stepped through, mask unmarked, quills dripping sparks. Its chained tome burned with stolen voices, each line screaming faintly in different tongues.
But it did not come alone.
Ashlings poured from the tear—half a dozen at first, then more. Some twisted, their bodies wrapped in fragments of books, claws sharpened by stolen words. One bore a page nailed across its chest that glowed with lightning. Another dragged a spine along the floor like a blade.
The girl gasped, shrinking against the wall. Her book flared weakly.
Ink's hand clenched around the quill. He flipped the Chronicle open. Heat pulsed out, already climbing.
The Archivist's voice was iron. "Write, but write once. Page Burn stalks you already."
The Librarian raised both quills. The chained tome at its chest yawned, vomiting black cinders that swarmed like hornets. Ashlings shrieked and lunged.
Ink wrote without thinking:My stride bends walls into cover, but it leaves me breathless when the cover breaks.
Heat roared. The floor shuddered. Stone groaned—and the nearest wall flexed, jutting outward like a shield of ribs. Ashlings slammed against it, sparks flying.
New Trait: [Wallstride] – Step warps surroundings into makeshift cover. Cost: breath consumed when cover breaks.
His lungs seized as the wall cracked under claws. He gasped, barely standing.
The girl cried out as an Ashling reached over the shield. Its claws scraped her book—letters bleeding away.
"No!" He slashed with his quill. Light poured, shaping into [Ashblade]. His arm burned with strength not his own. He cut the creature's arm off in a spray of cinders.
The tether to the girl tugged harder. Shared Breath pulled her inhale into him, doubling the burn in his chest. He staggered.
The Archivist moved finally. Her quill carved a circle midair, words spinning into a sigil. Pages around the chamber froze, then ignited, whirling into a barrier that repelled the swarm. "Move, Ink!" she barked.
He grabbed the girl. The Chronicle seared against his ribs, begging for release, begging for more words. He almost scrawled another—but the Archivist's warning pounded in him: Write once.
The wall shattered. Breath tore out of him as if ripped by claws. He stumbled into the corridor, dragging the girl. Behind, the Librarian's mask tilted, quills scratching in the air. Lines appeared on the walls where it wrote, commanding the Archive to erase escape routes.
The corridor collapsed behind them.
"Deeper!" the Archivist hissed. Her ink-dark eyes gleamed with something that might've been fear. "Into the sealed wing. Now!"
They fled, shadows clawing at their heels, the Margins whispering louder with every step.
And for the first time, Ink wondered if even the Archive itself wanted him gone.