Elara stood before the red door, the quill-shaped key shaking in her hand.
The wind in the forest had stopped.
She could feel it in her bones- this was no longer just a memory. This was a trial.
A voice whispered from the key.
"Names are more than letters.Speak them wrong… and they vanish for good."
Elara pressed the key into the lock.The door opened with a slow, heavy creak.
Inside was a small stone room.
Two chairs. Two blank books.
One glowed with soft blue light.The other, red.
Above them, floating words appeared:
"One must be saved.One must be remembered.One must be spoken into truth."
Elara's heart dropped.
"I can't lose one of them," she whispered.
But the room gave no answers.
She sat before the books.
The blue one showed Maris's memories.
The red one, only darkness and a spiral slowly forming.
That spiral pulsed every time she thought of Cassian's brother.
Still unnamed. Still erased.
Her hand hovered over the red book.
Suddenly, words formed:
"His name was…"
A blank space.
Elara closed her eyes.
She pictured Cassian's face when he talked about his brother. The sadness. The guilt.
I don't know your name, she thought. But I won't let you disappear.
She reached for the quill.
Elsewhere…
Cassian was running.
He had followed the cracks in the stone, the sound of the wind, the strange glowing marks Elara always seemed to leave behind.
"Come on," he whispered to himself. "You have to be close."
His spiral burned again- just like when he first found the book.
The stone wall ahead shimmered.
Then opened.
He stepped through into the memory forest- only for it to vanish the second he entered.
Now he stood in a dark hallway, mirrors stretching endlessly.
They showed him things he didn't want to see.
Himself, younger, shouting at his brother.His brother holding the Grimoire.His brother walking into the spiral… alone.
Cassian fell to his knees.
"I should have stopped you…"
Behind him, a soft voice whispered:
"He waited. Even when you didn't come."
Cassian looked up, tears in his eyes.
"I'm here now."
The mirror cracked and the hallway vanished.
Back in the stone room…
Elara's hand shook.
She had written one name already.
Maris Aven.The book glowed blue. Safe.
Now came the second.
"To remember the forgotten, you must speak their truth."
She didn't have his name.
But she had his pain.His memory.His story.
So she wrote:
"Cassian's Brother. The boy who tried to protect the book. The one who was erased."
The red book trembled.
Then, it accepted the words to her surprise.
A spiral formed beside his title.
He was not fully saved… but not lost.
Elara sat back, exhausted. Then, a thought crossed her mind. "What if she went too far and got trapped in the grimoire like the others". She sighed and stood up. "I'd rather loose myself searching than to sit back and do nothing and regret for the rest of my life". She whispered.
Suddenly, the books closed, catching her by surprise.
The room faded.
Suddenly, she was falling again, slowly this time.
Like a feather.
She landed on soft moss in a wide, quiet clearing.
Cassian was already there- waiting, hands dirty, shirt torn, spiral glowing faintly on his neck.
Their eyes met.
"Elara," he said, standing quickly.
She ran to him.
He caught her in his arms, holding her tight. She didn't hold back the tears.
"I thought I'd never find you," he said, voice cracking. "I thought I lost you… like my brother."
"I'm here," she whispered and pulled away. "And I didn't give up on them."
He pulled her back gently and looked into her eyes.
"I never gave up on you."
Behind them, the trees shook.
A dark figure appeared- cloaked in shadow, with no face.
Its body rippled with spirals and pages.
And then, it spoke:
"You remember too much now.""But will you remember who I am?"
The Grimoire had taken form.
The final truth was coming.