Kael opened his eyes. His body didn't feel like his own. There was no pain. No cold. Just a strange, quiet warmth in his veins. He looked down. His chest had a faint symbol glowing like a brand. Crimson thread patterns traced across his shoulders like ancient tattoos.
"The Echo Flame…" he whispered.
"It's real."
He stood slowly. The Archive was still,as if even time had paused to let him breathe. But deep inside him, he felt it
Three voices… and one silence. Rilan. Noen. Auri. And Kaien. Not speaking…but waiting.
Suddenly, the girl appeared again her steps slower than before. Her eyes scanned Kael's glowing threads.
"You did something no one in the Archive has ever done."
"You didn't just preserve pain you became part of it."
Kael turned to her.
"Is that wrong?"
She shook her head.
"No.But it means you're no longer just a Threadkeeper."
"You're becoming something... older."
"Something the Archive forgot it once feared."
Kael frowned.
"What do you mean?"
She stepped aside. Behind her, the walls of the Archive shifted revealing a hallway Kael had never seen.
At its end:A floating, black book. Locked. Bleeding golden ink.
"That's your next path."
"But it won't open unless you make a choice."
Kael stepped closer. The hallway trembled. His threads pulsed in warning. Like they knew… this wasn't just another door. It was a test.
"What choice?" he asked.
The girl's voice dropped.
"You either carry the stories of the lost…"
"Or you write your own from now on."
Kael paused. The weight of both options crashed over him.
One path: Stay the carrier. Bear their voices.
Other path: Create his own legend,
but risk forgetting them.
He looked at his hand. It glowed with crimson-gold light.
"If I choose wrong…"
"You don't fail," she said.
"You just change."
Kael looked at the book again. He took a breath. Then stepped forward. Kael took a step toward the floating black book. His threads pulsed again this time not warning him, but… reaching toward it. The book hovered silently. Golden ink dripped from its sides, forming symbols mid-air, but they vanished before Kael could read them. He looked back at the girl.
"If I choose to write my own story…
do I lose the ones I've preserved?"
The girl's gaze softened.
"Not lose… but leave behind."
"They become memories.
Not voices."
Kael's hand hovered over the lock. The book felt cold. But not lifeless. Like it was listening.
"Why me?" he whispered.
"Why do I get to choose?"
The Archive trembled slightly,as if it too was asking that question.
Suddenly, a voice echoed from inside the book. Not loud. Not human. But… his.
"Because you were never meant to be the carrier, Kael."
"You were meant to be the spark."
Kael's eyes widened.
"Who said that?"
The girl whispered:
"The original Archivist."
"The one before time was ink."
Kael's heart raced. The book now glowed red and gold intertwined like fire and memory. Its lock cracked once.
Twice.Then stopped. A single line burned across its surface:
"To open, give up your silence."
Kael stared.
"What does that mean?"
Then he felt it. Deep inside him, beneath the preserved echoes,beneath the rage and guilt,beneath the flame…was a silence. A wound he never spoke of. A moment he erased so deeply even the Archive hadn't found it.
A scream buried in a grave. A promise he made to a dying woman. A name… he swore never to say aloud again.
His lips trembled.
"I can't say it…"
Auri's voice echoed faintly from inside him:
"Then whisper it. Just once. And we'll hear you."
Kael closed his eyes. He whispered. A name. One word. Torn from his throat like a scar unraveling. And the lock shattered.
The book flew open. Pages spun around him. Each one blank except for the last. There… was a single sentence. Written in red:
"The thread that rewrites the end… must first unravel the beginning."
Kael stepped back. The girl looked pale.
"Do you know what that means?" he asked.
She shook her head slowly.
"It means… you're not just walking the Archive anymore."
"You're going to rewrite the history of souls."
The red sentence shimmered on the last page:
"The thread that rewrites the end… must first unravel the beginning."
Kael stood frozen. Not out of fear. But realization. This wasn't just a mission.
It was a warning.
"If I pull this thread… I might unweave everything."
The girl's voice came quietly.
"Including yourself."
Suddenly, the Archive around him began to flicker. Walls shifted. Staircases turned into rivers of ink. Memories thousands of them swirled through the air like ash. And in the center of it all,Kael floated surrounded by his echoes.
Rilan.
Noen.
Auri.
Kaien.
Their forms weren't fading. They were becoming realer.
Auri looked into Kael's eyes.
"You're not just walking our pain anymore."
"You're becoming our voice."
Kael's fists clenched.
"Then scream with me."
He lifted the open book now glowing like a second heart in his hands and from it, a voice emerged.
Not his. Not theirs. But the Flame.
"Do you remember why the first soul died?"
Kael flinched.
"What…?"
The Archive cracked. From the ground below, a pillar of flame burst through. Not heat. Not fire. Memories screaming, bleeding, forgotten. A mountain of erased names. A storm of people whose last thoughts were never heard. And from inside it…A figure rose.
Cloaked in charred thread. Face hidden behind a cracked mask. But his voice was the same voice that spoke through the book earlier.
"I am the First Forgotten."
"And you… are the first to remember me."
Kael took a step forward.
"Who are you really?"
The figure turned. His shadow was made of thousands of reaching hands all pulling, grabbing, screaming.
"I was the first story the Archive refused to write."
"Now... I write back."
The flames surged. Kael's body burned with golden-red light. The three threads inside him twisted upward joining the book and it reshaped. The book transformed into a blade. Half blade, half scroll. A new weapon.
"Soulquill: The Blade That Writes Fates."
Kael pointed it toward the Forgotten One.
"Then write your pain."
"But I'll write the ending."
The figure smiled beneath the mask.
"Let's see if your ink runs deeper than mine."