The
Library – Midnight, The Next Night
Lucille slips from her bed
like a ghost, blankets barely stirring. Her roommates breathe slow
and deep, mouths parted in sleep, unaware. Lucille is already
dressed, boots in hand, jacket pulled on, scarf around her neck. She
waits, counting heartbeats, listening for the scrape of a patrolling
step or the click of a door.
Nothing.
She pulls on her boots,
slow, careful, then eases the door open and slides into the hall.
The Academy at night feels
different. Hollow. Vast. The stone holds the day’s cold and gives
none of it back. Lanterns burn low, their light stretched thin along
corridors that feel longer after curfew, as if the building itself
resents being awake.
This time she isn’t
wandering.
She knows where she’s
going.
Down the stairs, through
the arcades, across the open stretch between buildings where snow
crunches softly under her boots. She keeps to the shadows, breath
steady, shoulders tight. Her senses are sharp, tuned outward,
listening for the scrape of armor or the jingle of keys.
The door to the next
building yields with a soft groan. She slips inside and presses
herself flat against the wall just as voices drift down the corridor.
Praetorians.
Two of them. Heavy steps.
Idle conversation. The sound of metal shifting with each stride.
Lucille holds her breath, heart pounding, until they pass and the
sound fades into stone and distance.
She moves.
Quick, quiet, down the
hall, past closed classroom doors and darkened windows. The Library
doors loom ahead, tall and carved, their seams glowing faintly with
lantern-light from within.
She slips inside.
The Library breathes around
her, old paper, leather, dust, oil from lantern wicks. Shelves tower
up into shadow, three stories high, ladders resting idle like
skeletal sentinels. Most of the lights are extinguished, leaving only
the main aisles lit, long amber lanes through darkness.
At the central desk sits
the Librarian.
An older woman, hair pinned
tight, spectacles low on her nose. She murmurs to herself as she
sorts through a stack of returned books, fingers moving with
practiced care. The sound of pages turning echoes louder than it
should.
Lucille keeps low, moving
shelf to shelf, letting the darkness swallow her small shape. Her
heart pounds in her ears. Every step feels too loud, every breath a
risk.
She reaches the back of the
Library.
There, half-hidden between
shelves, stands the door.
Iron-banded. Old. Plain,
but wrong in a way she can’t quite name. This door is never used.
Never opened. She has passed it a hundred times without thinking
about it.
Her fingers close around
the handle.
She hesitates.
Then she pulls.
The door opens.
Lucille freezes, waiting
for an alarm, a shout, a sudden hand on her shoulder. Nothing comes.
The Librarian keeps working, oblivious.
The door is unlocked.
Her pulse spikes, equal
parts fear and disbelief. Someone forgot. Or someone didn’t.
She slips inside and eases
the door shut behind her.
Darkness swallows her
whole.
The
archive room is dark. There are no lights burning here, no
lantern hooks, no sconces, not even the ghost of illumination built
into the stone. It sits buried beneath the Library, reached by a
narrow spiral staircase that descends like a throat. The air is
colder here, heavier, carrying the dry, metallic scent of old paper
and iron.
Shelves line the walls from
floor to shoulder height, old wood darkened by age and oil. Shorter
shelves cut the room into aisles. Between them sit long tables
bearing relics not meant for reverence but for study, ancient blades
pitted with rust, shattered spearheads, fragments of armor etched
with names long forgotten. It is not a museum. It is a lesson
preserved in bone and steel.
At the far end waits
another door, narrower, reinforced, leading even deeper into the
archives. Somewhere below that door lies knowledge no cadet is meant
to touch.
Lucille pauses at the foot
of the stairs, heart thudding once, hard, then steadies herself.
She slips a small
flashlight from her pocket and clicks it on.
The beam is weak by design,
a narrow cone of pale light. She keeps it trained on the floor at
first, watching her steps, then lets it drift up in brief, cautious
passes along the spines of the books. Titles slide past in fragments,
treatises on siege doctrine, fractured histories of border wars,
analyses of failed campaigns scrubbed from public record.
She knows what she is
looking for. Not a name. Not a story.
A method.
Something the Vardengard’s
words had stirred without ever naming. Something instructors do not
teach because it is too old, too brutal, too honest. Something that
might close the distance between her and Cain Aurellius, not by
talent, but by understanding.
She moves deeper, aisle by
aisle, the flashlight blinking off and on as she checks each shelf.
The silence presses close. It is almost peaceful here, insulated from
the Academy above, from the rules and eyes and expectations.
Still, she listens. Every
breath is measured. Every step placed. Her shoulders stay tense,
ready for the sound of boots, for a voice calling her name. Nothing
comes.
There.
A book older than the rest.
Its spine is cracked, the lettering worn nearly smooth. The title is
half-lost, but a symbol remains pressed into the leather,
unmistakable even through age.
Lucille’s pulse quickens.
She slides the flashlight
to her teeth, frees both hands, and carefully eases the book from the
shelf.
Click.
A sharp, mechanical sound,
too clean to be stone settling, too deliberate to be wood shifting.
A clack follows.
A voice, somewhere beyond
the shelves, hisses a curse.
Another voice answers
immediately, low and urgent. “Quiet.”
Lucille freezes.
Her fingers tighten around
the book. She kills the flashlight instantly and drops into a crouch,
clutching the volume to her chest as darkness swallows her whole.
Lucille keeps herself low and moves through the aisle, every step
measured, every breath held tight in her chest. The book is pressed
flat against her ribs, as if she can will it silent. She peeks around
the edge of the shelf.
There by the far door, the
one that descends deeper still stand three men.
They are not instructors.
Not librarians. Not Praetorians.
They wear black from head
to toe, fabric matte and lightless, balaclavas pulled tight over
their faces. Harnesses cross their chests, heavy with tools, knives
seated for quick draw, compact firearms, prying instruments, satchels
already half-full. One of them holds a flashlight, its beam slicing
through the dark in sharp, controlled arcs.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
They argue in whispers,
harsh and clipped.
“You said it would be
here,” one hisses.
“It is here,”
another snaps back. “Just not where it belongs.”
“Lower voice,” the
third growls. “You want Praetorians down here? Yes?”
Lucille freezes.
Their voices stay low, but
the stone carries sound too well down here. Lucille presses herself
tighter to the shelf, heart hammering, and listens.
“I am telling you, it
should be here,” the first man hisses. His flashlight jerks, beam
sliding over spines and glass cases. “Vault index. Lower
archives. Eastern aisle.”
“Vault index is wrong,”
the second snaps back. “Or not complete. Not first time Order hides sensitive things deeper.”
A soft, irritated scoff
from the third. “We do not have time for deeper. Tiberius is in Academy. Dogs sniff all corners.”
“That is why we need it,” the first says. “Control relics are useless without sigils to awaken them.”
“I have sigils,” the second says, his hand pressing something under his coat. “Three command chains. Clean. Bind one Vardengard. Maybe two. If protocols match.”
“If,” the
third cuts in. “You always say if.”
A pause. Paper rustles.
Metal clicks softly.
“These are restraint protocols,” the first mutters. “Pre-Reformation. Old blood. Written before they lied. Called Vardengard saints. They are weapons.”
“That is what we need,” the second says. “Old rules. Brutal rules. Stopped teaching them. Dangerous to wrong hands.”
“And the failsafes?”
the third asks. “Hard stops. Kill words.”
Silence stretches, tight
and ugly.
“…Not here,” the
first finally admits. “Not where they belong.”
“Then someone moved them,” the second growls. “Or locked for reason.”
The third laughs. Quiet. Joyless. “Everything down here locked for reason.”
Another pause. Boots shift.
The flashlight beam steadies.
“We take what we have,” the first says. “Documents. Sigils. Anything fits coat.”
“And if it is not enough?” the second asks.
“Then we return,” the third says. “Or improvise.”
A knife scrapes softly
against a sheath.
“They leash monsters with these,” the second murmurs. “Imagine monster with wrong hands.”
Lucille's stomach twists.
“And if someone discovers us?” first asks.
Third answers without pause. “No witnesses.”
The
realization settles like ice in her veins. These are Praevectus, men
sworn to the Order, here to steal the very tools meant to preserve
it. Tools that could turn legends into liabilities. Gods into prey.
Lucille’s first instinct
is to run. Her second is panic.
She should leave. Now. She
has no authority, no weapon, no right to be here at all. If she is
caught, she will be punished at best, disappeared at worst. And yet
she stays, crouched behind the shelf, forcing herself to listen. She
memorizes voices. Counts them again. Watches where they place items
into their satchels.
One pulls a book free with
practiced hands, flips through it, swears softly. “Half of this is missing."
“Then we adapt.”
“We do not have time—”
Lucille shifts her weight,
careful, slow.
The floor betrays her. A
soft scrape. Stone against boot. The flashlight snaps toward her
aisle.
“Stop,” one of the men
says sharply.
Lucille’s heart slams
into her throat. She turns, already moving, trying to slip back the
way she came, keeping low, keeping silent….
The beam catches her
shoulder.
“There,” the man says.
“We have company."
Lucille’s heart drops
straight through her ribs and into her gut.
The scar on her left
forearm, Valroth Kyr’s mark, burns hot, sharp, alive. Not pain
exactly. A warning. A scream beneath the skin.
She freezes. Just for a
breath. Just long enough.
Then the men move.
“Get her.”
Lucille bolts.
She turns and runs for the
entrance, boots slapping stone, breath tearing out of her chest. The
shelves blur past, the archive narrowing into tunnels of shadow and
metal. She can see the door. She can almost reach it...A figure cuts
across her path.
The fastest one. He’s
already there, stepping into the aisle like he knew where she would
run, broad shoulders filling the space, blocking the way out. The
flashlight in his hand snaps up, white light flaring across her face.
Lucille skids to a halt and
twists away on instinct.
She dives down a side aisle
instead.
“Split!” someone barks.
Footsteps thunder behind
her. One to the left. One to the right.
She sprints, breath
burning, then vaults, hands slamming onto the edge of a display table
as she throws herself over it. Ancient metal clatters. Something
heavy crashes to the floor behind her. She doesn’t look back.
Another man lunges from the
next aisle.
She ducks under his arms,
feels cloth brush her hair, then stumbles forward and keeps going.
Her shoulder clips a shelf. A book falls. She hears it hit the floor
and hates the sound.
She vaults another table,
knees scraping stone on the landing.
Too slow. Too small.
She loops the room without
meaning to, panic steering her in a brutal circle. The entrance comes
back into view, just beyond a row of taller shelves. For a heartbeat,
hope flares!
A shadow steps out from
behind the shelf. The fast one. He hits her like a wall.
Lucille gasps as arms lock
around her chest and lift her clean off the ground. Her feet kick
uselessly in the air. She snarls, claws at his sleeves, twists with
everything she has and he slams her down onto the nearest table.
The impact rattles her
bones. Displays shatter. Metal and glass explode outward, clanging
and skittering across the floor. Something ancient breaks under her
spine.
Lucille growls and
thrashes, heels hammering, elbows driving back, teeth bared, but it’s
nothing. He’s too strong. His weight pins her down, forearm across
her shoulders, crushing the air from her lungs.
“By the Hells,” one of the others pants, bending over, hands on knees. “That is… child?”
“She almost made it,” another growls. “Fast little thing, very fast.”
The man holding her down does not move. He leans closer instead, voice calm, measured, terrifyingly controlled. “Easy,” he says. “You are done running.”
Lucille glares up at him, chest heaving, vision swimming. Scar on her arm still burns, dull, furious heat.
He studies her face, her uniform, the way she moves even now, coiled, still fighting. Grip tightens, forearm pressing across her collarbone hard enough to steal breath. “Who is your father?” he asks, flat, assessing. “General Tiberius?”
Lucille bares teeth, chest heaving.
Before she can answer, another scoffs. “Tiberius' daughter… she is too old for this place.”
The leader tilts his head, reconsidering. “Then what House?” His eyes flick over her face, stance. “Which banner do you belong to, girl?” The word hangs there, sour.
Lucille spits, breath sharp. “None of your business.”
One of the men shifts uneasily. “What are we doing with her?”
Leader does not hesitate. “If she is not nobility, she is waste of time.” His mouth curls. “Pretty face or not.”
The other two stiffen.
“No,” one says immediately. “That was not—”
“She is child,” the other snaps. “We did not sign up for this.”
The leader turns on them, eyes cold. “You sign up for plan. For what comes after. And this,” he gestures down at Lucille, still pinned, “means nothing in long run.”
Voices overlap, low and heated. Tension fractures the air.
Lucille moves.
Her hand slides to the
small of her back. Fingers close around the familiar hilt. One sharp
pull and steel sings. She drives the blade up and in.
The leader roars as the
knife bites into his arm, muscle tearing, blood splattering hot
across the table. His grip breaks just enough.
Lucille wrenches free,
rolling, kicking, scrambling across the slick surface as artifacts
crash and shatter around her. Ancient metal hits stone. Glass bursts.
Something heavy clatters to the floor and keeps rolling.
The room explodes into
motion.
“Kill her!” the leader
snarls, clutching his arm, fury eclipsing pain.
The others hesitate, only a
heartbeat, but it’s enough.
Lucille doesn’t fight to
win. She fights to live.
She slashes blind, the
knife carving air and flesh, drawing blood where she can. A fist
catches her ribs. Another clips her jaw. Pain detonates white behind
her eyes, but she stays on her feet, feral, fast.
She ducks under a grab,
shoulder-checks a table, sends it skidding into a knee. She vaults
again, breath burning, lungs screaming.
The leader comes at her
like a storm.
He backhands her across the
face. Stars burst. She tastes iron. The knife skitters from her
grasp, clattering away across the stone.
He seizes her by the throat
and slams her into a shelf. Wood cracks. Books rain down around them.
Lucille claws at his wrist,
kicks, thrashes, nothing matters. He is stronger. He always was. She
feels it then, cold and certain. He means to kill her.
The others shout. One grabs
his arm. “Enough!”
“Move,” the leader
growls.
Lucille jams her thumb into
his wound, hard.
He screams, staggering
back.
That moment, that
sliver of space, is all she needs.
She bolts.
Blood slicks the floor
beneath her feet as she runs, vision blurring, every breath a knife
in her chest. Behind her, boots thunder, curses tearing loose in the
dark. She doesn’t look back. She can’t afford to. Not now.
Lucille sees the entrance.
It is right there, iron-banded door, darkness beyond, salvation
carved into stone and shadow. She reaches it. Her fingers close
around the cold handle.
Then the world tears
sideways.
She is yanked back so hard
her shoulder screams. The door is ripped open by the force, hinges
shrieking as she is dragged away from it. Lucille yelps, the sound
sharp and broken, torn from her throat before she can stop it. Pain
detonates through her spine as her feet leave the floor.
Something bites into her.
Hot. Deep. Wrong.
For a heartbeat she doesn’t
understand what’s happened. Then the pain blooms, white, blinding,
vicious, and her breath stutters out of her lungs. The leader’s
knife is buried in her side, just beneath her ribs, angled with cruel
precision. Not a killing thrust. Not yet.
A wound meant to bleed.
He rips the blade free and
shoves her away like discarded meat. Lucille hits the stone hard,
skidding, rolling, her shoulder slamming into the floor. The world
spins. Her flashlight clatters away, its beam spinning wildly across
shelves and shattered displays before going dark.
She gasps, choking on the
sound of her own breath.
Blood spills between her
fingers as she clamps a hand to her side. It is warm. Too warm. It
keeps coming. Her scar burns, Valroth Kyr’s mark searing along her
arm like a brand thrown back into the forge.
“Damn it,” one of the
men snaps. “That was not necessary—”
“She saw us,” the
leader snarls. “That makes it necessary.”
Lucille doesn’t listen
anymore. She curls, then forces herself to uncurl. Her teeth grind
together as she rolls onto her knees. The pain is unreal now, a
heavy, nauseating pressure dragging at her core, pulling her down.
Her vision tunnels. The archive swims.
She presses harder against
the wound and feels it pulse beneath her palm.
She plants one hand on the
floor. Pushes. Her arm shakes violently, but it holds. She gets one
foot under herself, then the other, slipping in her own blood. She
sways, nearly falls, catches herself on the edge of a toppled table.
The men are still arguing
behind her. Too loud. Too confident.
Lucille drags in a ragged
breath and straightens, hunched and trembling, her hand slick and red
at her side. Every movement sends fire through her ribs. Her legs
feel hollow, like they might fold out from under her at any second.
She won’t quit. Not here.
Not like this.
She turns away from them
and staggers forward, one step at a time, blood marking her path
across the ancient stone as she forces herself to move, to run, to
live, if only a little longer.
