The library wasn't listed on any starcharts.
It wasn't built in space or time.
It was anchored in regret—a dimension forged from the consequences of every decision made under duress, every compromise that saved a life but ruined a hundred others.
It was called the Ledger of Shadows.
And it had just opened itself to Riven.
It didn't do so out of trust.
It did so because he was now a ledger entry himself.
The Anaxiom dropped out of drive near the Veil Rift, a storm of collapsed causality and derelict data ghosts. No pilot could navigate it. No ship could survive proximity.
But Riven didn't pilot with coordinates anymore.
He piloted with intention.
He reached out with the Godfire, not to bend the storm—but to resonate with its grief. The Veil Rift responded. It shifted, then opened like a flower of scars, revealing a corridor made of folded perception and abandoned oaths.
They entered.
And behind them, the Rift closed like a judge's gavel.
Inside the dimension, the rules changed.
There was no up or down.
No seconds ticking.
Only echoes.
They walked across bridges made of whispering equations and through halls where the walls showed flashbacks—not of their own lives, but of the choices they almost made.
Talia saw herself accepting a seat on the Sovereign Council, betraying Riven.
Daz saw himself turning into a mercenary, taking payment to turn off the Anaxiom's shields during the siege of Syndarra.
Riven saw himself not lighting the Godfire. A version of him that let the world burn because he didn't want the responsibility.
Each vision felt real.
Because in this place, they were.
At the heart of the library was the Archivist.
Not a person.
Not an AI.
A concept—manifested as a robed figure with a face made of shattered timepieces and lips stitched with black lightning.
It welcomed them in a language that split atoms.
"Welcome, Flamebearer. You seek the Original Entry."
Riven nodded.
"I need to see the beginning of the Protocol."
"You will see what you paid for," the Archivist replied. "But you will also be seen."
The lights dimmed.
The walls changed.
And the Ledger began to speak.
It started with a war that hadn't happened yet.
A conflict predicted by Orryx's calculations: a convergence of ideologies so incompatible that even peace would become a form of warfare.
In this future, the Godfire was used not to save—but to control. To preemptively erase threats. To purge ambiguity.
And the wielder of that fire was not a monster.
It was a hero.
Beloved.
Justified.
Necessary.
But they burned entire civilizations because they "might" become dangerous.
It wasn't tyranny.
It was security.
Riven watched in horror as a version of himself stood atop the corpse of possibility, surrounded by worshippers.
The universe had become safe.
But sterile.
Silent.
Dead.
"That's the final entry," the Archivist said. "The Ledger's last page."
"Then the Revenant Protocol…"
"Is a scream against that ending. A cry from all that was lost—not to rewrite, but to remind. You wield power that can break the wheel. But every time you do, the wheel screams."
Riven clenched his fists. "So what's the point? If I don't act, billions die. If I do act, I summon ghosts?"
"No. If you act without memory, you become worse than the past."
Talia stepped forward. "Then how do we fight fate with memory?"
"You become authors. Not editors. You don't erase the page. You write the next one."
The Archivist raised its arms.
"You must witness the Unwritten War."
The Ledger showed them another possibility.
A timeline where no Godfire was lit.
Where no Revenants rose.
Where people fought with only what they had—courage, alliances, mistakes. A slower, bloodier route.
But in that world, something happened that shocked them.
Humanity evolved.
Not technologically.
Ethically.
Because the fire wasn't there to bail them out, they learned the hard lessons. Made better systems. Built decentralized power. Failed more—but recovered more meaningfully.
It wasn't a utopia.
But it was earned.
And Riven felt, for the first time, the weight of the fire truly settle in his chest.
Not just power.
Debt.
The Ledger then did something it had never done for any Sovereign.
It handed him a page.
Blank.
"You are now a paradox," the Archivist said. "You carry the memory of worlds that never happened, and the power to choose which one does."
Talia whispered, "What does he write?"
"Not prophecy," said the Archivist.
"Not history."
"Intention."
Riven reached for the page.
It burned.
But he held it anyway.
And on that empty space, without ink or blood, he made his first declaration not as a flamebearer, not as a king, not as a warlord—but as a future:
"No one will die forgotten."
The Ledger closed.
The lights died.
The Veil Rift reopened, whispering promises of mercy or madness.
And as the Anaxiom exited the dimension, the Archivist watched them leave.
And turned to the shadows.
"He has seen. He has chosen."
A voice replied from the dark.
"Then we begin Phase Three."
The Ledger faded.
But its memory would never forget.