Scene 1: Routine Obedience
The city of Ilharin was always gray at dusk. It wasn't just the color of the mist or the soot that clung to every brick, but something woven into the light itself—filtered, reluctant, as if the sun feared to touch the city directly.
Within the Academy of Unseen Studies, deep inside the northern quarter, the bells rang the seventh hour. Their tone was not melodic but deliberate, designed to remind rather than inspire.
Narein Hal stood before Scriptorium Chamber 9-A, a satchel of clean parchment under one arm. The door opened without a sound.
Inside, only a single blue-glass lantern flickered, casting thin shadows. Scrolls and iron-bound tomes lined the walls, each tagged with braided seals bearing numbered sigils: 3V, 5V, 6V. Behind a narrow desk, a masked clerk in gray robes waited. The mask was smooth, featureless—Veil-standard issue. Narein suppressed the instinct to shiver.
"Assignment: Copy exactly. Comprehension not required," the clerk said, voice filtered through a rune-etched voicebox. It was genderless, cold.
Narein nodded. "Yes, Clerk."
The text laid before him was sealed with a 7V designation. Seven Veils. He shouldn't be here. No apprentice should. But he didn't question it aloud. He'd been trained not to.
He sat down, glancing at the ink provided—it shimmered faintly, oily and violet at its core. Not standard issue. He dipped the quill.
And hesitated.
He had always remembered what he read. Perfectly. His mind filed each symbol, each diagram, even the shape of notes scribbled in margins. That made him valuable. Dangerous, if known. Not even the basic Veil he wore could completely suppress the echoes.
What if this time, it wasn't enough?
---
Scene 2: Echoes Before Ink
Earlier that morning, Sister Elith Marrow had handed him a wax-sealed note, without a word.
"You'll be called to Scriptorium Nine," she'd said, as if commenting on the weather. "Don't speak unless spoken to. Don't think unless you must."
Narein had read the note once. Then watched as it folded itself into ash.
He should have asked questions. But after years in the Chapel, he knew better. Questions were only asked by those who wanted to be forgotten.
As he stepped into the lift platform that carried scribes to the inner levels of the Academy, a senior scribe stepped on beside him. The man was pale, his eyes milk-clouded, though he moved without hesitation.
"Wrong door," the man muttered, though no one else was present. "Someone's opened the wrong door again."
Then he stepped off at the third level and vanished around a corner.
Narein tried to dismiss the encounter, but a chill had already crept into his spine.
---
Scene 3: Unraveling Order
He began to copy.
The glyphs were unlike any he'd seen. They did not sit still—shifting subtly, like reflections in rippling water. Each stroke of his pen made something stir in the edge of his awareness.
He blinked hard. A phrase began to emerge from the shapes. Not something written—but something meant.
> "When the shadow calls itself by name, the eye must forget."
Narein froze.
He hadn't written that. It wasn't part of the original glyph-string, but there it was, written in his own hand.
He looked down.
The glyph on the parchment twisted. It rotated upon itself. Fractured. Reassembled.
A spiral with serrated edges emerged, formed from mirrored strokes that bled light instead of ink.
His breath caught.
> A Thought Glyph.
Is
A sharp pain lanced his skull. His vision blurred. The lantern dimmed.
The world didn't go silent—it vanished. No sound. No time. No heartbeat. Only the pressure of a voice pressed into the space of his mind.
> "Do you remember the name of your shadow?"
The voice wasn't heard. It was felt. Like a memory resurfacing without a source.
Blood dripped onto the page. His quill had snapped. His hand was shaking.
Then, just as quickly—it was over.
The glyph vanished.
The ink dried black and inert.
The scroll before him was blank.
---
Scene 4: Silent Passage
Narein cleaned the desk slowly, methodically, as if pretending nothing had happened would make it true. He folded the scroll and placed it back in its case.
The clerk did not move. The mask reflected nothing.
He offered a polite nod and left the room. His footsteps echoed too long down the hallway.
At the end of the corridor, he passed a Veilbearer—a tall, silent figure in mirrored robes, standing motionless beside a rune-lit archway. The air around it shimmered faintly.
Narein looked down and walked faster. But he could feel the Veilbearer's attention. Not eyes, not presence, but pressure—like a thought brushing his skin.
---
Scene 5: The Reflection
As he reached the end of the main hall, he glanced into the silver-plated ceremonial mirror beside the exit.
His reflection stared back.
Then blinked.
Before he did.
He froze. Heart pounding. But when he blinked again, the reflection matched him. Normal. Almost.
He stepped away, quickly, not looking back.
---
Scene 6: The Inkstone Chapel
Outside, the mist had thickened. Lamplight spilled across the cobbles like leaking flame. The air smelled faintly of burnt parchment and wet stone.
Narein walked briskly back to the Inkstone Chapel. The streets of Ilharin were half-empty at this hour, save for robed petitioners and murmuring glass-sellers. He passed a wall where someone had scrawled a symbol—three eyes in a triangle. It vanished when he blinked.
At the Chapel gates, Sister Elith stood beneath the lantern.
"You're late," she said, but without judgment.
"I stayed to finish early," Narein lied. His voice felt thinner than usual.
She studied him. "Did you see anything you weren't meant to?"
He hesitated. Then shook his head.
"Good," she said softly, and stepped aside.
---
Scene 7: The Tower Without Doors
He climbed to his cot, lay down, and stared at the ceiling. But sleep didn't come.
Not really.
He dreamed of a tower without doors, built from charred books. Of a man without a face, bound in glyphs and seated on a throne of ink-stone. Of a book that erased its reader with every page turned. Of a door that watched back.
And of a voice, repeating:
> "Do you remember the name of your shadow?"
He awoke in darkness. Heart pounding. Cold sweat.
No birdsong. No chime of the chapel bell. Only silence.
> He did not know the name of his shadow—but it knew his.