He reached a junction where three paths diverged. Above each, a symbol hovered in holographic suspension: a broken circle, a flame within a mirror, and a spiral of stars.
“Choose,” Solenne said.
Thane studied them. “What do they mean?”
“They’re not meant to be explained,” she said. “They’re meant to be remembered.”
He chose the spiral as it reminded him of the Milkyway.
The corridor narrowed as he walked, its walls shifting from polished alloy to something older—stone, perhaps, or petrified data. The air grew colder.
The glyphs along the walls pulsed faintly, like veins beneath skin, and the spiral itself seemed to bend inward, as if folding space around him.
He reached a chamber at the spiral’s centre. It was circular, domed, and silent. In the middle stood a pedestal made of obsidian and etched with symbols he didn’t recognise.
Suspended above it, rotating slowly, was a crystalline sphere—fractured, but still intact. Inside the sphere, threads of light moved like memory: one red, one blue, one gold, one black.
Solenne’s voice returned, softer now. “This is the Archive’s heart. Each thread is a corridor. Each colour, a wound.”
Thane stepped closer. The pedestal lit up as he approached, casting a faint glow across his face. The sphere responded, its threads accelerating, forming patterns—spirals, sigils, constellations.
He reached out, not to touch, but to listen. The black thread pulsed once.
He reached out, not to touch, but to listen. The black thread pulsed once. A voice—not Solenne’s—spoke from within.
“I was joy once. I was betrayal. I was the silence between stars. You are not the first to arrive. But you may be the last.”
Thane withdrew his hand. “What is it?”
“A memory engine,” Solenne replied. “It stores what cannot be stored. It remembers what was never spoken.”
Thane looked around the chamber. There were no doors, no exits. Only the sphere, the pedestal and the spiral behind him.
