The golden light of the portal faded, leaving behind a world unchanged by time. Aeron stepped onto the ancient stone roads, his heartbeat steady, his mind racing.
The Unseen City stretched before him—untouched, yet altered. The towering stone structures still loomed, their surfaces etched with intricate runes that pulsed faintly, like the last embers of a dying fire. The canals still shimmered with their golden glow, their waters unnaturally still, reflecting the past.
And yet, as Aeron inhaled, the air felt… hollow.
It was the silence.
Not the silence of emptiness, but the silence of something lost.
Then, a voice broke through.
"Took you long enough."
Aeron turned sharply.
Standing a short distance away, arms crossed, was Segirus.
He hadn't aged. Not even a day.
The old man's weathered cloak hung over his shoulders, his silver-streaked hair barely disturbed by the wind. His sharp eyes held their usual knowing glint, but there was something deeper now—something distant.
Aeron exhaled, tension easing slightly. "You haven't changed."
Segirus gave a short chuckle. "Neither have you."
Aeron frowned. "A year passed here, didn't it?"
Segirus nodded. "A year for the world. A week for you."
Aeron ran a hand through his hair, his fingers brushing against the silver streak that hadn't been there before. He had changed—not in body, but in mind.
But the city…
He turned, taking in the streets, the canals, the towering spires. It was still standing.
And that was what disturbed him most.
"Why?" he muttered.
Segirus tilted his head. "Why what?"
Aeron gestured around them. "The gods erased the Runeborn. Wiped them from history. Why didn't they destroy this place too?"
For a moment, Segirus didn't answer. His eyes, shadowed with memories older than Aeron could comprehend, flickered over the city like a man seeing ghosts.
Then, quietly, he spoke.
"Because this city is more than just ruins."
Aeron turned fully to him. "Then what is it?"
Segirus exhaled. "Come. Walk with me."
They moved through the empty streets, the silence thick around them. The stone beneath their feet was still polished, the runes inscribed into every surface still glowing softly, but now Aeron saw it.
The cracks.
The fractures running along the edges of pillars. The flickering runes that once burned with eternal light. The canals, once golden rivers, now dimming in patches.
This place wasn't untouched.
It was dying.
Aeron's jaw tightened. "This city is falling apart."
Segirus nodded. "Slowly, but yes."
Aeron turned to him. "Why?"
Segirus walked a few steps ahead, stopping before a tall stone wall engraved with runes that stretched toward the sky. His fingers traced the surface, the ancient symbols thrumming faintly beneath his touch.
"Because the ones who sustained it are gone."
Aeron felt a chill crawl up his spine. "The Runeborn?"
Segirus nodded, his fingers lingering over the runes. "This city was not just their home. It was their creation. The runes were not just tools, Aeron. They were alive. They were part of us."
His voice grew softer, almost a whisper.
"I was born here."
Aeron stilled.
Segirus's hand pressed against the stone as his gaze drifted—not at the city as it was now, but at the city as it had been.
"This was once the greatest city in the world," he murmured. "The heart of the Runeborn. The streets were never empty. Children ran through these halls, carving their first runes into the walls, laughing as their magic sparked to life for the first time. The canals shimmered because they were filled with the lifeblood of our magic. And at night, the sky itself glowed with inscriptions written by my people."
His hand curled into a fist.
"And now it is silent."
Aeron swallowed, the weight of those words pressing down on him. This was not just a lost civilization. This was a home. A life. A family.
He looked at Segirus, who had never spoken of himself, never spoken of what he had lost. But here, in this dead city, it was all laid bare.
"Who were they?" Aeron asked quietly. "Your family?"
Segirus exhaled. "My father was a scholar. He taught at the Grand Archive. My mother was a weaver of runes, able to inscribe power into cloth with a single touch. My cousins… my friends… they were all here."
He hesitated.
Then, his voice softened further. "And my sister."
Aeron stiffened.
Segirus's gaze lifted, meeting his.
"Your mother, Aeron."
Aeron's chest tightened.
The memories of her death in the burning village flashed through his mind. The woman who had shielded him with her last breath. The mother whose past he had never known.
She had come from here.
Segirus turned away, staring down a long, empty road. "She used to take me to the Library of the Forgotten."
Aeron blinked. "The what?"
Segirus smiled faintly, the first true smile Aeron had seen from him. "It was where she spent most of her time. The hidden library of the Runeborn. The place where the gods' forbidden knowledge was kept."
Aeron's heart pounded. "Does it still exist?"
Segirus nodded. "If any part of the city remains intact, it will be there."
He turned back to Aeron, his expression unreadable. "I will take you there. It is where this journey leads next."
Aeron inhaled deeply.
The gods had erased this place from history. But something still remained.
And if the Library of the Forgotten still stood…
Then perhaps, somewhere in those lost records, in those forbidden tomes—
The truth that the gods had buried still remained.
And Aeron would uncover it.