I. Kai – The City Beneath the Words
Lowridge's public archive was older than most of the city itself.
It had been rebuilt twice—once after a fire, once after a collapse—but the foundation was untouched, carved into stone that predated the Academy, the relic wars, maybe even memory itself.
Kai stood at the top of the staircase that led into its basement halls, hood pulled low, satchel over one shoulder. The shard under his shirt pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat syncing with something deeper below.
Lina had insisted on going with him.
She wore a frayed jacket two sizes too big and carried a folded city permit one of the older orphans had given her.
"I told them we're here on a school project about relic glyphs," she muttered as they descended.
"That's not exactly untrue," Kai said.
"It's definitely not true either."
The stairs opened into a chamber dimly lit with green-glass orbs. A few dusty figures stood at distant shelves, copying books with trembling hands. No one looked up.
They passed four aisles before Kai stopped.
He could feel it.
A draw.
Not to a specific scroll.
To a shelf.
One tucked behind a cracked pillar, half-blocked by a fallen scribe's stool.
He knelt and reached inside.
There, between two neglected tomes about agricultural rites, was a brittle notebook—leather-bound, torn at the edges, its pages yellowed and warped.
No title.
But when Kai opened it—
The first page was blank.
The second too.
Then on the third:
"Kalai."
The ink was faded, but the name had been carved into the page as if the writer's hand had shaken with fury or fear. The page after held a spiral glyph—and a rough sketch of a boy.
The figure wore robes, armor, a crown of light—and something else:
A shard, embedded in his chest.
Lina exhaled. "That's… that's you."
Kai stared at the drawing.
It didn't look exactly like him.
But the spiral behind the figure's eyes did.
"He was one of the seven," Kai read aloud.
"Not a god. Not a devil. A key. A weapon."
"When the anchors were placed, he—"
The page ended.
Torn.
He flipped forward.
The rest of the book was water-damaged.
Smears.
Marks.
Only one line remained legible near the end:
"He forgot. On purpose."
"So the world could sleep."
Kai closed the book.
The shard under his shirt had gone cold.
"You okay?" Lina asked.
"Yeah," he whispered.
But he wasn't.
Because whatever "Kalai" was…
He was waking up again.
And Kai wasn't sure if he was inviting that memory in—or if it had never truly left.
II. Elsewhere – Cultist POV: The Doubtful One
The cultist known only as Verel knelt in the candlelit chamber below Bellforge.
He was younger than most—barely past twenty, face still soft, eyes too expressive for the mirror-mask he wore. He always flinched when someone said "Kalai," like the name still burned to hear.
The chamber was silent as their leader—a pale woman with the red gem in her wrist—unrolled a message scrawled in divine shorthand:
"Spiral signature confirmed."
"The boy in Lowridge is Kalai."
"Do we move?"
Verel clenched his fists.
"He's just a child."
The others remained silent.
The leader turned her veiled gaze toward him.
"Kalai was never just anything."
"Even sealed. Even sleeping. He can still wake the world."
"We must prepare."
Verel shook his head.
"Prepare for what? War? Sacrifice? The last time we followed the path blindly, five cities fell."
A senior cultist stepped forward. "You forget your place."
"No," Verel snapped.
"I remember too much."
The red-gem leader silenced them with a raised hand.
"We will not kill him."
"Not yet."
"But he must be watched."
She stepped toward the mirror-wall—etched with thousands of spiral lines.
One had begun glowing faintly.
"He remembers the word now."
"Anchor."
"And when he says the second name…"
She touched the mirror.
"The gate opens."
III. Kai – Questions That Shouldn't Be Asked
Later that night, back at the orphanage, Kai couldn't sleep.
The notebook was hidden in his drawer, beneath a loose floorboard, wrapped in a cloth marked with faint glyphs.
The phrase repeated in his mind.
"He forgot on purpose."
Why?
Why would someone give up memory that powerful?
Who was Kalai?
What had he done?
He stood at the window, staring out at the sky.
The stars blinked faintly through the city haze.
The shard was pulsing again.
And something far away pulsed in rhythm.
"What are you trying to make me remember?" he whispered.
The shard didn't answer.
But the wind through the fig tree whispered something soft.
A word he barely heard:
"Soon."