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Spring was a slow predator in these lands—creeping in not with a flourish, but in silence, through the sodden earth and the hushed stillness that hung over a forest only recently abandoned by winter. Violetta walked among trees where the branches already trembled with the first green buds. Her steps left no deep tracks; the snow had vanished, leaving behind a slurry of mud and exposed grass reaching toward the sun.
Her only companion was the silence, broken occasionally by birdsong, the thin wind, and the mechanical cadence of the Sphere.
“CONNECTION TO CENTRAL CORE: ABSENT. CURRENT QUERIES BASED ON AVAILABLE DATASETS: BIOMETRICS, VISUAL ANALYSIS, LOGGED SPEECH FRAGMENTS, LOCALIZED SCANNING.”
“So you still know nothing?” Violetta muttered, ducking under a low branch.
“CURRENT KNOWLEDGE VOLUME: 3.2% OF NOMINAL CAPACITY. PRIMARY PRIORITY: SURVIVAL. SECONDARY PRIORITY: DATA PRESERVATION.”
“Great. A genius orb that’s lost its mind,” she said. Her voice wasn't angry—just weary. Loneliness was a slow rot, and even the presence of an AI couldn't fully stave it off.
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The forest climbed steadily, the path leading upward toward a ridge. Here, the trees grew sparse, allowing more sunlight to pierce the canopy. It was here that Violetta found the wreckage.
Beside the trail, as if spat out by the mountain pass above, lay a carriage—overturned, a broken wheel still spinning on a single spoke. Half the chassis was bitten into the earth, looking as though it had been hurled from a great height. The site was choked with weeds and damp moss; the bodies had long since begun to liquefy.
She approached cautiously, hand hovering near her blade. But everything was... dead. And had been for a long time.
“PROBABLE INCIDENT TIMELINE: EARLY WINTER. RESULT OF FALL FROM MINIMUM ALTITUDE OF TWENTY METERS. LIKELY CAUSE: GEOLOGICAL DISPLACEMENT OR AVALANCHE. PASSENGER FATALITIES: INSTANTANEOUS OR WITHIN SEVERAL HOURS.”
Near the carriage lay the remains of horses, long since picked clean by scavengers. The human remains were equally ravaged. Violetta stopped before one—a man in a dark frock coat and a strange, pointed hat. His staff was snapped in two, one half lying nearby with a cracked crystal at its crown.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“PROBABLE IDENTIFICATION: MAGE.”
She leaned down, shifting a splintered timber to reveal a satchel. Inside was a heavy tome, locked with a magical seal. Near the corpse's chest, something glinted.
A locket. Simple silver with a glass inlay. Inside was a miniature watercolor: this man, a woman with a kind face, a boy of about eight, and an infant in her arms. Violetta stared at the locket until the Sphere spoke:
“BIOMETRIC DATA NOT ENCODED IN OBJECT. HOWEVER, COMPOSITION INDICATES FAMILIAL BOND.”
She took the locket from the dead man’s neck and tucked it into her pack alongside the book and the shards of the staff.
“I’ll find them. If they’re still alive. I’ll tell them he... he wasn't just left in the woods, forgotten.”
She dragged the remains from the wreckage and buried them beneath an ancient tree, covering the mounds with stones. No names, no crosses—only the earth, which accepts everyone with the same indifference.
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Violetta sat in her "Shelter: Version III," huddled by the iron stove in her tattered cloak. The flames danced in her eyes as she held the book. The binding was dark, cracked, with an embossed sigil that pulsed faintly in the shadows. It stirred something in her mind—a memory that didn't belong to her.
When she tried to open the tome, her fingers were bucked back—a sharp jolt, like a live wire.
“Ow! That was unpleasant...”
The Sphere scanned the object, and data strobed across Violetta’s VISOR:
“PROBABLE INTERNAL MAGICAL SEAL. DEFENSE MECHANISM: CONTACT REPULSION AND KINETIC RELEASE OF ETHEREAL ENERGY. BYPASS SCANNING REQUIRED.”
Violetta looked at the cover. The sigil glowed like a dying ember. “Can you scan it?”
“AFFIRMATIVE. CONTENT DAMAGE RISK: 17%. SCANNING WILL BE PERFORMED IN FRAGMENTS. AUTHORIZE?”
“Yes. Do it.”
The light within the Sphere intensified, and a progress bar appeared on her VISOR. Soon, the first decrypted lines flickered:
“MANUAL OF PRACTICAL METAMAGIC, VOL. I. AUTHOR: GREGORIUS LEMIN, ARCHMANDRITE OF THE WESTERN CONCLAVE. INTENDED EXCLUSIVELY FOR BEARER OF THE BLOOD-SIGNATURE.”
“WARNING: IMPROPER USE OF FORMULAE RESULTS IN ENERGETIC BACKLASH. IN ALL CASES, CONSEQUENCES FALL UPON THE CASTER.”
“MAGIC DOES NOT GRANT POWER. IT IS A FULCRUM. A FULCRUM CAN HOLD UP A ROOF—OR CRUSH YOU BENEATH IT.”
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Violetta reread the first pages in silence. The text felt cold, like winter stone. But there was something else—clarity. Logic. Structure.
“SCANNING IN PROGRESS. 12% COMPLETE. NEXT SECTION: COMPLEX ENCRYPTION. ESTIMATED TIME: EXTENDED.”
She nodded and, wrapping herself tighter, curled up by the fire. On her chest rested the locket she had taken from the carriage. Today, she had buried a man who once had a world. And she promised herself that if she ever found those who waited for him... she would speak the truth.
The wind rustled through the treetops. Far away, amidst cold stone and the glint of marble, the night lamps were lit in the Imperial Central Library.
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