Three days had passed since Elara's strange encounter in the archives, and she had barely slept. Every night, she would light a single candle in her small chamber and open the mysterious book, watching as new words appeared on its pages.
The book seemed to have a will of its own, revealing its secrets in fragments—a passage here about ancient wards and protections, a diagram there showing symbols she didn't recognize. But each morning, when she tried to read what she had seen the night before, the pages would be blank again, as if the knowledge existed only in moments of discovery.
"You look terrible," remarked Aldric, her fellow junior archivist, as they cataloged a new shipment of trade records. "Are you feeling alright?"
Elara forced a smile. Aldric had been her friend since they were both assigned to the archives as apprentices five years ago. He was kind, reliable, and utterly devoted to following rules. She couldn't tell him about the book.
"Just trouble sleeping," she said, which was technically true. "I'll be fine."
But she wasn't fine, and she knew it. The book's words had begun to echo in her dreams, filling her nights with visions of a kingdom that no longer existed—or perhaps had never existed in quite the way the histories described.
In her dreams, she walked through halls of crystal and light, spoke with beings made of starfire and shadow, and heard a name repeated over and over like a prayer: Valdris. The Forgotten Kingdom.
"Elara?" Aldric's voice pulled her back to the present. "You've been staring at that same page for ten minutes."
She looked down at the trade record in her hands, seeing nothing but squiggles on parchment. "Sorry. I was thinking."
"About what?"
For a moment, she considered telling him everything. But the old woman's words echoed in her mind: keep it safe, guard it well. Until she understood what was happening, she needed to keep her secrets close.
"Nothing important," she lied. "Just daydreaming."