The marrow-bound book felt warm in Elric's hands.
Not in heat—but in memory.
It pulsed gently, as if it remembered being part of a living spine. Its pages were not turned by hand, but by intention. As Elric opened the first leaf, the text rose on its own—dark symbols forming from within the translucent skin like old scars remembering how they were cut.
Sylas watched quietly.
He'd seen it once before.
Long ago.
And it had nearly cost him everything.
---
The First Record
The text was not linear. It spiraled. Each memory wrapped around another like veins weaving muscle. Elric focused—and the words anchored into meaning.
> The Root was not made to bind. It was made to carry.
When kings began to forget the wars they caused, when bloodlines grew arrogant, the healers carved the past into marrow. Not to command—but to warn.
But power never fears forgetting. It fears remembering.
And so the Council reversed the flow—turned memory into obedience. Root into leash. Remembrance into silence.
Elric's grip tightened.
"They twisted a healing system into a control network," he muttered.
Thorne Varnell nodded.
"And when House Varnell refused to encode loyalty into their bloodline, the Council declared us erased."
He reached into his robe and pulled out a second item.
A sliver of bone, carved in the same script.
"This was my daughter's. She encoded the names of those who resisted."
He placed it on the ground in front of Elric.
It pulsed once—and the names rose from it like smoke.
Not dozens.
Hundreds.
---
Outside the Spire
Cai stood at the ridge above the spire, wind blowing through his dark hair.
He held his head.
"They're screaming again," he whispered.
Veyra moved to steady him. "The villagers?"
"No," Cai said, voice shaking. "The ones who forgot. They're starting to remember too fast. Their minds weren't ready."
Down the slope, Serenith stood alone.
Her daughter walked to her side, arms folded.
"Do we intervene?"
"No," Serenith said. "Not unless the boy breaks."
"Cai?"
"No."
She looked toward the spire.
"Elric."
---
Inside: The Bloodline Echo
Elric's breath slowed as the book reached its final pages.
He expected a prophecy.
What he found instead was a diagram.
A bloodline map—sprawling, with names like tangled roots.
At its center was a single name, circled in the color of dried memory ink:
> Elric Taran
But next to it—written in faint silver script, almost erased—was a second name:
> Auren Varnell
Elric stepped back.
Sylas frowned. "What is it?"
Elric looked up, voice quiet.
"My mother's name wasn't Taran."
He turned to Thorne.
"It was Varnell."
---
The Revelation
Thorne nodded once.
"She fled during the erasure. Married into a minor Taran line. Gave you a new name. But you carry both."
Elric's jaw clenched.
"All this time… I wasn't just exiled from the line of kings. I was born of the family they tried to erase."
Thorne stepped forward. "That is why the Root responded to you—and why it feared you."
Lira stepped into the room behind them.
She looked at Elric.
"Then what does that make you now?"
Elric stared at the cracked throne.
His voice was steady.
> "It makes me the memory they couldn't kill."
---