The scroll did not hum. It did not vibrate, or shake, or cry out. But when it opened, a sound escaped. It was not a sound made for ears. It touched the skin before it reached the senses. It stirred breath and stilled heartbeat. A kind of presence poured from the parchment, low and heavy and full of a thousand voices beneath one shape.
Finn leaned back in his chair. Across the table, the girl no, the marked reader had gone pale. Her lips parted slightly, but no words came. Her eyes flicked from the scroll to Finn and back again, as if she were waiting for permission to scream.
The scroll unrolled itself.
Not in a rush. In reverence. Each coil of parchment folded away from the center like flower petals turning toward sunlight.
And then the ink rose.
Not black this time. Gold. Liquid and slow, forming symbols Finn didn't recognize. The letters didn't stay still. They warped, shifted, echoed with half-seen shapes. Every time he blinked, they changed just slightly.
"What does it say?" the girl whispered.
Finn shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think we're meant to read it like words."
"It's not meant for the eye," she said. "It's meant for the thread."
She reached out—not to touch the parchment, but to hover her fingers above it. The air felt denser there, alive with some memory or power. Her fingers trembled. The scroll responded.
It began to write.
Not a line. A chorus.
The ink spread in widening rings, forming not just language, but rhythm. Repeating lines with subtle variance, as if echoing a forgotten liturgy. The reader's eyes widened.
"It's a scrollsong," she said, breathless. "A fate encoded as music."
Finn watched the patterns shift. "What does it mean?"
"It's naming something. Or remembering it."
She pointed to a cluster of symbols at the top of the page.
"That's you."
Finn narrowed his eyes. "How do you know?"
"I don't. But I know."
She traced another group of symbols below it. "And that's something older. Watching you. Not guiding. Not trapping. Just... seeing."
The scroll pulsed. One beat. Like a drum buried beneath the world.
Finn leaned closer. The letters shimmered. As he watched, one line detached itself from the rest, rising slowly above the surface. It shimmered, then fell backward, embedding itself in the scroll's edge.
The song ended.
The silence that followed felt enormous.
Neither of them moved.
"What just happened?" he asked.
The reader didn't answer. She was staring at the scroll as if it might wake again.
Finally, she said, "It gave you a mark."
Finn frowned. "I already have one."
"Not like this."
She pointed to the edge where the final line had sunk. There, in gold ink, was a single symbol.
"It's not a warning," she said. "It's a location."
Finn stared at it. He didn't recognize the shape, but something in him did.
"Can you read it?"
She nodded slowly. "I think I can take you there."
Finn rolled the scroll shut. The gold ink bled into the thread as if hiding its own path.
He stood.
"So we go," he said.
The reader stood too. She was shaking.
"Are you ready?"
"No," she said. "But I think that's the point."
They left the dormitory through the servants' passage, careful not to draw eyes. No one saw them. No one stopped them.
Above, the Temple bells began to ring.
And Finn, for the first time, walked not with a question.
But toward an answer.
The answer waited beneath the city.
The reader led him past the usual districts, into the bones of Elaris deep stonework from an age before scrolls, before names. They entered through a forgotten aqueduct, long since dried. Vines clung to the arches, and the stones whispered old water songs with each step.
Finn held the scroll close. It remained warm, silent. But he knew it was watching.
"What is this place?" he asked.
"The old scriptory," the reader said. "Where they first learned to bind fate into ink."
He frowned. "I thought that was a myth."
She looked over her shoulder. "So did I. Until last night."
They descended narrow stairs into a circular chamber. It was lit by blue flame hovering midair, unnaturally still. Carvings wrapped around the walls. Not letters. Patterns. Like a song written for stone.
The scroll pulled itself open in his hands.
One word formed:
Begin.
And then the light pulsed.
The carvings vibrated with invisible tone. Finn could not hear it, but he felt it in his spine. The reader stepped into the center of the chamber and the floor shifted underfoot. A panel of stone folded away, revealing a pit of endless dark.
"I think it wants you to listen," she said.
Finn nodded. He stepped to the edge, looked down.
Nothing. Then something. A hum. A thread of sound rising from the void. It wasn't music. It was memory given shape.
He knelt and touched the edge.
Visions came.
Not of the future.
Of every future.
A tower fell. A tower stood. A scroll burned. A scroll rewrote the city. His hands red with blood. His hands empty, shaking. A city in praise. A city in ruin. Endless branches spiraling from one moment.
The scroll's mark had opened a gate.
And now he could see the threads that ran beneath the world.
He stood, swaying.
The reader caught his arm. "Are you all right?"
He nodded. "I saw it."
"What?"
"Choice."
And the scroll, warm in his hands, finally answered.
Now choose.