Raziel walked straight to the library.
The memory fragment was still fresh; that broken female voice, don't play her game, and the quest update sitting behind his eyes like a task he'd already decided to complete.
He'd looked at the library from the fountain and made the decision in about three seconds.
It was the obvious move.
[ECHO DETECTED: St. Celeste Library]
[Familiarity: 67%]
[Associated events: MULTIPLE (data corrupted)]
He navigated the shelves with one hand resting on a farming treatise he had no interest in, his eyes already on the back of the room.
Black iron gate.
Protection runes carved into the metal, glowing faint, the kind of thing designed to make the casual visitor feel guilty about looking too long.
He'd been in there before.
He was almost certain.
He didn't remember what he'd found, but his instinct said 'go' instead of 'run,' which meant it had been worth it at least once.
"That third-century farming treatise is fascinating, if you like counting turnips."
Raziel turned.
Sister Seraphina was leaning against a nearby shelf, a stack of scrolls tucked under one arm and an ink smear on her cheek, watching him with an interest that had nothing casual about it.
[ECHO ACTIVATED: RECOGNITION]
[Seraphina Blackwood]
[Original fate: Death in Second Wave of the Invasion]
[Cause: Defending Church archives against unclassified entity]
He processed that in less than two seconds.
Dead in the Second Wave.
Defending archives.
Which meant she'd kept fighting for knowledge straight to the end of the world and done it alone.
He filed her under useful and kept his expression even.
"Sister Seraphina," he said, giving her a small nod. "I didn't hear you coming."
"Nobody does when I don't want them to." She pushed off the shelf.
"What are you actually looking for, novice? Farming books don't put that face on anyone."
He needed her curious, not suspicious. Half-truth, then.
"Information about something called a 'Paragon'," he said. "It came up in a dream. A voice used that word."
Seraphina went still.
"Where did you hear that?" Her tone dropped all the casual. Sharp now, focused.
"I told you. A dream."
"Dreams don't teach forbidden vocabulary, kid. Follow me."
She didn't wait for an answer. She was used to people following her.
She led him to the black gate, stopped in front of it, and ran one finger along the cold bars without opening it yet.
"Tell me what you see."
"A restricted section," he said. "Books the Church decided are dangerous."
"Wrong." She pulled out a key. "You see fear."
She unlocked the gate and pushed it open.
"The Church worships order. Clerics who pray, Paladins who fight. Every piece assigned to its square."
She stepped through. "The 'Paragon' breaks the board."
Raziel followed her in.
The air inside was older. Sealed. It smelled like documents that hadn't seen light in decades.
"The ability to channel everything," he said, half to himself. "Magic and combat, light and shadow, no restrictions."
Seraphina turned to look at him, eyes sharp.
"Exactly. Not a title, a heresy. Three centuries ago, anyone who showed talent across more than one discipline wasn't celebrated. They were purged."
She pointed at a row of books with scorched spines. "The Church called it unnatural. I think it scared them."
[WARNING: FORBIDDEN ENERGY DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN]
[NOTE: In timelines where the Regressor accepted without conditions, corruption rate: 89%.]
[RECOMMENDATION: SET CLEAR LIMITS]
Raziel read the figure and didn't step forward.
In his previous life he'd been orthodox all the way to the end, doctrine and prayer and proper channels.
It hadn't saved a single person.
The choir kids died anyway.
The Invasion happened anyway.
Phaedra burned anyway.
Every rule he'd followed had been useless when Zion decided the world needed resetting.
But 89% corruption for Regressors who accepted without conditions. He believed it.
Whatever Seraphina was offering had its own agenda, and he wasn't naïve enough to think otherwise.
"Why show me this?" he asked. "If it's this dangerous, we should both be walking away."
Seraphina laughed, short and dry.
"Because I know what I'm looking at, Raziel." She stopped beside a packed shelf.
"That's not a curious novice's expression. That's the face of someone who's already lost something they can't get back."
She was right. He didn't argue.
"I've worked these archives for five years," she said.
"Read things that would make Cardinals weep. Saints question their faith. In all that time, I've only seen that specific expression on three people."
"What happened to them?"
"Two are dead." No shake in her voice.
"The third disappeared years ago. The Church says he was transferred to a border mission but I think he found something he wasn't supposed to find and ran before they could silence him."
He studied her and she wasn't angling for sympathy.
She was reporting with the detachment of someone who'd already processed the loss and moved on.
He could work with that.
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to offer you an alternative," she said.
"Knowledge the Church burned the originals of because it couldn't be controlled. Power that answers to you, not to whatever the Luminar decides is acceptable this year."
"One question first."
"Go ahead."
"If it came down to a choice between saving lives and following Church doctrine, which would you choose?"
Seraphina blinked. The question caught her off balance, which surprised him.
She didn't look like someone who got caught off balance easily.
"Lives," she said. "Doctrine gets rewritten. The dead don't."
The right answer or the honest one. He'd take honesty over rehearsed any day.
"Agreed," he said. "Then we have a basis but I set the conditions."
Seraphina raised an eyebrow. "You're fifteen."
"And you're showing restricted texts to a novice you've known for five minutes, so we've both already left normal behind."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"Fair enough," she said. "You set the conditions."
Raziel held her gaze.
There was one more thing.
A debt he was carrying that she didn't know she was owed.
Paying it felt strange but not sentimental, just practical, the same way you'd return a borrowed tool to someone who didn't remember lending it.
"At some point you're going to give me advice," he said.
"About not playing someone else's game, about changing the rules. When that happens, I want you to know it works. That's all."
Seraphina frowned.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I know." He turned toward the gate. "But you will."
She didn't call after him.
He heard her stay where she was, and he could tell from the silence that she was turning the words over, trying to find the angle.
Good. He needed her thinking.
She was going to die in the Second Wave defending archives she'd never get to use again, and he intended to change that.
But that was a problem for later, once he knew more.
[QUEST UPDATED]
[OBJECTIVE: Locate the Paragon texts before the restricted section is audited]
[ESTIMATED TIME BEFORE AUDIT: UNKNOWN]
[PRIORITY: HIGH]