#The voice did not fade after its first words. It lingered in the air of the Vault of Unwritten Truths the way smoke lingers after a flame has been extinguished — present, undeniable, refusing to be dismissed as imagination. Aether stood before the blank page, his heart pounding in a rhythm that felt strangely unfamiliar, as though his own body had begun responding to something his mind had not yet caught up to.
Living Memory, resting against his chest, pulsed with a warmth he had never felt from it before — not the sharp, urgent pulse of danger, but something gentler, something almost like recognition. As though whatever ancient presence spoke from the page was not a stranger to it at all, but an old friend returning after an unbearably long absence.
The voice spoke again, quiet and patient, each word settling into the silence of the Vault like a stone dropped into still water.
*"Do you remember why stories exist?"*
