Chapter 32: Echoes of Betrayal
The great door groaned open like the breath of the earth itself—ancient, patient, heavy with knowing.
What lay beyond made even the dragons halt mid-step.
A circular chamber unfurled before them like a dream caught mid-bloom. Spiral staircases of ironwood and silverroot wound skyward through five open tiers of bookshelves, each balcony etched with glowing runes. Windows—if they could be called that—opened not onto a sky, but into drifting constellations. There was no ceiling. Just stars.
The chandeliers overhead weren't lit by fire, but by orbs of floating script—words from forgotten languages looping and looping in golden light.
The air shimmered with dust motes that didn't fall. They floated. Alive. Waiting.
Fate stepped forward slowly, as if moving through a sacred memory. Behind her, the dragons padded forward without hesitation—massive and regal. Rohan's pale-white bulk glided like a spirit beside Joey, Lavendel's violet hide glimmered with refracted starlight. They belonged here.
She wasn't sure she did.
Books whispered. Not in words, not exactly. More like breath. Like ghosts remembering how to speak.
She clutched the feather-shaped earring at her left lobe—the one made from Goldenia's egg fragment. It pulsed gently against her skin.
This should've been peaceful. Magical.
But inside her?
Only silence. Fractured, humming silence.
She hadn't even realized how much the firestorm with Joey had rattled her until now. Everyone was walking forward—Joey, Chyna, Beanca, Steven—but none of them felt together anymore.
She thought: This place holds truth. But are we ready for it?
Her steps echoed like slow questions as they moved into the heart of the Nexus Library.
Beanca was the first to speak.
"Okay... this place is... ridiculous."
Fate turned in time to see Beanca spinning slowly in place, arms half-lifted, like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. The chandeliers caught the green shimmer of Emeraldsa's scales behind her, casting strange leafy shadows across her face.
"Where are we, Arya?" she asked, voice tight with awe. "This isn't Alagaësia."
Arya stood at the foot of the central spiral stair, eyes calm, voice soft.
"No," she said. "This is the Nexus Library. It sits between Realms. A place created not by Riders, but by the binding of truth itself. You cannot map it. You can only arrive... if it allows you."
Beanca blinked. "That's somehow worse."
Fate noticed that Joey, still flushed from the confrontation and the fall, looked grateful for the change in focus. He hovered near Rohan, his hands idle but twitchy.
Steven said nothing.
Fate couldn't stop staring at the carved railings—the etchings were strange: not decorative, but... script. Personal. Names? Truths?
She traced one with her fingertip and felt it warm slightly beneath her touch.
Arya's voice echoed up from the stone circle: "This place doesn't just hold books. It holds mirrors."
The group paused.
Fate crossed her arms, trying to shake off the feeling that the library saw more than it should. That every step, every glance, was being recorded.
YOU ARE READING
The Five Realms
FanfictionJoey Jackson, a quiet teen with a stubborn sense of hope, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his father during a supernatural fire at their family estate. When a shadowy figure emerges from the smoke-and a long-lost teacher delivers a cry...
