Chương 87: Chapter 20: Eliud Volgthar

That afternoon, the frustration from her encounter with Valerian and the unease his question had sown made routine study impossible. An impulsive force, the same one that had led her long ago to unravel heretical philosophy, guided her into the depths of the library. She descended past the fifteenth floor, beyond where any student, even those with royal permits, usually dared to venture. The air grew colder, stiller, and dust danced in the beams of light from the tallow lamps like specters of forgotten knowledge.

She reached the eighteenth floor. It was a smaller chamber, almost a crypt, with ebony bookshelves as dark as coal. There, after searching for hours just wandering, she finally found, with a sudden tug on her chest, an isolated corner; as if waiting for her, a volume rested slightly apart from the others. It was no ordinary book.

Its spine was made of a tanned hide that she sensed was ancient, and upon it, someone had left a folded note with a wax seal that, as she drew closer, she recognized immediately: the royal coat of arms of Erabergh. With hands that began to tremble with an expectation that was half yearning, half dread, she unfolded the parchment. The handwriting was firm and authoritative, the very same from the letter that had granted her supervised freedom.

"Here is my third gift: an ancient and elusive state secret, one that I reveal to you only because our first monarch was its possessor. My gift is a secret. Signed: Thaerón IV Volgthar, Lord of the Four Lands and Protector of the Eternal Flow." Her breath caught. Her gaze drifted to the book upon which the note rested. The title, engraved in faded but still legible ink, read: The Imagery and Understanding of the Echo. And beneath it, the name of the author that made her heart leap violently: Eliud Volgthar.

Her hands shook uncontrollably. Her mind wandered for a second; it was the weight of a secret veiled for centuries, holding in her hands something so profane and elusive that only those chosen by royal fingers were permitted to know. Selena sighed. She took a deep breath, the scent of clean oxygen filling her lungs, and anticipation reflected in her eyes. With utmost care, as if it might disintegrate at her touch, she opened the heavy cover.

The first page showed an introduction, and besides it, a date that left her breathless: Sangra 25, Year 37 of the R. E. It was incredibly ancient. Her mental calculations ran wild. R. E.? Royal Era? The calendar of the kingdom's founding? This book is millennia old! At least the original must be. A book like this... could only belong to the first founding king, or a brother, though that is unlikely. And it is written in Erahari... it is a direct translation, commissioned by the current King and gifted to me. Why?

What does he want from me? Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a drum of anxiety and excitement. Amidst that frantic rhythm, she set herself to read, and the words of the first Volgthar pierced her like lightning.

"The Echo is a transgression against everything our world represents. I have seen things no man wishes to know, invisible things of impossible shapes, a dimension where it seems time is like touching the air, yet distant and impossible to possess. Not with my mind. Not with my understanding of this world. The Touch... had I known from the beginning, I would not have taken the step. I am already thirty-seven years old. It is too late for an imaginary resonant such as I.

I want you to know, and everyone who reads this book, that magic is replicating and reality is fragile when we play with it. It is not just our life. It is everyone's. There are ineffable horrors that dominate the power." The words were the agonizing confession of a founder; a hero turned into a man terrified by his own gift. And then, she reached the paragraph that made the world stand still.

"A secret is that from speech and writing, the integration of this profane language, that is the Echo, worldview is born. In a certain way, a parallel reality that only your brain is capable of reaching, as if language modified your entire world by understanding the void at this level. That is why those before me called it 'The Imagined Echo'." Selena let out a muffled gasp. It was logical. So logically it hurt. Does not every language do that?

Does not each tongue shape the way we see the world, how we think, how we feel? Her mind, the one that had belonged to the philologist, made the connection with blinding clarity. The Whispering Void was not just a source of power; it was a language. A primordial and dangerous tongue whose grammar was the very understanding of reality, whose vocabulary was paid for with one's own life.

Learning it, integrating it, was not just about memorizing spells; it was about reconfiguring one's own consciousness to perceive a new layer of existence. I am a fool for not understanding it sooner, she thought, while her hands trembled with renewed force and the air seemed to grow scarce in her lungs. Valerian's question —what is born of speech and writing? — was no longer a riddle; it was the key. Understanding. A new reality. With swift, almost furtive movements, she closed the book.

Its value was incalculable, its danger, immense. Knowing that books beyond the fifteenth floor could not be requested for checkout, she made a decision. She hid it in one of the darkest and dustiest spots on that eighteenth floor, between volumes of forgotten genealogies and treatises on extinct beasts. She would reserve it only for herself. It was the most dangerous gift she had ever received: not an object of power, but the key to understanding the very nature of her curse.

Now, she knew that the path of the echo was not just a matter of will or life, but of imagination and of replicating, word by word, spell by spell, one's very perception of the universe. That night, sleep was a chimera. Selena's mind was a whirlwind of ancient letters, royal secrets, and the overwhelming revelation that the void was a language rewriting reality. The questions tangled like serpents in her head, refusing to grant her a single moment of peace.