Chapter 34 The door that will never open again.
I woke before sunrise.
The room was still shrouded in shadows, and the only sound was Conrad's slow breathing beside me. I wished that whirlwind had never happened, that everything had gone according to plan.
I didn't want a whirlwind, burned bodies, a destroyed kingdom, or riddles to solve. But my path was already set.
I got up carefully, trying not to wake him, and walked to the window. The moon was still hiding behind the mountains, and the sky was beginning to turn gray. The kingdom was slowly awakening, oblivious to the fact that the future had chosen me by force.
The Sunken Archive.
The name echoed in my mind, causing me unease.
If something really existed buried beneath the castle, I needed to find it before the next moon rose in the sky.
I dressed silently, choosing clothes too simple for a Luna, but perfect for going unnoticed. I tied my hair back, grabbed a small dagger—not to fight, but to feel less alone—and left the room before my courage decided to flee from me.
The corridors were almost empty at that hour. The cold marble beneath my feet reminded me of how many secrets that castle had already swallowed.
It was then that I heard footsteps.
"Running away at dawn?"
Kael emerged from the bend in the corridor, his face too serious for someone who had just woken up.
"I wasn't running away." I lied.
He tilted his head, his eyes scanning something I couldn't hide.
"You're lying to me, but not to yourself. There's urgency in you... and fear. A lot of fear."
I swallowed hard.
"I just need to walk."
"Then don't walk alone," he replied. "Because whatever you're about to find... it's not something the moon wants forgotten again."
Without touching me, Kael turned and began walking toward the lower stairs—the ones that led to the castle's oldest levels.
The Sunken Archive was closer than I had imagined.
I descended behind Kael without saying a word.
Each step seemed to push me away from the life I knew and into something too ancient to be named. The air grew colder as we advanced, and the smell of damp stone replaced the fragrance of the flowers from the upper floor.
"No one has come down here since the castle's foundation," Kael murmured. "Not even kings like to remember what was buried."
"Then why did you bring me?" I asked.
He stopped before a smooth wall of black rock.
"Because you carry not only fear," he replied. "You carry memories that are not your own."
Kael pressed his palm against the stone. There was no light, no sound. Only a recoil. The wall moved as if breathing, revealing a narrow corridor that descended even further.
The floor was marked with symbols identical to those I had seen in the whirlwind. My heart raced.
"I've seen this before..." I whispered.
"I know," Kael replied. "That's why I waited for you to wake up."
We walked to a circular room, where dark metal shelves held scrolls, stone tablets, and fragments of broken objects.
In the center, a pedestal supported a book bound by blackened silver chains.
"Names don't die," Kael said softly. "They're just hidden."
When I touched the book, the chains crumbled like dust.
On the first page was only one sentence:
"The hybrids weren't exterminated. They were erased."
My stomach churned.
"Erased... how?" I asked.
Kael watched the air around me, restless.
"They didn't erase bodies. They erased stories. Families. Records. The moon stopped recognizing them... because someone taught it to forget."
I flipped through the following pages and found endless lists of names forcibly crossed out, broken symbols, and a seal I recognized immediately.
The same fragment I now carried with me.
"The Shattered Link..." I murmured. "It's not a legend."
"No," Kael confirmed. "It's a wound. And you're the first Luna in centuries who can still feel it."
The silence in the room seemed to deepen after those words.
"A wound in whom?" I asked.
Kael looked away at the dust-covered bookshelves.
"In the kingdom. On the moon. And in you."
I closed the book slowly, feeling the weight of it not in my hands, but in my chest.
"If the hybrids were erased... then someone did it on purpose."
"They did," he replied. "And they weren't monsters. They were kings. Priests. Advisors. People who swore to protect."
My stomach churned.
"And Conrad?" I whispered.
Kael didn't hesitate.
"He doesn't know. The erasure happened before his lineage reached the throne. But the system that keeps everything buried... still breathes."
The tightness in my chest lessened, a relief knowing Conrad was completely innocent. I ran my fingers over the symbol engraved on the book's cover.
"What happens if I gather the fragments of the Link?"
"The moon will see again," he said. "And everything that was forgotten will demand a place again."
"Even if it destroys what exists today?"
Kael stared at me with an intensity that made my skin crawl.
"Especially if it destroys it."
I heard distant footsteps echoing in the hallway leading to the room.
"Someone's coming," I murmured.
Kael touched my shoulder.
"Then listen carefully, Maya. The Sunken Archive doesn't open twice for the same person. Take only what you can carry in here."
He placed his hand on my chest, exactly where the symbol seemed to throb.
"Because from now on, you're not just searching for hybrids anymore... you're unearthing a lie that sustains this throne."
Kael released my hand and, in the blink of an eye, the stone wall moved again, slowly closing access to the Sunken Archive.
The book vanished into the shadows, as if it had never existed. We stood motionless, listening to the footsteps approaching down the ancient corridor.
Two guards appeared around the bend in the stairs.
"Lord Kael? Your Majesty requested that we find you."
My heart nearly leaped from my throat. Kael inclined his head naturally.
"The new Luna needed some fresh air. The celebrations were far too long."
The guards stared at me for a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, until one of them nodded. We left that place and the sunlight already filled the castle corridors. Conrad came to meet me.
"You disappeared when I woke up."
"I needed to breathe." It was the only truth I could offer.
He held my hand, and in that simple touch lay everything I most feared losing. I begged that it would never happen.
But that was the beginning of the downfall of an entire story—
and I had been chosen to write it from scratch.