Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Six: The Chronicler

  The chronicle continued, detailing how the Queen had foreseen the coming darkness and prepared a contingency—a way to preserve their bloodline and the knowledge it carried, even if the kingdom fell. The King had not vanished, as the official histories claimed. He had given up his life to provide the ingredients for a transfer spell of extraordinary power—one that could send a person, or a small group, across the world or even to another universe entirely. His sacrifice had been deliberate, calculated, and born of desperate love.

  The chronicle’s script changed here, giving way to a flowing, almost musical handwriting that seemed to dance across the page with an uncanny vitality, as if the words themselves were alive with possibility.

  By the guidance of Rita Nutkins, Seer of the Seventh Veil, the sacrifice was consecrated. Her eyes, clouded with futures yet unborn, beheld the tapestry of time unraveling and rewoven. Upon her lips, the prophecy unfurled like a midnight bloom:

  Jace’s fingers trembled as he read the prophecy, each word resonating through his Truthsense with the unmistakable ring of absolute certainty:

  “Twin flames born of shadow and light, One of darkness, one of dawn’s first sight. Sons of the Dark One and Queen Osira’s grace, Divided by worlds, united by fate’s embrace.

  The first shall walk paths where shadows dwell, The second shall rise where stories tell Of kingdoms fallen and thrones unclaimed, Of bloodlines hidden and truths unnamed.

  When the White Raven spreads its wings, When the Truthsayer’s heart truly sings, The veil between realms shall grow thin, And the battle for all worlds shall begin.

  Brother with brother they must stand, for together they hold truth in hand. For only united can they stem the tide, Of the darkness their father did hide.“ – Rita N., transcribed by H.

  Jace closed the book with trembling fingers.

  Yet something compelled him to look again. His Truthsense flared to life and small details became clear that he had somehow missed before. His fingers traced the spine of the ancient tome, feeling the subtle variations in its binding—places where new sections had been sewn in, where the craftsmanship shifted ever so slightly. He opened it once more, this time paying attention not just to the words, but to the book itself.

  The pages near the beginning of the book carried the golden hue of extreme age, the ink a faded sepia that told of centuries passed. These sections described a Roandia he could scarcely imagine—gardens that bloomed with flowers whose names had long since vanished from common tongue, fountains where citizens gathered to share poetry beneath stars unobscured by the smoke of industry, libraries where knowledge flowed as freely as wine at festival tables.

  Then came the shift. The handwriting changed, becoming more urgent, the pressure of the quill leaving deeper impressions on the parchment. Those sections were added after the War. After his mother had fallen and Roandia’s collapse. The paper itself was different—slightly coarser, made in haste rather than with the patient craft of peacetime. It divided the two sections of the book, with notations added throughout, all in the same hand.

  The skies have darkened for the third day. The Dark One’s forces gather beyond the eastern ridge. Queen Osira walks the palace halls in silence, her eyes seeing beyond what mortal sight can perceive. The King has not slept. –H.

  Jace’s fingers lingered on that page, feeling the phantom echo of fear that had guided the chronicler’s hand. He turned to the next section, where the parchment changed again—this time to a richer stock, clearly made years later, when some semblance of stability had returned.

  I, Harkenwell, failed Sentinel Prime of the Queen, last descendant to the highborn elves of Unseen Dominion, kneel among the ashes of my former oaths. The royal seal I once wore proudly now a dagger against my breast, its edges sharp with memories of failure. Yet even as disgrace hollows my name, Her Majesty’s final command burns within me—a small, fierce flame refusing to be extinguished by shame.

  Appointed Chronicler of Roandia in the Year of Fallen Stars, I press my trembling quill to parchment once more. Forty years have passed since the Dark One’s shadow first stretched across our lands—forty years of whispered prayers and silent graves, of resistance born in twilight and hope kindled in secret places. Though my hands have aged and my eyes have witnessed horrors that haunt my dreams, I find that truth still recognizes my touch, and honest observation still answers when I call.

  These words are not merely ink on paper, but a bridge between what was lost and what might yet be salvaged. In recording these memories, I honor not only my Queen’s last wish, but also those who fell believing in a dawn they would never see. –H.

  The elven chronicler’s handwriting was distinctive—elegant yet unpretentious, each letter formed with the precision of someone who had centuries to perfect their craft. Jace read on, discovering how Harkenwell had fought the Dark One and lost. How he had survived the years that followed—smuggling war prisoners to freedom under the enemy’s nose—was a tale of quiet defiance.

  The elven blood grants me years that human chroniclers are denied. Perhaps this is why the Queen entrusted me with this task—to witness not just the moment of our fall, but its long aftermath. To record not just how quickly darkness can descend, but how slowly light returns.

  As the chronicle continued, Jace noticed how Harkenwell’s tone shifted over the decades—from raw grief to calculated observation, from desperate hope to measured resignation. The elven chronicler had watched generations of humans live and die under the Regent’s rule, had documented the slow transformation of Roandia from a wounded kingdom awaiting restoration to a hollow shell maintained for purposes beyond its citizens’ understanding.

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  The final pages were written in a hand that trembled slightly—not with fear, but with extreme age.

  The Queen came to me in dreams last night, as she sometimes does when the veil between worlds grows thin. She spoke of her sons—not as children lost, but as men becoming. “The White Raven flies between worlds now”, she says. “The time approaches when truths long buried must surface, when choices made in shadow must face the light of consequence.”

  I, Harkenwell, leave this chronicle now in the hands of the Keeper of Treasures, as was arranged so long ago. My eyes grow dim, but my purpose remains clear. When the heir with truth-seeing eyes comes seeking knowledge, this book shall find its way to him—the final payment of a debt between a chronicler and his queen, between a subject and the woman who saved not just his life, but his faith in the possibility of restoration.

  —Harkenwell, Last Chronicler of Old Roandia In the Year of the Returning Light

  Jace breathed deeply, a strange reverence settling over him. His mother—Queen Osira—had arranged for Harkenwell to add these very pages, and for the book to reach him before she died. She had paid whatever price was necessary to ensure that when he came to Roandia, he would find the truth waiting. Harkenwell had completed his chronicle and entrusted it to the Keeper of Treasures, who had somehow ensured it would reach Jace’s hands.

  How many hands had touched this book, guiding it through centuries toward this moment? How many lives had been lived and lost to preserve these truths until he was ready to receive them?

  The next section of text spoke of the final days. They had fought to protect their people, done everything to stop the Dark One, but the words made clear the odds had been insurmountable. The Queen died in the final siege, her death marking the kingdom’s collapse. Her people scattered, the Tower abandoned for centuries, and the neutral haven became a memory, whispered among those who still remembered the old ways.

  Jace’s breath caught as he turned the page to a sketch. It was a simple charcoal rendering of the queen, but the details were unmistakable. A woman stood tall, her dark hair cascading around her shoulders, her expression serene yet commanding. Her face was regal, sharp, and full of strength. Jace’s breath hitched as recognition clawed at his chest.

  Osira. His mother.

  His fingers trembled as he touched drawing, as if afraid it might dissolve beneath his touch. Tears welled in his eyes, spilling silently down his cheeks. The weight of her gaze from the sketch pressed into him like a physical thing, the faint hint of a smile on her lips both a comfort and a torment. Below the picture, it read:

  “Queen Osira. Before the Fall of Roandia.”

  The words were clinical, devoid of emotion, but they struck Jace harder than any blow. He read and reread the lines, trying to force them to mean more than what they did. She was gone. Tears carved silent paths down his face, warm against the bite of winter’s air.

  Still, something didn’t add up. The tome made no mention of her being a Traveler. Yet Jace knew the truth. He had seen it in the fractured memories of Henry—deep within the soul of the Dark One. Unless Henry had lied, which was always possible. But if what Jace had seen was true, Osira had been a Traveler, just like him. Her memories had grown fragile with time in Terra Mythica and issues with compatibility. And when she had died, she must have respawned but without them.

  After her death, there was no further mention of her. No one saw her again. No one thought to look. They believed her to be another Citizen—and as far as Jace knew, Citizens didn’t respawn.

  Jace stared at the sketch, his tears falling faster now. There was something about her face that tugged at him, deeper than the connection of blood. It was a familiarity beyond the memories of childhood.

  And then it struck him.

  The memory bloomed sharp and vivid: the dim glow of the tavern in Havenstown, the murmur of conversations weaving through the smoky air, and the haunting melody of the traveling bard. Her voice had carried a sorrow that seemed to touch every shadowed corner of the room, a bittersweet lament that had left a knot in his chest long after the final note faded.

  Osira.

  Alive. Unaware of who she had been, of what she had lost.

  An odd sort of realization hit Jace with the force of a gale, tearing through him and leaving him unmoored.

  Strange, he thought, how grief found him now. He hadn’t shed tears for his mother or father during those hollow years in the orphanage. They had been merely concepts then, phantoms without substance or memory to mourn.

  Nor had he wept upon the crushing revelation that his father was the Dark One—the very specter haunting this twisted realm, architect of countless sorrows.

  Yet here, confronted by something so simple, so unexpectedly tender, he broke. His body shuddered with each gasping breath, tears flowing in a current too powerful to stem. A loss long-buried had awakened within him, demanding to be felt at last. A sob tore from his throat—raw and wild.

  She had been there, so close that he could have reached out and touched her, and yet he hadn’t known. She hadn’t known. She couldn’t have. Her memories would have been wiped clean during the respawn.

  The song returned to him in fragments—not its words, but its essence. A melody woven with aching sorrow and fragile hope. It was like trying to hold onto the memory of a dream as it slipped through his fingers, ephemeral and bittersweet. His heart clenched as the truth settled deep within him: that voice, that sorrow, had been his mother’s.

  His breath hitched as his legs gave way, sending him to his knees on the rooftop. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if to block out the flood of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. The tears came anyway, warm and unrelenting. He wanted to shout, to curse the gods. Instead, all that emerged was a choked whisper. “She was right there.”

  Part of him wanted to act on pure instinct, to leap from the rooftop and open a portal, the magic arcing him back to Havenstown faster than reason could catch up. Maybe she was still there, singing her haunting songs in some quiet corner of the tavern. Maybe if she saw him, if he looked into her eyes, something would stir—some spark of recognition. Some part of her would remember.

  But reason clawed its way back, cold and unyielding. She was a traveling bard. She wouldn’t stay in one place for long, moving on to the next town, the next tavern, the next audience to carry her songs away like leaves in the wind. And even if she was still there, what could he possibly say? Hi, Mom. I’m your son, the one you don’t remember, from a life you can’t recall.

  The thought twisted like a knife in his chest. His breath shuddered as he scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, wiping away the tears that refused to stop. He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms, grounding himself in the sting. He couldn’t chase ghosts. Not now.

  But one day… one day, when he had the answers he sought, when he had unraveled the mysteries that bound him to this place, he would find her again. He would help her remember who she was, who they were. And he would look her in the eyes and tell her everything.

  Just not today. He felt some warmth in knowing that, though she didn’t know who he was, she was happy. She was singing.

  He rose, the weight in his chest settling into something cold and resolute. He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and turned away from the skyline. There was no room for what-ifs or might-have-beens. Not yet. For now, he had to move forward.

  The night wind brushed against his face like a gentle reminder that he existed in the present, not just in the pages of history or the echoes of memory. He looked out over the city—not just as a visitor now, but as someone bound to its fate by blood and purpose.