A sigh escaped Loen’s lips at the weight of expectation that hung heavily upon them. He had spent a week teaching Sol some basic moves, while also working overtime to search for a member or two. Sol was a quick learner, that part was easy. Though, the other part was difficult. The men at the tavern had banned him, the shop keepers at the market threw at him rotten tomatoes. Even the children ushered away as he approached them. The city had teeth, and Loen learned it the hard way.

  The youngster, of course, never let that weigh him down. He practiced now with a grin and a wooden sword, the thunk of oak against oak being so bright and honest in the empty lot behind the market. It was far from grand as the amphitheater they had been to, but between the steam and arteries of Solthar, it felt comfortable enough.

  The blonde swung a wooden sword at Sol and with another thunk, and they clashed. Sol staggered, swinging his own at Loen but it missed. As they sparred, he corrected Sol’s stance with the bluntness of someone who had spent childhood stealing posture from soldiers.

  "You’re holding it like it’s a sack of flour," Loen stated, observing Sol’s weak stance. "Wider feet. Tighten the core! Swing with the whole body, not just your arms. Right now, you’d barely take down a drunk squirrel."

  Sol said nothing, only nodded. Sweat dripped down his temples, stinging his eyes. Somewhere deep inside, he knew the problem wasn’t strength. It was also hesitation, as he had never thought to fight seriously before. Not the bullies, and surely not an experienced mercenary. It had always been spur of moments that drove him to resist, but never intended.

  The days bled together. They carried crates at the docks when they could, scrubbed grime from alleyways for coppers, even fetched water for an old washerwomen in one of the underground alleys. Loen made every menial task feel like a grand adventure, laughing and chatting, while Sol kept his silence and listened. It was enough to feed them for the night, nothing more than that, despite the fact that Loen insisted it was somehow enough.

  It was during one of these wanderings, after hauling sacks of coal, that they found themselves in front of the corkboard at the edge of the market square, again, and looking for the next errand to go on.

  Enough is enough! Sol screamed in his head, and they began searching for a job that would not simply have them sleep on an empty stomach again.

  "Pest control… no. Street sweeping… boring. Delivery work… eh." Loen leaned in and read out. His pale colored eyes darted across the corkboard.

  Sol’s gaze caught on a faded parchment pinned near the bottom. Unlike the others, it was not scrawled in an ugly handwriting, but neatly written, stamped with the sigil of the Cathedral—al that was glittering and gold as the Sun.

  "By decree of the Custodians of the Archive: Seekers are required to locate and recover an object of antiquity. Hazardous travel expected. Generous reward, negotiable upon proof of capability. Apply within the Third Hall of the Archive, before the turning of the next moon."

  "Told you we’d find something big. Ancient relics, Sol! That’s not work—that’s destiny." Loen grinned as if the relic were already hanging from his belt. How optimistic, Sol thought to himself.

  "That’s an overstatement."

  "No more crates, no more fish guts, no more rotting bread! This is legend stuff!" Loen cackled, plucking the notice free before anyone else could. They were not going to waste a breath here.

  And with that they found themselves before the heart of Solthar.

  Entering a Cathedral building was unnerving, for it screamed authority. The kind that Sol did not exactly enjoy. He gulped once, taking a step forward, following in the footsteps of Leon.

  The two boys moved as a pair into the Archive, a place that smelled of dust and towering shelves stretched toward vaulted ceilings. Here faint light seeped through colored glass. The place felt older than the city itself, humming beneath the weight of secrets.

  Sol followed Loen’s lead until they came upon the desk.

  A woman approached from between the shelves. Her footsteps were crisp against the marble floor. She was tall, her blond hair pinned neatly in a bun, and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched at the end of her nose. She carried a clipboard tucked beneath one arm.

  Her gaze swept over them once, appearing wholly unconvinced at the sight of two children in the records. Exactly where they didn't belong…

  "Children," she said it like a verdict, as if the word alone might settle a decision and escort them out.

  "Madam Sophia, right? We are here for the relic job," Loen grinned as if it were a compliment." Saw your notice on the board."

  "And you thought it wise to come here?" Her brow arched in judgment.

  "We’ve got spirit," Loen said with optimism, pressing a hand to his chest. "And brains..." He continued unsure of himself, "And, uh, a surprising amount of endurance for people our size. Surely."

  He did try to convince himself and not just the lady before them. But Sophia’s lips thinned, even more unconvinced now. She adjusted her glasses, folded her arms, staring as though sheer disapproval might drive them from the hall.

  "We’re not here to waste your time. If the job still needs doing… we’ll see it through," Sol added, though his voice was low but steady enough, and for a moment the silence that followed carried more weight than Loen’s chatter.

  "The job is expected to be completed by the end of this week. The relic I seek is in danger of being lost again, and the Archive demands results before the turning of the next moon. Do you have any idea what that entails? No, of course you don’t!" Miss Sophia lectured them as if they were students receiving a failing grade, and Sol wondered if Loen ever went to a school. His life at the orphanage gave him enough experience in that.

  "That’s why you need us. Fresh perspective. No bad habits. And hey! We’ll work harder than the ones who turned you down!" Loen leaned forward, eyes sparkling.

  The lady of the archives frowned for a moment.

  "Very well," she said at last. "As it happens, another has already signed up for this expedition. A… difficult person. You may prove useful, if balance them out."

  Loen lit up instantly. "Really? Then we’d love to team up!" He cheered.

  Sophia chose not to comment. Instead, she slipped a folded parchment from her clipboard and pressed it into Loen’s hand. "This is the location of the rendezvous. Three days’ time, by dawn. Do not be late."

  "See? Told you—destiny." Loen turned to Sol, and pocketed the slip, grinning ear to ear.

  Sophia inclined her head curtly, and then returned to her papers, dismissing them without another word. And with that, they left the Archive with a defiance hanging between them. Now, all that was left was the search into the ruins.

  And in three days’ time, the sky birthed a slow dawn. It had just begun to bleed from indigo into gold. Loen had not caught a hint of sleep in the last three days, and the lack of sleep was surely getting to him with how he sat by the entrance of the ruins, knees drawn up. His usual grin was missing, replaced with a rare uncertainty.

  They stood quite far from the city of smog and cogs. Sol cherished the warmth of sun as it caressed his skin. The hues of tangerine and rose stretched over the distant fields like whispered promises. It had been ages since he had last seen the dawn—or perhaps, he had never seen one so clearly before. Now, he stood at the edge of the stone steps leading into the ancient ruin, as he watched the sunrise.

  They were waiting.

  "You think they are coming?" Loen asked quietly, eyes still fixed on the ground.

  "No idea," Sol replied after a moment of thought, "But we can’t wait forever."

  Loen stood and stretched, rolling his shoulders with a forced shrug. "Well... two’s a lucky number somewhere, right?" He questioned with a tired smile.

  With a shared glance that spoke volumes, they stepped into the domain. With the sun rising behind them like a silent guardian, the two disappeared into purple ripples of the ruins gate.

  The first thing Sol noticed inside the ruin was the air that thickened with a sense of foreboding. The maze had its pathways lined with jagged stones that seemed to pulse with a sinister abyssal energy. At the very end was what seemed like an ancient library. When they stepped into the heart of the ruin, the bookshelves rearranged themselves, and staircases double back. They twisted and turned, leading to an endless aisles of bookshelves.

  So the relic is a book? Sol wondered to himself, as he observed the vast hall filled with shelves, cases, and floating relics suspended in heavy air. A place where each item pulsed faintly with memory, something so close to a fragment of emotion.

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  Loen's the first to speak, naturally. "What is this place? A museum of... books?" He pondered out loud.

  "It's a library, stupid."

  Loen did not retort, he chose to explore; he began picking up stray object that float, touching shards of scarlet fragments, and flipping through books containing ancient languages.

  "This map just bit me!" He yelped when paper turned traitor and an object clamped to his fingers, yanking the cursed parchment off.

  "That’s the third cursed object you’ve touched!"

  "I thought it was just glowing!"

  "Stop touching glowing things!"

  They walked through different aisles, and Sol felt a faint murmur of screams and echoes of the past. He ignored it—atleast tried to—until a smell of something burning reached him. Widened eyes, he looked around frantically for a source of fire, panic erupting inside him.

  "L—Loen!" He called, voice coming out in a choke.

  Shadows crept up the shelves, reaching out for him, he gripped the front of his clothes, right on his beating heart. They crept closer and closer, with whispers of the children who were burned in the fire.

  "Look!" Loen exclaimed and Sol was finally kicked out of his haze for a second. He turned to where Loen pointed and he saw an orb floating on a platform away from the aisles of bookshelves.

  They had reached an end.

  "It seems this must be a way to navigate within this ruin!" He spoke as if he is so sure of himself, and Sol stared at him dumbly. "Where ever the artifacts lie, it must lead us to it... Don’t you think so too?" Loen asked once more.

  "How can you be so sure?" The boy finally questioned with a frown.

  "Just a hunch." The blonde grinned. "But it is worth a try. I don't think I have seen what we need to find within the library... The lady didn’t specify the relic either!"

  The walked closer to it, and Sol felt the smoke getting stronger, feeling it was more painful to breathe.

  Loen lifted his hand and touched the sphere, the ripples spread through the air, unfurling like a blooming scarlet flower. The library maze swirled before them like a whirlpool, and in a flash, Sol and Loen were separated as the architecture of memory consumed them.

  Sol attempted to reach out, yet failed before Loen dissolved into fragments of himself. The room shifted and he stepped into an endless void. One that was all gray earth, black sky, and no visible horizon.

  From the obscured sky, ash fell like snow. Sol’s breath was warm against the chill of his surroundings. He shivered in the cold, and the lack of heat and light. There was no sun here, just ash and obscurity. But then, he had remained quite unfamiliar with the sun throughout his childhood. His amber eyes gazed around and he saw him. The ever-familiar face of Finnian smiled at him, back in that room of Granny Lethea’s cottage.

  He is inside the memory orb now, as the boy understood it, at least.

  "You always run when you’re scared," the voice spoke first. Now, the room burned around them. And suddenly, it is no longer freezing, as the temperature rises slowly but surely, sweat began to form on Sol’s temple as heat reached him. His hand was frozen in place by his side, unable to reach out to the fragment of his friend.

  In the center of the flames, stood a twisted figure now, no longer the young boy, but a darker form of something otherworldly. Black tentacles circled him that looked wrong. Too familiar and still too human, yet not.

  His pulse stuttered as the stench hit him first like the sour tang of burnt copper—of death. That smell was always the same, no matter the form it wore, they told him in the form of stories, and Sol knew now for sure.

  The Abyss made sure to leave its mark in the air in the form of abyssal wraiths—the remnants of souls twisted by their own guilt. No, they are not souls, but emotions birthed from hatred, vengeance and sorrow. Sometimes, they are born from humans who are twisted by the touch of the abyss, other times, born from miasma of the abyss itself.

  "An abyssal-wraith in this place?" He uttered in shock, and to no one in particular. He had just burned three of them not a while back, and here he was, facing it again. Facing that cursed memory again. The one he had tried so hard to rub away by scraping on his skin.

  And as the wraith leaped, it didn't attack physically but it began to burn away hope and the fire within him. Each dodge and blow brought flashbacks of the warehouse, the fire, and the deaths. The flames around them were ever familiar, and it’s heat real, not just a memory anymore.

  Sol gripped his jacket, hoping to find the familiar charm and burn it all away to ash, as he lept around, dodging the countless arms thrown his way. The demon wailed, carrying whispers of Finnian’s voice. It hurt to hear them, like a screech in his ears, and Sol winced. Yet, he could not slow; he could not for it was life or death even within an illusion.

  A sharp tentacle, like a root sprouting from the scorched earth sliced his forearm, breaking through his skin so deep, and he bled. It’s real. He realized as another one took it’s chance to cut his thigh, and he could no longer keep up with the tendrils. He was smaller, slower, and quite literally inexperienced. He had no desire to fight what carried the memories of his brother.

  Sol jumped back, holding his arm in pain, as the blood slowly soaked the sleeves, darkening them. The demon wrapped all that is around him in darkness, with it’s tendrils. The flames of hope were extinguished, and Sol was losing.

  "You… murderer!" It screeched. "You! You were supposed to die! Not me! Never me."

  The ground disappeared into ripples as hands arose from the void, and a face arose beneath him as the wailing demons face is so close. It opens it’s mouth wide enough to consume the young boy, but he does not run any longer. He couldn't run, for he stood on it's mouth, one that contained the eternal abyss beneath it. He had nowhere to escape to.

  "I couldn’t save you, and I still can’t." Sol gripped it tight, the Sun charm that flares to life in his pocket. His only hope, but he lifted it not to kill, but to cleanse this time.

  It is not real, he assured himself as warm fire erupted, consuming the surroundings, replacing the black flames of destruction with those of warmth and purification.

  "But I can remember you, and live with it," he said, quietly.

  That night, with not a single speck of smog in the sky, Finnian rested in his arms. Sol cried, he cried until he had no more tears left to shed. He couldn't comprehend that Finnian was truly gone. His physicality and the notion of death continued to repel each other. Nothing felt real, even after dragging his cold body back to the burning orphanage.

  But now, Sol realized, reality was cruel. It was cruel and merciless, but it was ever real. In that moment, the darkness burned away, leaving behind white. Sol floated in the blindness, hugging his only friend. He could not feel his warmth, nor any cold of the body from his final memory.

  "I remember you now, because that's all I can do," Sol said. "There memories of you are all that I will continue to carry into the future, because that's all I can do."

  Finnian smiled in his arms, peaceful this time, yet he still emit no warmth. Sol’s heart ached at the fact that he is not holding his friend, but a fragment of Finnian’s soul. The young boy disappeared in a thousand feathers, leaving behind one in Sol’s palm. He held onto it one last time, accepting his past, and letting the light return to his eyes.

  Now, he would fulfill a promise.

  · ? ·

  In the other memory, floors became walls as the walls warped into ceilings.

  "You’re no hero. You’ll turn on them too, just like you turned on me." Loen heard his father’s booming voice echoing within the walls. Vision of his past flashed before his eyes, and he stood there frozen, at most his hands trembled at his sides.

  It was dark in the room with the only light coming from the creak of the door. The steps echoed in the hall, floor woods creaked underneath some heavy weight of someone moving.

  "You abandoned your family. That’s the truth." A dark figure appeared before him, as the door slowly opened. The imposing figure blocked the golden light of the lamp behind him. And Loen couldn't move anymore, he remained stuck in his place as fear slowly held him down. With his legs, then with his arms, and finally his throat, as he completely ceased breathing.

  The figure stepped closer, with each step a second closer to his end. Loen stared at the ground as two feet appear in his sight, and he waited for an impact of what was to come down as judgement—a glass bottle, a heavy hand, or even a wooden plank.

  In an instance, a blast of golden light ripped through the illusion, burning the false room to a brilliant flames. Loen fell, but hand grabbed his arm. When he looked up, Sol’s face appeared through the crumbling illusion, fierce and focused as ever, eyes burning with resolve. Loen nearly broke into his own tears, until Sol yanked at him, snapping the spell that was cast upon him.

  He grabbed Loen and screamed, "You know that’s not real! Look at me. If you can’t trust the illusion, then trust me!" And behind them, the illusions screeched in rage.

  They were both back into the maze of endless bookshelves and artifacts, panting. Loen stood up first, hearing a creak of a shelf. They were no longer alone, that was certain. Loen had realized it alongside his friend.

  "The sphere!" He exclaimed, "It’s gone!"

  A boom resounded in the domain of something coming towards them. Sol got up, eyes burning.

  "Let’s go! Whatever it is, we cannot let it catch us."

  They share a silent nod, they start rushing through the maze, trying to find the exit. A creature of darkness and red eyes begins chasing them. It was the monster of illusion, the keeper of this maze, no doubt.

  Loen spotted a gap, they rush into another aisle, the stairs led them up, and Sol turned to watch the lower floor sink into a void; the abyss.

  "What the hell is that!?"

  "As if I know!"

  Right as everything is about to crash into chaos, they jump onto a wall, letting it become the floor. The domain followed no logic of gravity, they ran above bookshelves, switched walls, rushed up stairs, yet the looming darkness followed them everywhere with a goal.

  Jumping off a bookshelf, they reached a dead end of an aisle. The wall loomed over them.

  "You…" The monster’s gooey body of abyssal matter became smaller to ease it slipping through bookshelves. It's corruption consumed the shelves and the ground into nothingness.

  "Your fate is.." It spoke, yet it is barely comprehensible, "…ablaze.."

  "What are you saying, damn wraith?" Sol yelled but easily hypnotized as multiple eyes appear in the blob of void. All red, and staring towards him.

  Loen became ready to fight or flee, shifting his stance.

  In an instance, it surged like a sea wave towards them, ready to consume. Loen summoned his weapon, a war-axe bigger than his size, ready to strike a clean arc into the black matter. In the same moment, a mirror is summoned behind them in ripples of purple. A flash of purple energy shot out, pulsing in the air. The monster wails, dark tendrils shooting out. It aims them at the group, but a shield of magic circle blocks it’s attacks.

  The mirror rippled once more as a foot steps out following with a woman in a witch hat and a frilly black dress that brushed her knees and calves. Floating towards the two, her hat slightly tilted, her dress flared behind her like she choreographed the wind itself. With a flick of her staff, she shot out another clean, violet beam and dispelled the darkness.

  The shelves began to slowly creak into their places.

  "Honestly, one would think a mission in a library would filter out the muscle-heads." She didn't turn to face them as she passed on a comment.

  "What did you just call us?" Loen exclaimed, and Sol nodded in agreement. "We came to work, not to impress you!"

  "Thank you for helping us, but who are you?" He questioned her in a polite tone yet on guard for she could very well be another illusion in the ruins. And the said girl finally turned around to face them, long ash brown hair whipping in the wind. She has a disappointed and uninterested look on her face.

  "You can call me Marguerite. Marguerite Howell," she said at last, tilting her head just so. "Try to keep up. I detest explaining things twice."

  With a flick of her wrist, the air shimmered. A magic circle bloomed beneath her boots, etched with glowing script.

  "Now… if you’re done playing tag with wraiths, we have a domain to dismantle."