YOU WILL THINK YOU WANT TO READ IT BUT DO NOT. IT WAS NOT MADE FOR YOUR EYES.
**I ALSO TRIED A NEW STYLE OF WRITING FOR LOGOS 9-10, BUT I AM NOT SURE I LIKE IT. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.**
Lethe did not erupt. It exhaled. The breath of that place—older than memory, deeper than silence—spilled across the boundary of Bastion and kissed the Veil with lightless fire. And the sky ignited. Not in flames that consumed, but in radiant intervals—pulses of tone and shimmer, vibrating with frequencies once thought lost. It was not heat that swept the citadel. It was remembrance. Not combustion, but re-collection.
From the edge of Lethe, where resonance met shadow, Lyra stood suspended. She did not flinch. She did not burn. She clarified. The Flame rose around her—tall as time, thin as breath, luminous with harmonic echo. Her skin shimmered with glyphs from all three Books: Life, Light, and Flesh. Not carved, not etched—sung into being by her own resonance.
And then, she split. Not apart. Across. Dozens of Lyras stood now in layered light, each a different version—child Lyra clutching her mother’s journal; warrior Lyra bloodied but grinning in defiance; the Lyra who never left Orin Vale; the Lyra who became a Seer, a Warden, a Weaver. They circled her, and then merged. One harmony. One self. The resonance snapped into clarity like a chord struck at the center of a silent cathedral.
“I am,” she said.
The sky replied in echo.
“We are.”
Behind her, Poseidon watched—silent, stricken. The tide in his chest refused to settle. The truths revealed by Chiron, by Gaia, by the Book of Echoes—they had upended his every belief. He’d known storms. He’d mastered floods. But this—this was fire. Fire that did not devour, but remembered. It was not his element. And yet, it called to him.
“She’s stabilizing it,” Seraphina whispered beside him, her fingers pulsing with icy light. “The Flame isn’t burning her.”
“It’s showing her,” said the Curator, stepping forward, his cloak ink-dark and whispering with spectral scripture. “It’s harmonizing what already was.”
Above them, the Veil cracked—not violently, but with ceremony. The mirror fabric of all realities trembled, rippling outward like a drop in a still pond. Lethe’s edge pulsed. A hum rose—not from mouths, but from marrow. The Flame bent—but did not break. Then Gaia’s voice returned—not as speech, but as tonal gravity.
“This is not punishment.”
“It is pattern.”
Lyra blinked. And saw everything. Not just her past. Not just what might have been. She saw the interval between decisions. The space between steps. The unheard notes between every song ever sung. It was not memory. It was design. She turned—slowly—as the resonance folded into her spine, threading through each cell, etching her presence into the rhythm of the Veil itself.
“I see it now,” she said aloud. “The Flame... doesn’t judge. It reflects. It’s the Breath we forgot to inhale.”
Caelen stepped forward, his silver-black cloak dragging mist as his body shimmered between wolf and man. His voice was low, uncertain.
“Why now?”
“Because we’re finally listening,” she replied.
The Flame bent again, curling toward the Veil, and as it did—the first anomaly emerged. A shadow. Not Erebus. But a silhouette made of absence. A figure not present... yet unmistakably familiar. Not evil. Not good. Just... blank. The resonance stuttered. Poseidon’s eyes narrowed.
“Curator,” he said slowly, “what is that?”
The Curator squinted, glyphs spilling from his gaze like tears.
“It’s a ripple that shouldn’t exist. A memory that was erased—and yet still echoes. I’ve only seen this in...”
“In recursion,” Poseidon finished.
Lyra stepped forward into the Flame. The silhouette mirrored her. The moment slowed. She reached her hand to it. So did the shadow.
“Don’t—” Seraphina warned, reaching out—
But they touched. The world inhaled. The sky flipped—inside out—and suddenly Bastion vanished. The Tribunal cracked. The horizon blurred into itself. And every being—Caelen, Poseidon, the Curator, Seraphina—fell not into chaos, but into vibration. Lyra stood in the center. Alive. And aflame. The silhouette evaporated. Left in its place: a single tone. A new one. A tone not recorded in any of the Three Books. Gaia’s voice, one last time, layered with sorrow and triumph.
“The Flame does not choose. It reveals who already did.”
The note swelled. The Codex of the Flame shimmered into existence—glyphs invisible, waiting to be sung. Poseidon fell to his knees—not in worship, but in recognition. He looked up.
“Now,” he whispered, “we begin.”
The Archive was fractured. Not shattered like glass—but cracked like an old mirror remembering the face it once reflected. Light bent in spirals. Scrolls wept ink into the air. Shelves twisted into spiral staircases that led both upward and inward. Time did not pass here—it curled. And in its center, Lyra slept. Or rather, she dreamed.
But this was not her dream. This was the dream of the Archive itself—the collective dreaming of all memory, all scripture, all versions of truth bleeding together into something volatile and sacred. The Curator stood at the threshold, his hand hovering over the edge of Lyra’s ripple. Glyphs orbited his skin like protective runes, flickering with agitated urgency.
“She’s not alone in there,” he said to no one.
Then corrected himself.
“She shouldn’t be alone.”
He stepped into the dream. Immediately, his form shuddered—not from resistance, but from resonance. He felt himself dissolve and reform, his ink becoming thought, his bones reduced to phonemes.
“Lyra,” he whispered, though his mouth had no shape.
She stood before him—shimmering with light and shadow—her eyes fixed on something he could not yet see. And then he did. Erebus. But not as a beast. Not as a god. As unwriting. A presence of pure negation, like absence painted in thought. He circled Lyra, not striking, not speaking. But undoing. Small things at first—her memories of breath, her sense of distance, the curve of her heartbeat. The Curator raised his hand.
“Back,” he commanded.
But Erebus didn’t flinch. Lyra turned, her voice small. “He’s not erasing me. He’s searching.”
“For what?” the Curator asked, glyphs flaring like solar flares.
“For the silence,” she said. “The space between my Light.”
Erebus paused. Turned. And for the first time, spoke.
“I am not your undoing. I am your interval.”
The Archive groaned. Entire books screamed, their pages tearing themselves from bindings. Dream-fragments rained from above—visions of Lyra’s past selves colliding, merging, screaming. The Curator bellowed a phrase in the Source Tongue—one not spoken since before memory. Glyphs struck the air like swords. They embedded into Erebus. He staggered—but did not bleed. He echoed. And from that echo came another presence. Gaia. Not in form. Not in light. But in feeling. A breeze that smelled like every origin. A pulse that rewrote the heartbeat of the scene. She wrapped around Erebus, not to banish—but to frame.
“You are not the shadow,” she whispered, her voice layered with grief and peace. “You are the space between my light.”
Erebus stilled.
The Curator’s glyphs softened. Lyra began to vibrate. Not violently. But cleanly. The dream folded in on itself. Scripture rewrote itself backward, then forward again. Fragments stitched back into wholeness. The Archive began to hum. Lyra stepped forward. No longer girl. No longer god.
But interval. Between mortal and myth. Between chaos and cradle. And she sang. One note. Low. Steady. Unfinished. But undeniable. And Erebus—He bowed his head. Not in defeat. In resonance. The Mirror Veil no longer shimmered like glass. It pulsed—alive, prismatic, breathing. Its surface no longer reflected what was in front of it, but what was ready. Not what the mind desired—but what the soul accepted. The air around it was heavy with clarity, a tension more ancient than stormclouds.
Poseidon stood just before it, his trident unlit, his hands no longer clenched. Beside him, Seraphina hovered in half-form—one foot in the realm of flame, the other in frost. Caelen, newly whole, breathed deep in his chest, as if steadying a war that still vibrated in his bones. Lyra approached last. Her hands hummed, faint light coiling through her fingertips, the resonance of the Three Books still echoing in her marrow. Each of them reached for the Veil. Their fingers made contact.
It did not ripple. It sang. One tone. Pure. Untranslatable. And from its center came a voice. Not Gaia. Not Chaos. Not Erebus. Not Atom. Something before them. Something that had never needed a name.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“I created the Flame.”
“All that is, was, and shall be—are sparks of Me.”
“The gods. The angels. The demons. The animals.”
“The planets. The suns. The people. The seekers.”
“You are not of Me.”
“You are Me—learning how to sing again.”
The Veil pulsed with each syllable, vibrating through every dimension, folding light around them like fingers pressing into clay. The four chosen did not move. Could not. Inside each of them, a chorus began to unravel their understanding. Caelen fell to one knee—not in worship, but because the memories of every wolf he had ever killed whispered forgiveness through the hum. Seraphina gasped, seeing—not a prophecy—but a possibility she had once buried deep: her life as a guardian of the Veil, not a wielder of punishment.
Poseidon wept. Not from pain. But from release. The burden of rule, of oceans, of conflict—it melted like tide pulled into a higher tide. And Lyra—She smiled. Because the voice didn’t silence her. It answered her.
“You asked what you are.”
“You are My breath before it became language.”
Then the Veil began to crack—not in destruction, but in birth. Light peeled from its seams. The glyphs within it no longer static, but dancing. The Curator stepped forward. “This is a new Codex,” he murmured. “A language older than words.” And then—A disruption. The glyphs in the Veil shattered momentarily. And from the breach came not a demon. Not a beast. But a scroll. Golden. Burning without heat. Sealed with neither wax nor blood—but song. Poseidon reached for it. It unrolled on its own. And God’s voice returned.
“The Simulacrum continues.”
“You are the echoes of My First Thought.”
“Now write the Second.”
Caelen looked to Lyra. Seraphina grabbed Poseidon’s arm. The Curator was already transcribing. The Veil began to vibrate again—this time with uncertainty. Because now they knew. It was not over. It was beginning.
The inner sanctum of Poseidon’s temple was unlike any other place in Bastion or Lethe. It was built not from stone or light, but from shifting tides of memory and harmonic intent. The walls moved gently, like a calm sea breathing in and out. Every surface shimmered with the faint echo of waves that had never touched shore. Poseidon stood at the center. Beneath his feet, the Tidal Disk glowed faintly—its ancient resonance waiting to be rewritten. He was alone. But only for a moment.
Lyra entered first, her presence quiet but anchored. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. Her gaze held a question he had yet to answer. Seraphina followed, her steps colder than before, her fire dimmed by the voice of the Flame. Then Caelen stepped in, carrying the weight of something unspoken—a howl still trapped beneath his breath. The Curator arrived last, silent as always, but ink dripping from his fingertips, ready to record. Poseidon faced the sea of glyphs cascading along the chamber’s edge. They shimmered in response to his breath. Words unspoken. Names never given.
“Speak,” Lyra said softly.
Poseidon looked at his hands. Once gods, now only guides.
“Everything we were,” he said, “was scaffolding. Crutches for a symphony we didn’t know how to conduct.”
Seraphina folded her arms. “And what now? Do we just burn it down and walk into fire with hope?”
“No,” Poseidon replied. “We do what we were meant to do from the beginning.”
He stepped onto the center of the Tidal Disk.
“I will form an order.”
They all looked to him.
“An order that carries this flame. That sings what can’t be written. That remembers the pattern, even when the song falters.”
He raised his trident—not in command, but in offering.
“They shall be called the Men of Atom.”
Silence.
Lyra tilted her head. “Only men?”
“No,” Poseidon said. “The name is ancient—it means both. Man and Woman. Duality. As it always was in the beginning.”
He walked toward the forming altar at the edge of the chamber—new stone rising from water.
“But only those who carry both sides of creation—cisgender male or female—may walk this path. Not from exclusion... but from balance.”
Seraphina stepped forward. “And what of the rest?”
“They will be welcomed. Loved. Revered. But not initiated into this flame. Just as the flame does not consume—it clarifies. The path must be walked with both poles present, physically, spiritually, vibrationally.”
Lyra frowned, then nodded. “Like resonance itself. Male. Female. Frequency. Wavelength.”
Poseidon smiled.
“Exactly.”
He turned to Caelen.
“You will guard the threshold. Teach them what it means to carry the howl of memory.”
Caelen bowed once. “I already do.”
The Curator approached, holding the first Codex. Its surface was blank. But it pulsed with rhythm.
“We will not write it,” Poseidon said. “We will sing it.”
The glyphs on the walls spiraled inward, forming the first shape.
“THE FLAME IS MEMORY CLARIFIED.”
The trident’s tip ignited—not in fire, but in frequency. And Poseidon began to hum. One note. Then another. The room answered. The Disk glowed. The Codex opened. And the first breath of the Men of Atom was taken. Not in conquest. But in becoming.
The hidden chamber beneath the Mirror Veil was unlike any temple, archive, or sanctum the gods had ever crafted. Its walls were carved from unspoken tones, and the very air shimmered with latent glyphs, floating like mist waiting to be breathed into song. There was no ceiling—only the hum of the Veil above, pulsing like the surface of a living star.
Poseidon stepped first through the resonance threshold, his bare feet echoing as if the ground remembered him differently now. The trident no longer buzzed with power—it rang with purpose.
Behind him came Lyra, glowing with harmonic saturation. Her presence was a walking chord, the weight of all three Books hovering just behind her gaze. Then Caelen, the Gatewolf, his stride heavy but precise, the howl in his soul tempered now into something older—something shaped. Last came the Curator, his ink not just wet with memory, but thick with destiny. He held the Codex in both hands—its pages blank, vibrating.
At the chamber’s center stood the Flame Pillar. It was not fire. It was frequency turned vertical. A column of luminous harmonics that pulsed with notes too ancient to be remembered, too intimate to be forgotten. It moved like water but sang like stone. They gathered around it. The Codex hovered from the Curator’s grasp and positioned itself in the air before the pillar.
The Curator whispered, “It begins.”
Lyra closed her eyes. A soft hum left her lips. One by one, each glyph in the Codex sparked into being—not written, but remembered. Their shapes twisted through harmonic geometry, forming meanings not in language, but in sensation. The first line glowed.
- The Flame is Memory Clarified.
The second appeared.
- Truth is not told. It is tuned.
Each phrase revealed was not a rule, but a chord. The chamber shifted with every stanza. Poseidon reached out, brushing one of the floating glyphs. It melted into his hand—and a vision struck him—Twelve figures standing around another pillar. Each wore different glyphs across their skin. Men. Women. All vibrating in unison.
“They’re not followers,” he whispered. “They’re Initiates.”
Caelen grunted. “And the price?”
Before Poseidon could answer, the Codex shifted again.
“THE NINE ECHOES OF THE SIMULACRUM”
“1. The First Breath was not Air. It was Intention.”
“2. The Second Flame was not Fire. It was Remembrance.”
“3. The Third Death was not Ending. It was Return.”
Each Echo triggered a subtle quake through the chamber—memories rebounding against the present. Lyra faltered for a moment, clutching her chest.
“I felt Gaia,” she said, breathless. “Not as goddess—as vibration.”
The Codex shifted again.
“THE THREE BOOKS UNITED”
“Life. Light. Death.”
Glyphs of each appeared, orbiting the Flame Pillar. The room darkened. The Codex paused.
The Curator frowned. “Why has it stopped?”
Caelen sniffed the air. “Something’s wrong. The resonance... it’s unbalanced.”
Poseidon tilted his head. The Pillar began to flicker.
Lyra stepped closer. “It’s trying to complete the Key.”
“THE TWELVE KEYS OF INITIATION” blinked once into existence.
But only eleven appeared. The twelfth was blank. The Codex shuddered. And then the Flame Pillar screamed. A burst of pure harmonic pressure blew outward—not destructive, but shocking. Everyone was thrown backward. The twelfth glyph emerged—blazing hot.
- That Which Has No Name Must Still Be Sung.
And from beneath the floor—A second Pillar began to rise. One of silence. A black column of negation, pulsing in rhythm with the Flame. Caelen growled, stepping in front of Lyra. Poseidon raised his trident.
The Curator whispered, “This... was not written.”
The second Codex—one of shadow—rose beside the first. Its glyphs were inverted. And across its cover.
“THE BOOK OF ATOM”
The Flame pulsed once more. And from the darkness beneath the Codex of Flame... something stirred. The twin Pillars stood in stillness. Flame and Silence. One radiating every tone ever sung. The other holding every note never uttered. The chamber trembled, not from instability, but from the unbearable pressure of potential.
Above them, the Veil shimmered with anticipation. Poseidon watched the twin Codices—one alive with light, the other etched in shadow. For a moment, nothing moved. No words were spoken. Then, the Codex of Flame began to vibrate again. Not wildly. But with a kind of reverence. Glyphs began to rise from the open pages—no longer singular, but braided. Each glyph now wrapped in a mirrored pair, as if language had learned to echo itself. Lyra stepped forward. Her eyes glowed with the light of the three Books.
“I feel them both,” she whispered. “As if every truth we told... was always waiting to be questioned.”
The Curator tilted his head. “Perhaps that was the point.”
Caelen circled the dark Pillar, his boots crunching softly on harmonized ash.
“This Book of Atom...” he growled. “It doesn't threaten us. But it waits.”
“For what?” Seraphina’s voice came from the stairwell above, as she stepped into view. “A mistake? A silence?”
“No,” Poseidon said. “For the Word.”
All eyes turned toward the Veil. It no longer shimmered. It opened. mAnd beyond it—was not sky. Not stars. But Source. A blinding emptiness that hummed with infinite expectation. The space beyond intention. Gaia’s presence brushed through them—not in form, but in harmonic awareness. She did not speak. She merged. And from the chamber floor, the Flame Pillar released a wave of tonal light that licked across the chamber, touching each of them.
Poseidon staggered. Caelen inhaled sharply.
The Curator dropped to one knee. But Lyra stood tall. The glyphs around her began to orbit faster. Her skin shimmered like a prism caught mid-breath. The Codices turned. Not by hands. By readiness. A final glyph emerged—one not sung, not seen, but felt. It pulsed in the air between the Codices. Lyra reached for it. The moment she touched it—Everything paused. A silent tone swept across realms. Lethe fell quiet. Bastion stilled. The stars blinked. And a new chord struck. It was not in a key. It was the key.
Poseidon wept again, but his tears felt... ancient. As if someone he never knew had just forgiven him. Caelen howled—not to warn, not to mourn, but to echo. The Flame Pillar cracked. Not from failure—from birth. And the Codex closed. Not with finality. With rhythm. Lyra opened her mouth. And spoke a word no one could translate. Only resonate. And the Veil responded. A ripple. A name. Not Logos. Logoi.
The Plural Word. The Men of Atom stood in that moment—not as rulers, not as relics, but as scribes of the fire. The chamber began to dissolve, not violently, but harmonically. Walls turned into chords. Light folded into ink. And just before the chamber was fully rewritten into frequency—A question. From nowhere.
From God.
“You’ve remembered the Flame.”
“But will you remember why?”