The Sunken Archive smelled of damp parchment and salt-licked stone, the air thick with the weight of words never spoken. Aeris waded through the flooded corridor, her boots sloshing in ankle-deep water, the lantern in her hand casting flickering reflections on the walls. Behind her, Kael lagged, his usual swagger replaced by an uncharacteristic wariness.

  "You dragged me away from a perfectly good tavern for this?" he called, nudging a floating bottle with the toe of his boot. It bobbed away, the parchment inside curling like a sleeping insect.

  Aeris didn’t turn. "You’d rather drink yourself into forgetting than face what’s in front of you."

  Kael’s grin was sharp, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "Forgotten things stay forgotten for a reason, love."

  She ignored him, stopping before a rusted iron gate half-submerged in water. The lock had long since corroded; a single push sent it groaning open, revealing a chamber where hundreds—no, thousands—of glass bottles drifted in the still water, each containing a rolled-up letter. Some glowed faintly, as if the ink still burned with the writer’s intent.

  Kael whistled. "The Archive of Unwritten Letters. Didn’t think this place was real."

  Aeris stepped inside, the water rippling around her. "Most people don’t. It’s where words go when they’re too heavy to send."

  Kael lingered in the doorway, his fingers twitching toward his lute strap—a nervous habit. "And why, exactly, are we here?"

  Aeris turned, her dark eyes unreadable in the lantern light. "Because you keep singing a song you don’t remember writing."

  A beat. Then Kael laughed, too loud for the hushed space. "I write half my songs drunk. Forgetting them is part of the charm."

  Aeris didn’t smile. "This one isn’t yours to forget."

  The air between them tightened. Kael’s fingers stilled on the lute.

  Then, from the far corner of the room, a bottle tinked against the stone—once, twice—as if calling to them.

  Aeris moved toward it. Kael didn’t follow.

  The bottle was unremarkable—clear glass, slightly fogged with age—but the parchment inside was a pale, unnatural gold. Aeris lifted it, water sluicing off the surface, and squinted at the faint script visible through the glass.

  Her breath caught.

  "Kael."

  He didn’t move.

  "It’s addressed to you."

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Lots of people write letters they never send."

  Aeris turned the bottle in her hands. The wax seal was broken, as if someone had started to open it but changed their mind. "This one’s signed Lira."

  Kael went very, very still.

  The name hung between them, sharp as a blade.

  Then, with forced lightness, Kael strode forward and plucked the bottle from her hands. "Well, let’s see what dear Lira had to say, shall we?"

  Before Aeris could stop him, he cracked the bottle’s neck against the edge of a shelf and shook the letter free.

  The parchment unfurled like a living thing, the ink shimmering—not faded with time, but waiting.

  Kael’s fingers trembled as he smoothed the page.

  Then the words began to sing.

  The voice that rose from the parchment wasn’t Kael’s. Wasn’t even human. It was the sound of a memory half-rotted, a lullaby warped by time—feminine, fractured, and so terribly familiar.

  "You told me once that some words are too heavy to send. That’s why we sing them instead."

  Kael’s breath left him in a rush. His fingers clenched, crumpling the edge of the page.

  Aeris reached for him. "Kael—"

  He jerked back. "Don’t."

  The voice continued, softer now, as if whispering directly into his bones:

  "You won’t remember this. You won’t remember me. But the song will. It always does."

  A shudder ran through him. The lantern light guttered, painting his face in jagged shadows.

  Aeris watched him, her dagger already half-drawn—not at him, never at him, but at the unseen weight pressing down on the room. "What is it?"

  Kael’s throat worked. "I don’t—"

  The letter’s next words cut him off:

  "When the king falls, remind him of the lullaby. The real one. Not the broken version you sing now."

  Aeris went rigid. "What king?"

  But Kael wasn’t listening. His gaze snagged on the letter’s final line—a single sentence, the ink darker, fresher, as if added later:

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  "You were never meant to endure."

  The words hit like a fist to the chest. Kael staggered, the letter slipping from his fingers. It floated downward, but before it could touch the water, the ink moved, swirling off the page in coiling tendrils that wrapped around his wrist.

  Aeris lunged, her dagger flashing—

  Too late.

  The ink seeped into Kael’s skin, staining his veins black for one horrifying second before fading.

  Silence.

  Then—

  A memory, sharp as shattered glass:

  A silver-haired woman (Lira?) turning to ash in his arms. A child screaming. And his own voice, raw with grief, singing a lullaby that wasn’t a lullaby at all—

  The vision snapped off like a candle snuffed.

  Kael gasped, falling to his knees. Water soaked through his trousers, icy against his skin.

  Aeris crouched beside him, her grip bruising on his shoulder. "Talk. Now."

  Kael’s laugh was ragged. "I think—" He swallowed. "I think I wrote a song that killed someone."

  Aeris didn’t flinch. "Who’s Lira?"

  Kael pressed his palms to his eyes. "I don’t know."

  A lie. Or maybe not. The memory was already crumbling at the edges, stolen back by whatever force had taken it from him in the first place.

  Aeris exhaled through her nose, then snatched the floating letter from the water. The parchment was blank now, the ink gone. "This was a message. A warning."

  Kael forced himself to stand, his knees wobbling. "Or a trap."

  She shot him a look. "You’re the one who opened it."

  "You’re the one who brought me here."

  A beat. Then Aeris’s mouth twitched—the closest she’d come to a smile in weeks. "Fair."

  The tension broke, just a little.

  Kael rolled his shoulders, shaking off the lingering dread. "So. We’ve established I’ve got stolen memories and a cursed lullaby. What’s next? More ominous letters? A cryptic ghost?"

  Aeris tucked the blank parchment into her coat. "We find out who Lira was."

  "And how do we do that?"

  She nodded toward the back of the archive, where the water deepened. "We keep looking."

  The next bottle found them.

  It drifted into Kael’s boot as he waded after Aeris, the glass striking his toe with deliberate insistence. This one was smaller, the glass tinged blue, the seal intact—a crest he didn’t recognize pressed into the wax.

  Aeris plucked it from the water. "This one’s for you too."

  Kael groaned. "I’ve had enough tragic revelations for one night."

  "Good thing this isn’t a tragedy." She turned the bottle, revealing the name etched into the glass:

  For the Bard Who Forgot.

  Kael’s stomach dropped. "That’s not ominous at all."

  Aeris handed it to him. "Open it."

  He hesitated. "What if it’s another memory?"

  "Then maybe it’s one you need."

  Kael studied her face—the stubborn set of her jaw, the shadows under her eyes. She’d been hunting answers longer than he’d been running from them.

  With a sigh, he cracked the seal.

  This time, no voice. No singing ink. Just a single slip of paper, the handwriting achingly familiar (his own?):

  "The crown remembers. The thief forgets. But the song? The song reminds."

  And beneath it, a line of sheet music—the opening notes of a melody Kael had been humming for years without knowing why.

  Aeris peered over his shoulder. "Is that—?"

  "The lullaby." Kael’s voice was hoarse. "The real one."

  The water around them rippled, though neither had moved.

  Somewhere in the dark, a bottle shattered.

  The sound of breaking glass echoed through the flooded archive like a gunshot. Kael instinctively grabbed Aeris’s wrist, pulling her behind a crumbling bookshelf as another bottle exploded nearby. The water rippled violently, sending waves lapping against their boots.

  Aeris’s dagger was in her hand before the second shard hit the water. "Sanctum Knights?" she whispered.

  Kael shook his head, eyes scanning the darkness. "They don’t break things. They erase them."

  A third bottle burst—this time directly above them. Shards rained down, and Kael barely yanked Aeris out of the way before a jagged piece could slice her cheek. The liquid inside wasn’t water, though. It was ink, thick and black, spreading across the surface like a stain.

  And it was moving.

  Aeris cursed. "Out. Now."

  They sloshed toward the exit, but the ink was faster. It surged around their ankles, clinging like tar. Kael’s boot stuck for one terrifying second before he wrenched free, nearly losing his balance. Behind them, more bottles shattered in rapid succession—pop, pop, pop—like fireworks detonating underwater.

  Then the whispers started.

  Not from the letters.

  From the ink itself.

  "You left us behind," it murmured in a dozen overlapping voices. "You left us, you left us, you left—"

  Kael’s breath came in short, panicked bursts. The melody from the letter burned in his mind, fighting to be sung, but his throat locked around it.

  Aeris grabbed his collar and hauled him forward. "Move, damn you!"

  They crashed through the iron gate just as the ink crested behind them in a wave. It slammed against the bars with a sound like a scream, tendrils lashing through the gaps, straining toward them—

  Then it stopped.

  The ink quivered at the threshold, hissing, before slowly receding, pulling back into the flooded chamber like a tide going out.

  Silence.

  Kael sagged against the wall, his heart hammering. "What in the hell was that?"

  Aeris didn’t answer. She was staring at his hand.

  The sheet music was gone.

  But in its place, etched into his palm like a brand, were the first three notes of the lullaby.

  The walk back through the Sunken Archive was tense. Kael kept flexing his hand, half-expecting the marks to fade, but they stayed stubbornly visible—a faint silver against his skin, like scars from a long-healed burn.

  Aeris broke the silence first. "We need to find Sorin."

  Kael snorted. "Oh, now you want to involve the walking disaster?"

  She shot him a glare. "That letter mentioned a king. Sorin’s connected to this, whether you like it or not."

  Kael opened his mouth to argue, but the notes on his palm pulsed faintly, sending a jolt of warmth up his arm. He hissed.

  Aeris’s gaze sharpened. "Did it just—?"

  "Yes," Kael gritted out. "And I’d very much like it to stop."

  She studied him for a long moment, then exhaled. "We’re missing something. Lira, the lullaby, the ink—it’s all tied together."

  Kael forced a grin, though it felt brittle. "Maybe I’m just cursed. It would explain my terrible luck with tavern bets."

  Aeris didn’t laugh. "You heard the voices. They said ‘you left us behind.’ Who did you leave, Kael?"

  The question hit like a punch.

  A flash of memory—a child’s hand slipping from his grip, a scream cut short—surfaced before he could stop it. Kael flinched, his fingers twitching toward his lute.

  Aeris saw. Of course she did.

  But for once, she didn’t push. Just nodded toward the exit. "Come on. We’ve got a bard to interrogate."

  Kael blinked. "Another bard?"

  Aeris smirked. "You’ll see."

  The last stretch of the archive was quieter, the water receding as they climbed toward drier halls. Just before the exit, though, Kael stumbled over something half-buried in the silt—a bottle unlike the others.

  This one wasn’t glass.

  It was bone.

  Aeris went rigid when she saw it. "Don’t touch that."

  Too late. Kael had already picked it up.

  The bottle was lighter than it should’ve been, the surface etched with tiny, frantic scratches—lyrics, maybe, or a plea. The cork had been sealed with wax, but the crest wasn’t a noble house’s.

  It was a crown.

  Kael’s blood ran cold. "Aeris—"

  "Put it down."

  He almost did. Then he spotted the name carved into the bone.

  Sorin, Age 12.

  The moment his fingers brushed the engraving, a whisper slithered through his mind:

  "You were never meant to endure."

  Kael dropped the bottle like it had burned him. It hit the stone with a dull thunk, rolling to a stop at Aeris’s feet.

  She stared at it, her face unreadable. "We’re leaving."

  This time, Kael didn’t argue.

  But as they stepped into the dim light of the outer archive, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the bone bottle had followed them.

  And somewhere, deep in the flooded dark, the ink was still singing.