Now I wish I had.
"He mentioned the Athervault," Vashael says, pulling a location from her memory that I'd half-forgotten. "Weeks ago, when we were searching for information on temporal dispersal. He said there were texts there that even the Sage didn't have access to."
"The Athervault." I turn the name over. I've heard of it, an ancient, underground archive. It's known for not allowing visitors and has the means to enforce that preference. "That's three days' travel."
"Two if we push," Nimor responds.
"Then we push."
We leave within the hour. Vashael sends word to Thessara at Willowmere to manage the settlements in our absence, and I leave instructions with the patrol scouts to monitor the chasm and send runners if it grows past a hundred feet. I honestly don't know what else to do.
The Athervault sits at the base of the Skystone Mountains. The entrance is cut into the rock face, a narrow opening barely wide enough for two people abreast, marked with symbols so old they've worn smooth in places. What's left of the carvings show a language that predates written fae.
"Welcoming," Vashael murmurs.
"It's a library, not an inn," I tell her.
The interior opens into a receiving chamber made of carved stone with high ceilings; the air is cool and dry and carries the faint smell of preserved parchment. There's a desk, and behind it sits a fae woman with paper-white skin and eyes that are entirely black.
"We need access to the lower stacks," I say. No point in pleasantries.
She doesn't look up from the ledger she's writing in. "The Athervault is not open to visitors."
"We're not visitors. We're looking for someone. A healer with mycelial markings. He would have arrived a few weeks ago."
Still nothing.
I sigh. "My name is Sarnyx, and I'm here on the orders of Prince Kaelren."
That gets a reaction. A small one, but there's a tightening at the corners of her mouth. "The one you speak of is in the deep archives. Level eight. The Keeper has granted him researcher status."
"Then grant us passage."
"The deep archives require a guided escort. The locking systems are sequential, each level has its own protections, and they must be navigated in order. If you attempt to bypass them, the Athervault will close."
"Close," Nimor repeats. "As in—"
"As in seal itself. Permanently. With everyone inside." She finally looks up, and those black eyes are completely flat. "The knowledge here is more valuable than any of you. The Athervault protects itself accordingly."
"We will wait for a guide," Nimor adds in a gentler tone than I've been using.
The woman gives us all a long look, then sighs, resigned to the fact that we won't be giving up.
"Wait here and touch nothing."
So we wait. She sends for a guide, who turns out to be a thin, nervous fae with seven fingers on each hand. He introduces himself as Corivel and leads us through a system of locks and passages that would make a siege engineer weep.
The first three levels are straightforward enough. Stone corridors, heavy doors, specialized keys that Corivel produces from his pockets. The shelves are organized by era, containing old texts that look to be in relatively good condition.
Level four introduces the first wards. They hum so loudly that the walls vibrate. Corivel presses his fingers against specific stones in a pattern that takes several minutes to complete, and the wards quiet long enough for us to pass through a door that wasn't there before he started.
Level five is where the layout stops following any clear pattern. The corridors split and reconnect at sharp, inconsistent angles. Doors open into rooms that feel misaligned with the structure above them. I keep one hand on the wall and count my steps, because getting lost down here wouldn't be temporary.
By level seven, the shelves no longer hold books. They're lined with preserved objects, crystallized memory fragments, sealed containers labeled with recorded sounds, jars of contained light that change color when disturbed. The air is denser here, stale with the weight of long storage.
"How deep does this go?" Vashael asks, her voice hushed despite herself.
"Twelve levels," Corivel says. "Though no one has been to twelve in living memory. The locks reset themselves after a certain period, and the Keeper lost the sequence for the lowest levels three centuries ago."
