The fire crackled low in the canyon, casting jittery shadows on the walls. Lyle hadn't moved in nearly an hour. He sat with his elbows on his knees, the Codex open in front of him, every page perfectly still—too still. Normally, even idle, the Codex rotated slowly, shifting pages like it was thinking. But now?
It was frozen.
As if the name it had revealed had paralyzed it.
Juno sat across from him, hands resting on the hilt of her sword. She wasn't pretending to be calm. The silence had stretched too long for that. She kept glancing at the sky. The crack. The horizon.
And back to him.
"Valen the Hollow-Eyed," she said, breaking the quiet. "Do you know him?"
Lyle shook his head. "No. But the Codex does."
He tapped the corner of the glowing page.
> [Fragment Identified: "Valen the Hollow-Eyed"]
Thread Status: Forbidden.
Memory Rank: REDACTED.
Survivors from last encounter: Zero.
[Codex Instinct: AVOID.]
"Instinct?" Juno asked, frowning. "That's the first time I've seen it use that word."
"Me too," Lyle said quietly. "Which means it's not drawing from logic. It's reacting like a creature might—like an animal with memory."
"Then we should go," she said. "Now. Before that thing wakes up."
But Lyle didn't move.
The glyphs on the Codex began to twitch.
And then—slowly—the book began to turn its own pages again.
Not to a spell.
Not to a map.
But to something older.
A story.
---
> "Valen was not born in a threadline. He was not chosen by a system. He was not the result of a rift, or a ritual, or a war."
"He was born where all things end. In the space between failure and memory."
"He does not cast. He does not consume. He does not rule."
"He remembers."
"And that is what makes him dangerous."
---
Juno stood and began pacing. "Okay, I've had enough of this mythopoetic nonsense. You said the Codex was afraid. That it has instinct. Fine. Then let's listen to it and leave."
Lyle finally looked up. "You don't get it."
"I'm trying to."
He stood. "It remembered him. But it also unlocked the memory for me. That means something."
"Or it wants to see what you'll do," Juno snapped. "Just like the thing that came through the crack. Just like the Variant said—they're watching you, Lyle. Everyone is. And we're stuck here because you can't resist scratching every itch."
"Then leave," he said, voice sharper than he intended.
Juno stared.
Lyle regretted it instantly.
"I didn't mean that—"
"Yes, you did," she said.
And then she walked toward the mouth of the canyon.
---
Lyle didn't follow.
He stared at the Codex instead.
"Why show me that name?" he whispered.
The Codex pulsed softly.
A line of red glyphs appeared along the edge of the page—different from anything he'd seen before. Twisted. Ancient. Barely readable.
> [Memory Thread Active – Sealed Thought Detected]
Playback?
He nodded.
And the world turned sideways.
---
He was no longer in the canyon.
He stood in a memory not his own.
A hall of mirrors, but each reflection showed a different version of him.
Younger. Older. Burned. Crowned. Laughing. Screaming. Dying.
Each one touched the Codex.
Each one opened it.
Each one—
Fell.
---
At the center of the mirrored hall stood a man.
Or what once had been a man.
He wore no robes, no armor. Just gray wrappings over black skin, his eyes twin holes of smoke.
He didn't walk.
He glided, like a thought given shape.
And he whispered in a voice like broken glass sliding across wood:
> "You are all so noisy."
"You break what you don't understand, then cry when it won't heal."
He looked directly at Lyle.
And Lyle felt it—not physically, but spiritually.
That this being was not a god. Not a demon.
But something worse.
Something aware.
Valen raised one hand.
A Codex floated beside him—older, shattered, leaking threadlight from its spine.
> "Did she tell you the truth?" he asked.
"Did your 'Codex' warn you what she used to be?"
Lyle couldn't speak.
He wasn't part of the memory.
But Valen was speaking to him anyway.
> "You carry her now. But one day… she'll carry you."
"And you'll beg me to break her."
---
Lyle's breath caught.
The Codex screamed—literally screamed—inside his mind.
He was yanked from the vision like a drowning man pulled from the deep.
---
He collapsed in the canyon, coughing.
Juno was beside him again, eyes wide. "You were gone for almost ten minutes."
He grabbed her hand and held it tightly.
"She's more than a guide," he said, voice shaking.
"Who?" she asked.
"The Codex. She's not just a construct."
He looked up at the crack in the sky, which now bled red light.
"She's a prison."
---
The Codex vibrated violently.
A message burned into the page:
> [Valen Thread Proximity: 73%]
Thread Pressure: Rising.
Codex Instinct: WARN. DEFEND. RUN.
"Do not speak his name again."
Juno stared as the glyphs dissolved into ash.
"What the hell are you becoming, Lyle?"
He looked at her, and this time there was no trace of hesitation in his voice.
"Something none of us were meant to be."