Chapter 3: Buried in Ink and Silence

Evening had draped itself over the capital by the time Josephine returned to her quarters.

The torchlight outside flickered as she shut the door behind her, locking out the noise of the barracks. The room was as she had left it—neat, severe, untouched by comfort. A sword rack stood beside the dresser, armor folded precisely at the foot of the bed. No warmth. No softness. Just stone, steel, and silence.

She removed her cloak, hung it on the hook, then crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps.

Her fingers brushed the edge of her writing desk. The wood was worn smooth by habit, but not by sentiment. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a thin, leather-bound book—her field journal. The spine cracked faintly as she turned to the older entries. Sketched layouts of siege plans, recorded mission routes, reconnaissance reports. All written in a sharp, efficient hand.

But toward the back… an older map was folded between pages. Ink beginning to fade at the edges.

She unfolded it slowly, laying it flat across the desk.

A map of Virelya.

Josephine sat in silence, one gloved hand resting against the edge of the parchment. The borders were exact. The roads clear. Every fortress, every range, every known landmark meticulously recorded.

But something felt... off.

Her eyes returned—again—to the cluster of mountains in the west. There was nothing unusual about them. No labels, no paths, just jagged lines and elevation marks.

But that was precisely it.

A region surrounded by major patrol routes, yet untouched. No scouting notes. No terrain hazard warnings. Not even a designation.

She leaned closer.

“No outposts. No trails. No names,” she murmured.

“Mountains this close to the heartland... left completely alone?”

She frowned.

“That’s not absence... it’s avoidance.”

She leaned forward, staring harder, as if the map might confess its secrets.

“What truth did you bury?”

She stood and slipped the map under her arm.

And left her quarters in silence.

...----------------...

The descent into the central military archives felt longer than usual.

The stairwell spiraled tightly downward, each step carved from smooth black stone worn by centuries of boots. The torches along the wall sputtered with pale blue flame, flickering like thoughts she couldn’t quite hold still.

Josephine kept one hand on the railing, though she didn’t need it.

She wasn’t here for orders. Or reports.

This wasn’t duty.

This was something else.

She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for—only that the emptiness on the map refused to leave her alone.

“I’ve seen battlefields with more clarity than this.”

“He never said it out loud,” she murmured. “But I saw it in his eyes — a place lost, burned, buried.”

“It wasn’t just the name he didn’t say. It was the weight behind it.”

She gripped the railing tighter.

“This isn’t doubt. This is... evidence waiting to be remembered.”

The echoes of her footsteps trailed behind her like whispers—questions she couldn’t silence. They followed her into the dark.

By the time she reached the archive doors, the weight in her chest had settled like armor she hadn’t asked to wear. She paused, breathing once, slowly, before pushing them open.

The room greeted her with dust and silence.

Stone shelves rose like forgotten spires, filled with scrolls and ledgers. Everything here smelled of age—ink, parchment, dried leather, and something more metallic beneath, like old blood hidden beneath the pages.

She walked without speaking, her boots softened by the layer of dust most didn’t bother disturbing. She passed the newer war records, untouched. The region reports. The victory logs. None of that mattered now.

She went deeper. Past what the current generation of soldiers would read. Past her father’s era. Past the campaigns she herself had fought in.

Her hand paused on a collection marked with faded ink:

“Western Territories, Pre-Unification — 1474.”

Her heart stilled.

She pulled the sleeve free with reverent care, as if the paper might tear from the weight of its silence.

Inside the sleeve was a map—older than the rest, its parchment thinned by time, its edges fraying like withered petals. The ink had browned and bled in places, but the structure remained legible. She spread it open on the reading table, careful not to let it tear.

Lines crossed the land like veins. Cities with names that no longer existed. Borders drawn and redrawn by hands now long dead.

And then—there.

Her gaze froze.

Nestled between the western mountains, drawn faintly in ink paler than the rest, was a name.

Vailredj.

A different spelling. Old dialect. Almost forgotten.

It had been crossed out—not with a stroke of error, but with intent. A single red line ran through the letters. Not scratched in haste, but drawn deliberately, precisely.

As if to say: This place never existed.

“But then why erase it?” she murmured under her breath, voice barely louder than the rustling parchment. Her eyes narrowed.

“Places don’t vanish because they’re unimportant. Someone wanted this gone. Not forgotten—buried.”

She leaned in closer, tracing the shape of the word without touching it. The red ink had bled slightly into the parchment. It wasn’t new. This had been done long ago.

“What happened here?” she whispered, not expecting an answer.

“And why is no one speaking of it?”

She sat back, staring.

And that’s when she noticed the slip of parchment tucked behind the map’s fold. Barely larger than her palm, its edges curled and blackened, as though rescued from flame. It bore no seal. No title. Just four words, written in a hand that was confident, quick, and unafraid:

Veilridge was not a myth.

Josephine’s breath left her like it had been stolen.

The air around her seemed to change—colder, heavier. As though the room itself was reacting.

“Who wrote this?”

“How did it survive?”

She sat motionless for several long moments. Listening.

“Not a myth,” she whispered. “Then why does the world pretend it is?”

She closed her eyes.

“And why did I believe them?”

The archive was still. But not empty.

Not anymore.

She folded the map again. Slipped the parchment into the inner lining of her coat with fingers that had just begun to tremble.