Liam stared at the page. His fingers trembled.
For a moment, he thought he saw the ink shift—faint movements like breath beneath parchment. He rubbed his eyes, assuming it was a trick of exhaustion. But something deeper stirred.
He noticed a handwritten note in the margin, one that hadn't been there moments before:
The kingdom still breathes.
Liam flipped through the pages rapidly, and found maps, sketches, and codes written in unfamiliar scripts—some that mirrored ancient dialects he had only ever seen on damaged tablets. The book wasn't enchanted, but it wasn't ordinary either. It felt like a message. A challenge. A door.
The air in the room seemed denser. Not magical, but charged—like standing too close to a thunderstorm. A note slipped from between the pages, addressed to him. His name, written in pre-Cuneiform script.
What he held wasn't fiction. It was a record. A warning.
And maybe, just maybe, an invitation.