Linus stares at the word. Death.

He recalls his teenage years, when his father Darius Monfort forced him to memorize the ancient letters that spelled Magnus Monfort. Darius told him he would need to guard the fragile black book for the rest of his life and treat it as a family heirloom.

His father had made him swear an oath.

Linus had been barely ten years old and had understood almost nothing of it. He swore the oath to please his father. But he had held to it ever since. He had spared no effort in trying to translate the rest of the book himself.

It should have been simple enough. It was written in the ancient language of Altheon. The Monforts had the money and the connections to get it done. But Linus had never dared show the book to strangers, let alone hire experts to translate it.

That was because of an accident. He had been reading another ancient text, one that had already been translated. He recognized a string of letters that looked very similar to a word within the single line on the first page of the black book. That was how he found out one of the words read Death.

The moment he did, Linus halted all attempts to bring in outside help and decided to translate it himself, even if it took a lifetime.

A single line containing the name of the first Monfort patriarch and the word Death could mean a great many things.

He was not about to risk thousands of years of Monfort legacy and reputation over something as seemingly trivial as an ancient book. Not until he knew what was inside it. At least what it was about.

Over the years, whenever Linus was home, he would carve out time to come down to the vault and work at deciphering it.

In the beginning he had been optimistic. He was certain he could manage it with the help of translation guides and modern tools.

But he discovered that the book could not be translated by any means but manually. Letter by letter. Word by word. Page by page.

He had not been able to turn past the first page, because he had not yet fully translated it. He had assumed the pages were stuck together from age. But that was not it.

The day he read the word Death aloud in the ancient tongue, the corner of the first page had loosened slightly, as though the book had been waiting for him to read the full sentence before it would let him go any further.

He had tried photographing that single line and running it through translation software. It produced nothing.

He had asked an AI to analyze it, only to be told the page was empty.

He had tried everything. Every modern translation tool he could think of, and not one of them produced a single result.

Linus, who rarely gave up on anything, had to swallow his disappointment and return to translating by hand.

Unfortunately, he had made no progress. The letters in that single infuriating sentence were more ancient than anything else he had come across. Even the Death he had spotted in the other ancient text was not an exact match.

It had been pure coincidence. He had noticed the letters were very similar, and said Death aloud while staring at the line, when suddenly the corresponding word glowed faintly for a split second and the corner of the page loosened just a little more.

Linus sighs, his fingers tracing the line once more.

He hears footsteps in front of him but doesn’t lift his head. He knows who it is by the sound of the steps alone.

Miranda enters the open vault and sees her husband sitting with his head looking down at the table. She approaches silently.

"Why aren’t you in bed?" She asks softly.

She knows about the book. Linus told her after they celebrated their first wedding anniversary. She had been shocked at first, and a little hurt that he had waited a full year before sharing it with her.

But once Linus explained the gravity of it, she understood. She couldn’t blame him for keeping it close.

Linus doesn’t answer. He keeps tracing the line, as though lost somewhere in his own memory.

Miranda steps behind him, bends down, and wraps her arms around his neck.

Linus reaches up and touches her hand, tilting his head slightly to rest against it.

"I still haven’t made any progress, Liz." He says softly.

Liz. Short for Lizzie. The name Miranda had given him the first time they met.

She had run away the day her father told her that her marriage had been arranged, leaving before she could hear the details. She hadn’t known it was to Linus Monfort, someone she had quietly carried a crush on for years.

Her family had gone into a panic when they discovered she was gone. Linus, upon hearing of it, went to look for her himself.

When he found her, he already knew exactly who she was. Miranda did not know that. She introduced herself as Lizzie Stroud, borrowing her best friend Leila’s last name without a second thought.

He had been calling her Liz ever since, in the moments that belonged only to them.

Miranda strokes his hair gently.

"If this keeps up, I won’t be able to translate the whole book. Hell, I can’t even translate a single sentence. How am I supposed to do the whole book?" Linus lets out his frustration quietly.

Miranda kisses the top of his head. "You’ll do it. You’ll see. Trust me on this."

They both sigh.

"But why come back here tonight, baby? You haven’t been down here in a whole month. Why now, if nothing has changed?"

Linus straightens up, turns slightly, and pulls Miranda down onto his lap.

"I don’t know. I just felt like I had to. I was thinking about everything that’s been happening lately, especially how the storm has been affecting people. And then the book just came to mind. I have this feeling that the two are connected somehow."

Miranda blinks. "The book is connected to the storm?"

"Not directly. But..." He takes a breath.

"We have both agreed that this book is tied to ancient Altheon. To the time when magic existed."

Miranda nods. "How could we not? The book is practically sealed shut by it."

"Yes. So if that is true, then I believe the storm is also connected to magic. The same way this book is."

Silence settles between them.

"Linus. What are you saying exactly? That magic is coming back?"

"Liz, I know how that sounds. Believe me, I do. You know me. I am not someone who entertains things like this without proof. But we have to admit that there are things happening across Altheon right now that cannot be explained scientifically."

Miranda looks at him, listening.

"That fire in Emeralis. The rain in Sandrina Valley. The pillar of sand and fire in Zarathun Desert. And the most obvious of all, the dungeons. No one can explain any of it."

He looks back at the book. "So as absurd as it sounds, I have to consider that magic is real, and that it is trying to return to Altheon right now. This book is physical proof that magic existed. That it was real. Not just a myth."

Miranda cups his cheek, her thumb stroking the skin gently.

"Let’s say you are right. What does that mean for us, Linus?"

Linus sighs. "It means we need to prepare, Liz. We need to get ahead of it."

Miranda looks at him, lost. "How do we do that?"

Linus looks just as lost. "I honestly don’t know." He pulls her into his arms and holds her.

They sit together in silence for a long moment.

But his mind drifts, quietly and without warning, to Theo.

He frowns.

Why am I thinking about her?

------------------------------

Theo puts down the book he has been reading and closes his eyes. He is bored and tired of staying in his room. But he is not ready to leave it yet.

But I can’t stay like this forever. Even if my mana never returns... His heart hurts at the thought.

Even if it never returns, I need to keep living. I made a promise to Thea. I can’t fail her.

Theo flips back his blanket and slowly slides out of bed. He carefully places his feet on the floor and tries to stand.

When he manages it without shaking too much, he begins to walk. One step at a time, concentrating on steadiness rather than speed.

He makes it to the nearby chair without looking like he is walking a tightrope. He smiles at the small victory, turns himself around, and walks back to the bed.

He keeps going. Back and forth, back and forth, until his breath is ragged and he is drenched in sweat.

But he is smiling. And for the first time since he lost his mana, he feels alive.