Aelara NightwingShelly's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Aelara left the old man's room with one thought clear in her head. Records. Something written. Something that could not forget itself the way a person could. She returned to her shop and dragged out her worn leather satchel, the one with torn pockets stuffed full of scribbled location notes. She spread the slips across the counter. Every place she had once marked as promising was already crossed out. She sat with the empty list a long time. Then she remembered something the old man had mumbled between fox carvings. A scribe's post at the edge of the woods. A place where travelers' names were once logged before passing through. She set out at first light. The post was not hard to find, only forgotten. Stone walls half-fallen. Rusted filing cabinets gaped open, their drawers spilling moss and rot onto the floor. Aelara knelt in the muck and pulled drawer after drawer. Empty. Empty. Chewed paper. Empty. Above her, a corroded birdcage swung from a cracked beam. She almost left. Then she noticed a slip of parchment wedged between its bars, folded small, kept dry by the metal dome. She pried it loose with shaking fingers. The ink was faded but readable. A ledger entry. A name. A date. And beside it, three plain words: bound for Owl Shift. Aelara folded the slip into her satchel and stood. The archive was dead. But the trail was not. Somewhere, a full ledger had once held this page. She knew now it had existed. She would find where the rest had gone.