The Mage

Chpt 11: The Mind

(Peter’s POV)

The corridor constricted until it felt like a throat. Sigils carved into the stone had been worn smooth by a thousand hands; their edges were familiar, like the calluses on a craftsman’s palm. My light, usually a steady ribbon that braided around my fingers, dimmed as if the air itself were drinking it. I kept my steps quiet because staying silent made it less likely the world would notice what I was about to do.

Stories turned the chamber into a place of rumor and warning. Henry called it superstition. Nanari called it dangerous. Father called it necessary. Those words shaped how I saw the place: a family secret, a hidden tool from the world. The ledger I found — Henry’s careless note — was an accident that felt like fate. I decided that fate has a way of giving you what you want if you're willing to take it.

The door was smaller than I expected, a slab of metal banded with iron. Engravings cloaked the door as if it were ancient. When my palm brushed it, the runes hummed, responding to me in a way the rest of the castle never did — soft, intimate, like a secret told in the dark. The thrill that rose in my chest had nothing to do with duty. It was hunger, small, hot, and honest.

The key was heavier than it appeared, its teeth worn smooth from use. I had told myself it would lead to the truth. I had told myself I would be careful. Those were the lies that made the next step possible.

The book was intriguing. It gnawed at me. Its power could be used to protect others. The future in my hands could benefit me and earn me others' respect. What the book contained could be more than Morgan; it could be the key to a better future. I wanted to be the one to create that future, to be seen as their savior. Not the savior from the book, because I knew it wasn’t me. I knew that fact. But I wanted it to be me.

Greed is quiet at first. It forms itself into sentences that seem reasonable. I told myself I would use the book to protect the city, to keep darkness away. I told myself I would be the kind of leader who used power for good. Those words once felt true in the practice yard when my palms were raw and my throat dry. Now, they felt like a map with just one red route marked.

Warnings were carved into the stone above the pathway, faint and old: Do not bind what you do not understand. Do not feed hunger with hunger. I read them twice because it made me feel I had done my due diligence. It was a small ritual of conscience. The prophecy answered with a memory that was not mine: a woman in a vessel, pale and beautiful, reaching for the world and finding only ink. The image made something inside me recoil, a reflexive pity that could be a shield. Behind it, the book offered a different picture: a hand closing around a crown, a city safe beneath a dome of braided light and shadow. My mind, greedy and tired, chose the picture that promised ease.

The future was uncertain. What I told Serenity in the library served as a mirror; I wished I could control time. My goal was to gain access to the one thing this book could offer: absolution.

A whisper curled around my ear: Take what you need. It did not say what I would lose. Loss reveals itself slowly, like rot under paint. I did not know how to measure the cost.

I thought about the ledger, Henry’s confession, and how he had learned to look away. The book could break that silence. It could make the world listen. Henry’s words were like a microscope, dissecting the world we lived in. He hid and deflected until he couldn’t anymore; the secret was a gaping hole waiting for answers.

Serenity saw the secret and needed answers. I will let her read it, but not everything. It was a decisive choice. She didn’t need the whole truth. I knew that if she read too much, she would run to her father. She only needed to understand why Henry hid Morgan from her and what trauma caused him to keep secrets.

I would grab the book before she saw too much. Then I would pull it close, keep it on my person like something precious. Having that book at my beck and call. To gaze at the pages until the world itself fell asleep. I would learn, I would take, and I would be free.

I told myself I would be careful. I told myself I would not let the hunger grow. The book would show me a life where I was more than I was. I would reach for it because I wanted that life. I had not understood what the reaching would cost. The cost would come later, in small increments, like interest on a debt. For now, there was only the bright, immediate satisfaction of touching something f*******n and finding it willing.

The corridor consumed me. The rune on the door faded into the darkness. My steps were confident. My heart beat with a new rhythm — one that echoed the book’s pulse, faint and patient, waiting for the moment when I would turn the key and open the chamber.