Caelan POV
The archive wing smells of stone dust and old bindings.
It is a scent I have known since I was young enough to follow my mother through these halls with more curiosity than understanding, a scent that does not belong to ceremony or pride but to memory itself. The kind that is preserved not because it is flattering or convenient, but because someone, somewhere in the past believed the truth should survive even when the wolves who first wrote it no longer could.
Torchlight runs low along the walls, the flames placed deliberately so the light warms the pages without scorching them, illuminating shelves carved directly into the rock. Each alcove holds volumes bound in leather that has darkened with age, the surfaces worn smooth by centuries of careful handling, each one existing
