Chapter 55 — Part 4: The Core Beckons

The air thickened as Yusuf and the faceless child crossed the threshold. Behind, his father cowered against the plinth, making small, jagged gasps, half-owned by the Tree but at least no longer its nutrition husk. That was the trade Yusuf had paid in pieces of himself: his father not lost, but not saved.

Ahead of him lay a tunnel unlike anything he had ever experienced. It was not bark or wood, stone or bone. The walls of the tunnel were smoldering like parchment between fire and smoke, bubbling and re-melting themselves ceaselessly. Names flitted over them in ghostly script, sometimes in his father's handwriting, sometimes in his own. Sometimes, with horror, in neither.

Do you know that?" the child asked, padding in with the unpressed haste of something that had never been chased.

"The Core," Yusuf said. His voice cracked, as if speaking it made it true.

The child tilted its head. "Closer. Where the Tree keeps what it can't afford to lose. Where even forgetting can't reach.".

Yusuf ran his hand over the wall as they walked. The names blurred under his hand, vanishing as he touched them, others smoldering briefly before reducing to ash. One blazed particularly: Rae. It blazed white and then dissipated to a golden ember before dying out altogether.

His breath hitched. "No. No—"

He pressed his hand against it, desiring to keep the letters safe, but his flesh slithered over empty woodgrain. The name was erased, as if it had never been.

A whisper rose up in his ears—Rae's voice, thin now like a reed, speaking one word only: Remember. It was not command nor comfort this time. It was farewell.

Then it was gone. No spark. No vibration. Nothing.

Yusuf staggered forward, as though he'd been torn from his lungs and left hollow. His knees buckled. The Codex crashed into the meat of his hip like some malevolent burden.

The boy stood still, faceless eyes fixed on him. "Now you know. No anchor will hold. Not for you. Not for her."

Yusuf wanted to rage, to tear at the walls so that the name would return. But the tunnel was packed with thousands of other names, all fighting to breathe. What did Rae possess to make him more worthy than them? Wasn't he here to fight for them all? But he couldn't stop his throat from constricting.

He leaned forward, whispering her name a second time, not to save it, but to have it smolder in his mouth for a single heartbeat longer. Then he rose.

"Take me to the Core," he said.

The child tilted its head a second time, but this time it did not move. As if it did not want to. As if it cost it something even it would not pay.

Still, it turned and proceeded.

The tunnel started to incline, descending. Yusuf's body became heavier with every step, as if the Tree shoved him back, testing his resolve. Remembrance filtered with every movement—first small things: the exact angle of his study lamp at home, the sensation of the archivist's gloves he had worn every day. He caught himself gasping when he realized he couldn't recall the sound of his own footsteps on museum marble.

Every loss had left a bruise of void in his chest. Still, he kept going.

The pass opened at last into a vast chamber, as circular as the empty core of a mountain. Inside it floated a globe of light, held in webs of sap and root. The light pulsed sluggishly, regularly, like the beat of something that had existed before record.

Every pulse released a wave through the chamber. Every wave carried voices—laughter, weeping, argument, prayer, all tumbling over themselves. Not recordings. Not shadows. The moments themselves, entire and unbroken, alive in the light.

The Core of the Tree.

Yusuf barely dared to breathe. It was witnessing creation itself: all memory, all names, all lost ages contained in one impossibility.

And yet, even as he stared, he felt tearing within. His own memories stretched out to the Core, wanting to merge with them. He had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep them from escaping.

The boy walked with him. "This is where you end. All Archivists end here. Some surrender willingly. Some hold out until they're gone screaming. What will you be?"

Yusuf turned, trembling. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you? That this was where I’d come. That this was what it was about.”

The child gave no answer. But the blankness of its face rippled, as though something beneath struggled to show itself. For just an instant Yusuf thought he saw a dozen faces—men, women, even children—layered atop one another, all Archivists who had come before.

And then he understood.

“You’re not just a guide,” Yusuf whispered. “You’re what’s left of them. All the ones who came before me. Bound here. Made into…into this.”

The child’s stillness was answer enough.

Yusuf reeled back. His head spun. He attempted to denounce it as a lie, but the truth weighed upon him: faceless child was the sum of all those other faces who had sought to rescue the Tree, distilled into one, identity stripped away, condemned to lead the next Archivist in turn.

And that would be what he would get if he failed.

Oblivion. Or worse: faceless eternity.

The Codex pulsed against his hip, pages fluttering open in a motion that appeared to remind him it existed. Words bled onto its parchment:

Bind or break. One must bind. One must break. Both cannot remain.

Yusuf shuddered. Bind or break. Save the Core, save all memory—and in doing so, lose himself. Or destroy it, shatter memory for eternity, and liberate himself at the cost of the worlds he'd sworn to protect.

The Tree's pulse accelerated, as though feeling his reluctance. Roots coiled all over the room, extending to him. One brushed against his ankle, and instantly he forgot his mother's face, her lullabies erasing themselves into hum without vowels.

"No!" he gagged, struggling free.

The child waited, silent, faceless, beside him.

Yusuf gazed at the Core. Its brilliance was breathtaking. Terrible. A guarantee of savior and devastation all combined.

He thought of Rae. His father. All the names he had spoken over the Codex. He thought of being a boy, attempting to keep his first bouquet of dried flowers from dying. He thought of the promise he had made when he had first placed his hands on the Codex: I will not allow the world to be forgotten.

And he wasn't sure yet. Not here. Not while his father was still alive, not while his mission was far from over.

He addressed the child. "Not yet. I'll carry this decision till the end. I won't be just another face on your mask. Not until I've tried everything."

The child tilted its head, facelessness unreadable. For a moment, Yusuf swore he felt something akin…to relief. Or sorrow.

Then go, it said to him. "But know that every step you take toward the Core costs you something. When the time is right, you will have nothing left to put into it but yourself."

Yusuf nodded. He gripped the Codex firmly, heart racing, mind spinning at its seams. The Core glowed once more, a wave of remembrance sweeping over him. He slipped himself— but he made his feet deflect.

He walked back to the tunnel, heavy footed, the light of the Core etched into his brain. The child stood behind him, wordless. Watching. Waiting.

And for the first time, Yusuf knew: the real war had not yet begun.