The Legacy

  Safed Mountain. Pakistan.

  The pen moved slowly across the page—deliberate, final.

  The last line of the last volume. After everything.

  Rebekah Carter sat in silence, deep inside the mountain, surrounded by stone and memory. Her hair was silver now. The fire in her had not faded but it had narrowed, like a torch passed from hand to hand.

  The cave had changed.

  The air was cooler now, humming with power. Banks of servers lined the walls behind her, draped in moss and low light. Ancient stone met future code. Her desk was carved from the bedrock itself. Her fingers, steady.

  She paused.

  Dipped the pen one final time.

  “…and this is the last gift I can offer. The rest will belong to those who come next.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  She sat back. Closed the leather-bound book.

  Behind her, the shelves were full.

  Volumes of knowledge. Failures, victories, names etched into silence. The Legacy of Safed. She turned off the light.

  Years earlier. Same mountain. Same girl. But different.

  Younger Rebekah climbed the cliffside alone, fingers raw, boots slick with rain. Her breath came sharp through her teeth. No gear. No team. Just the coordinates she had memorized and the whispers of a place untouched by empire or war.

  She hauled herself over the final ledge and collapsed onto the stone.

  Above her, the mountain loomed—massive, hollow, waiting.

  She stood slowly. Wind tugged at her coat. Thunder echoed in the distance.

  Before her, a narrow opening yawned into shadow. She stepped inside, boots crunching on old gravel.

  Her light flicked on.

  And the cave unfolded.

  Vast. Vaulted. Beautiful.

  No markings. No signs of human touch.

  A cathedral carved by time, untouched by hands. Bones of the Earth itself.

  She stepped forward, breath caught in her chest.

  It wasn’t just a hiding place.

  It was the beginning.

  And she knew—this was where the world would change.

  Back in the future.

  The older Rebekah stood, hand on the closed journal.

  She carried it to the shelf, slid it into its place among the others.

  She was tired. But the kind of tired that meant something.

  She turned toward the cave’s mouth. Outside, the wind moved through the trees like memory.

  She whispered only one word.

  “Ready.”

  And then she walked toward the light.