---
Elara's POV
I was falling again.
But this time, it wasn't into a realm or trial.
It was into him.
His presence wrapped around me like poisoned silk—smooth, warm, yet laced with danger. The ink didn't swallow me—it bent for him.
He didn't belong to the system.
He was outside it.
And now… he was inside my story.
---
The world settled.
A strange space. Half-formed.
A floating library twisted in black mist and dripping words—unfinished phrases hung in the air like cobwebs. Every book was marked by a strange symbol. A fourth sigil—not one of the three leads.
I stood on a floor of moving script, and he appeared before me.
The Inkshaded One.
Half of his face was obscured by a cracked porcelain mask.
The visible part was… beautiful.
Too beautiful.
Unreal.
Dangerous.
He bowed.
> "So, we finally meet outside your dreams."
My heart raced.
"You… who are you?"
He tilted his head. "You wrote me. Then tried to erase me."
My breath caught.
"I never—"
"Oh, but you did," he interrupted, voice a velvet whip. "The moment you imagined a villain powerful enough to break the rules… you created me. And like any good creation, I grew teeth."
---
He stepped closer.
The air thickened with warped ink. My pen—the one I had carried—snapped mid-air and melted into the floor.
"You're not ready to bind your heart," he said. "Not until you understand what's truly at stake."
He snapped his fingers.
And suddenly—
Caelum appeared. Shackled in chains of silver ink.
Bleeding.
His eyes widened. "Elara—don't trust him—!"
The villain waved a hand. Caelum vanished like smoke.
"Trial Four begins," he said softly. "But this one's mine."
---
> Trial Four: The Forbidden Rewrite.
> Rule One: You may change one moment from your past.
> Rule Two: You must bear the consequence.
> Rule Three: If you lie to yourself… you will forget everything.
---
I stood frozen.
"One moment?" I echoed.
"Yes," he said, walking past floating pages. "What would you change, Elara? The night your sister disappeared? The day your father burned your first book? Or perhaps the moment you first opened this cursed story?"
I felt the pull.
The temptation to fix it all.
But I also felt something else.
A slow trickle of warmth on my palm.
I looked down.
Ink was bleeding from my skin.
He smiled.
> "You're not just the bearer of ink anymore. You're becoming the ink."
---
Choice bloomed in front of me.
Three floating pages.
One held my sister's name.
One showed my childhood room, half-burnt.
One held a blank spot. A forgotten name.
He whispered near my ear, "Choose wisely, my Inkbearer. You can't rewrite twice."
I looked up.
And saw the other three—Lucien, Caelum, and Soren—trapped behind cracked mirrors, watching. Powerless.
Waiting.
Needing me to remember.
But what scared me most… was that a part of me wanted to rewrite everything.
Even if it broke me.
---
End of Chapter 20