The silence stretched between Kael and Eli like a taut wire.
They were no longer just two anomalies.
They were two fractures in the same carefully written lie.
Eli paced the dust-covered annex, running a hand through his tangled hair. "I thought it was just me. One minute I'm heading back from night class, next thing I know I'm waking up in this guy's body—'Elias Verin, third son of House Verin.'" He snorted. "He's not even in the book, Kael. He's a footnote."
Kael clenched the self-writing tome in his hands. "That makes two of us. I'm a forgotten servant in a family that dies in chapter one."
They both fell quiet.
Kael finally spoke. "Do you remember anything from the transition? Before waking up here?"
Eli shook his head. "Just… cold. A weight in my chest. Like being dragged under water."
Kael remembered that too. And something else.
A voice.
One that whispered: "You don't belong here… but you will."
The Threadkeeper's Warning
That night, Kael returned to the library alone. The book was still there. Still writing.
But now, it had a title:
The Threadkeeper's Ledger.
He opened it, hands shaking.
New ink bled across the parchment.
"Two threads severed. Two stories unwritten."
Kael whispered into the quiet, "Who are you?"
The ink paused… then answered.
"The one who weaves between chapters."
"The one who watches the broken become whole."
"The Threadkeeper."
Kael flipped pages rapidly, desperate. "Why us? Why this world?"
More ink.
"Because your world has no magic. No fate. No story."
"But here, you are no longer passengers."
"You are the ink."
Kael staggered back. "This is a game to you?"
"This is not a game. This is a correction."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Then what's the cost?"
Silence.
Then one last message:
"When fate is rewritten… something else must be unwritten."
A New Power Awakens
The next day, Kael's sword hand burned.
Not from bruises, but from something deeper — under the skin, beneath the bone. During weapons training, a student's blade came too fast, and Kael reflexively threw up his palm—
And the blade shattered mid-swing.
Gasps filled the yard. Even the instructor looked stunned.
The other students backed away.
Only Rowan stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "You're not just rewriting the story," he said under his breath. "You're rewriting yourself."
Kael didn't answer.
Because for the first time, he felt it too:
A pulse of power.
Something ancient, raw, and completely unwritten.
And it was waking up.