The page in Kael's hand remained blank.
Not from lack of power.
But from possibility.
He could feel it — the raw, living energy of unwritten story humming beneath his skin. Every step he took now tugged the narrative thread in a new direction, one that no longer existed until he walked it.
But possibility was a blade.
And every blade had two edges.
The Blade Remembers
Rowan was the first to notice the change.
During sparring, Kael parried a strike not with force, but intent. The moment Rowan's blade clashed with Kael's, it stopped mid-swing — as though the metal had lost its reason to strike.
Rowan staggered back. "What… was that?"
Kael exhaled. "I didn't stop your sword."
He looked down at his palm.
"I rewrote its purpose."
From that day forward, Kael no longer fought with steel alone.
He fought with narrative authority — and the world bent slightly around him to obey.
He could shift probabilities.
Alter momentum.
Force a sword to slip. A flame to hesitate. A lie to unravel mid-sentence.
But it came with a cost.
With each rewrite, he felt something crack inside him — a thread fraying that he couldn't identify.
And worse… the blank page he carried was no longer blank.
It had begun writing on its own.
In his handwriting.
Eli's Doubt
Eli was the first to say what Kael had feared.
"You're becoming what you hate."
Kael looked up from the page. "What are you talking about?"
Eli held up the latest passage from the Lost Chapter. It was… different now. Sharper. More focused. The wording had changed around Kael.
"You're not changing the story anymore," Eli said quietly. "You're controlling it."
Kael stayed silent.
"You're rewriting what people do. What they say. How they act around you. That's not freedom, Kael. That's authorship."
Kael clenched his fists. "If I don't take control, the Editor King will."
Eli stepped forward. "Then what's the difference between you and him?"
A Warning from the Ledger
That night, Kael returned to the Threadkeeper's Ledger.
It greeted him not with answers—but with a warning:
"He who writes without limit will be written by his own fear."
"And fear, when given ink, becomes prophecy."
Kael stared at the line for a long time.
Because deep down, he knew:
He hadn't feared the Editor King.
He had feared being forgotten again.
And now, the page in his hand — the one he thought he controlled — had begun scripting scenes of a tyrant cloaked in Kael's shadow.
He was fighting to write his own story.
But maybe… the story was writing him.