Elías blinked — and the world flinched.
Not with sound. With revision.
The throne beneath him cracked. Not from weight, but from conflict. It rejected who he was, and yet couldn't unseat him. His eyes, once pages, now bled ink down his cheeks. Symbols shifted across his skin. His breath stuttered in syllables.
Tirian took a step back.
"Elías?" he asked again.
The boy tilted his head. Slowly. Like a puppet learning what a neck was. "You say that name like it still belongs," he whispered, voice soft, but echoing.
It wasn't Elías speaking.
It was the book through him.
"I am not who you remember," he continued. "I am the echo of choices not made. The draft before the lie."
Tirian clenched his fists. The shard of glass burned in his pocket. "But you remember me."
Elías stared.
"I remember everyone," he said. "That is the burden of authorship."
The throne pulsed.
Words rose in the air around them — phrases pulled from forgotten prayers, childhood curses, unfinished thoughts. One hovered longer than the others:
"He who writes, rewrites himself."
"Elías," Tirian said, firmer now. "Come back."
The boy flinched.
The words in his eyes broke.
He gasped — a human gasp. A desperate, hollow thing. He clutched his own chest and screamed — ink pouring from his mouth like blood, like sin. The page on his chest burned away in ribbons.
And for a moment — just a moment — Elías returned.
"Tirian… help me."
Tirian ran forward.
But the throne reacted.
Chains of forgotten language lashed out — coiling like serpents, each with teeth shaped like punctuation. They aimed not to kill, but to silence. Tirian ducked, leapt, dodged — his body moving through instinct carved in survival. He raised his blade.
The blade didn't cut.
It erased.
Each swing was a redaction. Each strike unmade the chains not with steel, but with negation.
He reached Elías — but something stopped him.
Not a monster. Not a force.
A presence.
A tall figure stepped from the folds of the unmade air. Clad in robes stitched from names, its face hidden beneath a hood of living silence. Around its neck hung a collar of dying oaths.
The First Editor.
It raised a single finger — not to attack, but to indicate stillness.
Tirian froze.
"Elías belongs here," the figure said. "He wrote his path. He sat the Throne. The moment he touched the Pen, he ceased being yours."
"He's still human!" Tirian shouted.
"No," the figure replied. "He's the draft of something greater. Or the footnote of a god."
Tirian stepped forward anyway.
"I don't care what he's becoming," he growled. "I'm not letting him finish this chapter without me."
The Editor tilted its head.
"Then read, reader. But beware — every page you turn changes you."
It stepped aside.
Tirian reached Elías.
The boy had collapsed — twitching, breathing, repeating names that didn't exist. Tirian dropped to his knees, grabbed his shoulder.
"Elías. Look at me."
The boy did.
"I'm here," Tirian said. "You don't have to do this alone."
And Elías spoke — his voice, at last:
"I didn't ask to be the author. I just wanted… to survive."
Tirian nodded.
"Then let's rewrite that."
And he drew his blade.
Not to fight.
But to cut the throne.
The metal and ink screamed in protest — not from pain, but from defiance. Thrones don't like being dethroned.
But the moment Tirian's blade sliced through its base, something shattered in the sky above.
Not clouds.
Not stars.
Narrative.
And the world reset.
The throne crumbled.
Elías collapsed into Tirian's arms.
The First Editor vanished — replaced by a flutter of blank pages, drifting down like ash.
And the book?
It closed.
But not forever.
Only for now.
---
Question for the reader: If the power to reshape fate meant losing your past — would you accept it? Or would you defend even the broken pages of your story?