Chapter 19 – The War of Words
The sky above the Margin split into ink and fire.
Kael barely dodged a bolt of red lightning that carved a sentence into the ground:
"They fell screaming into the abyss."
The Counter-Author didn't just write threats—she wrote destiny.
Liora summoned her clockwork shield, gears spinning wildly, catching the next strike mid-air. The words crackled and dispersed, but the damage was already rippling across her time-thread—she was flickering between childhood and old age with every second.
"We can't beat her here," Liora gasped.
Kael's hand trembled around the Author's Pen.
He didn't respond with a spell. Instead, he rewrote reality.
"Time snapped back like a rubber band. Liora stood still—untouched."
The world obeyed.
"You're learning," the Counter-Author said from her tower of torn tales. "But you still don't understand the rules."
She turned her pen on the Margin itself.
Mountains inverted. Rivers flowed backward. Characters they'd never met—heroes from broken stories and monsters from discarded myths—came alive, eyes glowing red with her ink.
And she wrote again.
"The rebel scribe fell, silenced forever."
Kael's chest tightened.
He looked down—blood.
"No," Liora whispered, catching him.
The words had begun to take effect. His name shimmered above his head, letters breaking off, one by one.
K — A — …
He gritted his teeth. Focused.
"I refuse."
He jabbed the pen into the air.
And wrote:
"The rebel scribe rose, defying the ink of lies."
The blood reversed. The name repaired itself.
And then the ground cracked open.
From the breach, another figure emerged—tatters of many stories stitched together into a living armor. A face masked in runes. A voice that sounded like dozens.
"The Archivist," Liora whispered.
A third player had entered the war.
Neither Kael nor the Counter-Author had written this.
The Archivist raised a book—bound in chains—and spoke:
"This conflict is unauthorized. The Realms have summoned me."
With a flick, he snapped the pen from Kael's hand. Took the Counter-Author's script. And tossed both into a void of silence.
Kael staggered. "You can't—"
But the Archivist was already rewriting the battlefield.
All players: Reset.
The Margin vanished.
Kael and Liora stood in a blank space of white parchment.
No enemies.
No allies.
No escape.
Just one page…
And one final choice.