The corridor beyond the mirror room was unlike anything we'd seen before—twisting arches of ink and starlight, suspended in a sky that didn't belong to this world. Gravity felt inconsistent. The floor shifted like parchment under our steps.
"I think we're inside the story's skeleton," Alaira muttered, hand on her sword. "The part he hides between scenes."
I nodded, scanning the horizonless blackness. "We're in the margin."
A deep hum vibrated through the space. It wasn't sound—it was intent. Something aware of our presence.
Then he appeared.
A figure stepped from the ink, his cloak made of pages stitched together. His face was half-covered by a golden mask shaped like a quill. Where his shadow touched the ground, words bled into it, fading as quickly as they formed.
"The Author's First Enforcer," I whispered, memory clicking into place. "The Binder."
He was the one who erased me the first time.
"I see the broken pieces have found each other," the Binder said, voice calm and theatrical, like a man reading lines from a stage script. "Unscheduled convergence. Unacceptable deviation."
Alaira stepped in front of me. "We're not part of your script anymore."
The Binder tilted his head. "Incorrect. You never left it. You're improvising within constraints. And now, your page nears its tear."
A whip of glowing ink snapped out from his sleeve. Alaira parried it with a clash of steel, sparks flaring where magic met metal.
I raised my hand instinctively—and the mirror ring on my finger pulsed.
Suddenly, the room around us flickered.
We were back in the throne room—just for a blink.
Then in a field of fire.
Then in a coffin, side by side.
Three timelines. Three deaths.
I gasped, struggling to breathe. Alaira wavered too, dropping to one knee.
"Do you know what your power truly is?" the Binder asked, walking closer. "You think it's survival. It's not. It's instability. You shake the threads of the tale. The more you remember, the more you unravel."
He raised the whip again.
But this time, I didn't flinch.
"I remember everything now," I whispered. "Including how I destroyed you… once before."
The mirror ring on my hand shattered, and shards of reflection floated in the air—each one showing a version of me standing tall, unafraid, reaching through death after death.
I caught the nearest shard.
And I cut the script.
The Binder froze mid-motion. The air cracked like thunder. The corridor itself let out a metallic groan, as if it had noticed.
Beside me, Alaira stood again. "You just tore a hole in the page."
"No," I said. "I just wrote a new one."
And then—
Everything went white.