The room was silent, save for the faint ticking of the Assay Dial. Rowan stood at the center, feeling as though the air itself had thickened, the weight of his own decision pressing on him. His words had been spoken, and yet the space between them seemed to hold a thousand more unspoken ones. The Book still pulsed in his hands, its power an ever-present hum beneath his skin.
The city had shifted. He could feel it in the way the walls seemed to lean toward him, the way the faintest echoes of movement reverberated through the floor. His decision had been made, but the consequences, the price, were only just beginning to reveal themselves.
Voss stood off to the side, his expression unreadable. He didn't move, didn't speak, but his presence was heavy, as though he were waiting for something—waiting for Rowan to understand something that he hadn't yet.
"The page is sleeping." Tess's voice came again, steady but hesitant, as if she were unsure whether to press Rowan further or to allow him to be.
Rowan's gaze shifted to her, and for a moment, the world seemed to shrink. Tess, so small and yet so vital. His mind flickered back to their first meeting, how innocent they both had seemed, how far they both had come since that moment. She had always been by his side, and now, in this moment of reckoning, she was still there, waiting for him to make the right choice.
"Rowan," she said again, her voice barely a whisper, but it carried with it the weight of the Book's truth. "You did what you had to."
Did he?
The words he had spoken, the decisions he had made, were now etched in the fabric of the city, inscribed on the very air that surrounded him. He had invoked the Book's power, and now, like an anchor dropped into a deep sea, there was no pulling it back. But could he hold onto it, or would it drag him under?
"The weight is on you now." Voss's voice broke the silence, smooth and cold. "You've tied yourself to the city. The Book is yours, but the city's future—its fate—is in your hands. There is no turning back."
Rowan's breath caught in his throat. There it was again—the price. He had not understood it fully before. He had wanted power, control, but now that he had it, it felt like a sickness, a poison threading its way through his body, through his mind. The Book was not just a tool of law and order—it was a force, a force that could consume him if he allowed it.
He turned to face Voss, his grip on the Book tightening. "What do you want from me?" he asked, his voice raw, the question more desperate than he had meant it to be.
Voss didn't answer immediately. Instead, he took a step forward, his shadow stretching across the floor. "I want you to see, Rowan," Voss said softly, almost gently, "that there are no good choices here. Not anymore. You are bound to the Book, yes, but you are also bound to the city. The Book is not the city's master—it only holds the history, the law. The city? The city lives and breathes. It adapts. And it will change you with it."
Rowan shook his head, but it wasn't defiance—it was confusion. The weight of it was more than he had anticipated. "I didn't—"
"You didn't understand." Voss's tone softened, as though he were speaking to someone who had just begun to see the truth. "That's what power does, Rowan. It blinds you. You wanted control, but now the city has control of you. You think the Book is the answer, but it's only the beginning. The city moves, and you move with it. You either bend, or you break."
Rowan's fingers brushed against the edge of the Book once more, his thumb grazing the worn leather. He could almost feel the pulse of it, a heartbeat that matched his own, steady and relentless. Was it his? Or had the Book already claimed him, already made him a part of it, bound to the city's pulse like a slave to its whims?
"What happens now?" Rowan asked, his voice steady despite the tremor that ran through him. He felt like a man standing on the edge of an abyss, staring down at a future that was both terrifying and inevitable.
Voss's smile was small, knowing. "Now," he said, "you become the city's heartbeat. Every word you write will echo through it. Every choice you make will shape it. You will guide it—or you will be consumed by it. You are bound, Rowan. And you cannot undo it. The Book is yours. But the city? The city is now yours to guide—or to ruin."
Rowan nodded slowly, the truth of Voss's words sinking in. He had wanted control. But what he had failed to realize was that control, true control, was never just about having power—it was about wielding it with wisdom, with purpose. And in that moment, as he stood with the Book in his hands, he knew that his journey was far from over. It had only just begun.
"I will guide it," Rowan said quietly, but the words felt like a promise, one that would either be fulfilled or broken in the days to come.
Voss inclined his head slightly, as though acknowledging Rowan's decision. But there was no triumph in his expression. Only the steady weight of truth.
"We shall see." Voss's voice was barely a whisper as he stepped back, his figure fading into the shadows of the chamber.
The room was still. Silent. But Rowan could feel the weight of the city on his shoulders now, like a mantle too heavy to bear, but one he had chosen to wear. There would be no rest. No peace. Only the constant thrum of the Book, its power now his burden to carry.
Rowan looked down at the Book, its pages waiting for the next line. Waiting for the next choice.
And so it was that Rowan's future was written. Not in ink, but in the choices he would make—and in the lives that would change, or be lost, because of them.