As soon as her pen touched the parchnt of her Chronicle, the world unraveled. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she didn’t see Cheshire, even though she knew he was there with her, and could feel Miles’ hand squeezing her shoulder gently.
In front of her stood the gates of the Library of the Unwritten. Her heart was drumming in her chest, and her throat was tight. There was a vast silence pressing in around her, deeper than any ocean trench, broken only by the creak of old hinges as the Professor pushed one of the massive doors open.
"Go on." His voice was gentle as he ushered Sarissa in. "She’ll be waiting."
Sarissa nodded and stepped into the dark.
The Library unfolded like a dream. Aisles and aisles of impossible height, each shelf stacked with tos bound in leather, cloth, tal, and stranger materials still. The air slled of ink, parchnt, and sothing sweetly tallic.
It wasn’t lit in any conventional way. Rather, everything shimred with a quiet glow, as though the stories themselves exhaled light, pulsing with an unseen heartbeat.
"This isn’t the sa place I saw before." Sarissa murmured.
"What you saw before was its horizon’s reflection. This is the true, Library, where stories are stored before they’re told out loud by the world." The Professor’s cane – he sure as hell wasn’t carrying one before – tapped gently behind her.
A chill slipped down her spine. She tried summoning her blade, but it wasn’t there. No armor, no weapons, only herself.
"No, no, child." The Professor spoke softly, yet sternly. "The library doesn’t allow fiction to intrude."
The shelves rearranged themselves ahead of her with a whispering shuffle, forming a narrow corridor. At the end stood a lone table, lit by a pool of pale light, with a figure sitting there, hooded, their face shadowed.
Sarissa approached slowly, and the figure raised its head.
It was her own face, only older.
Scarred, darker eyes, rimd with sothing deeper than sorrow.
Rage? Knowledge?
"Took you long enough..." The other Sarissa said. Her voice was the sa and not. Rougher, tired. "Sit."
Sarissa obeyed, her pulse heavy like hamr against blade in an anvil.
"What is this?" Her voice was steady, but there was a hesitant edge to it that did not escape the other Sarissa.
"A fork." The elder Sarissa retorted. She reached into her cloak and placed a dagger on the table. Its blade shimred like starlight, but flickered at the edges. It didn’t look like it was produced by the system.
It was a weapon made of potential.
"That doesn’t help."
"You ca here to learn what you must beco. I ca to remind you what you must leave behind."
"If you’re , then you know I don’t like riddles." Sarissa narrowed her eyes.
"Good. Then listen." The elder Sarissa smiled, humorless.
She gestured, and the library around them seed to shift again. A thousand tiny motes of light rose like fireflies, forming scenes in midair.
Images of battles, broken cities, Mara bleeding in the Forge, Miles screaming as flas devoured the world.
"These are endings." The older Sarissa’s tone was emotionless, dead like a fish lost in the shore. "They are the most likely futures, and all of them begin here. With you."
"That’s not fair."
"If you know the system, then you know it’s never ant to be."
"Then I reject them." Sarissa stood.
"You can’t."
"Watch ." Sarissa rose to her feet.
There was a brief pause, and then the elder version of her rose as well, her eyes bright with so quiet fury.
"That’s what I said, too, the first ti. The Professor told a story, showed a path, and I thought I could just change it with willpower. But we are not authors here, we are but re vessels of the Stories."
"No."
"Yes."
They locked eyes, and the standoff felt like staring into a mirror made of knives.
"What do you want from ?" Sarissa asked finally.
"To warn you. To offer you this." She pushed the dagger forward.
"A key?"
"A weapon. A choice."
Sarissa stared at the blade. It shimred like the echoes around them, shaped not by forge or spell, but by intent. She knew, without being told, that it would work only once. That it could sever a thread. Or bind one.
"You’re not telling everything."
"Of course not. Truths are stories too. They must unfold." The elder Sarissa laughed bitterly.
Sarissa took the dagger, and it felt heavier than it looked in her hand.
The mont her fingers closed around it, the entire library shifted. No longer shelves, no longer tos.
Only glass.
She stood within a do of mirrors, each pane reflecting a version of her life.
A Sarissa who beca queen of a shattered realm, one who died by Alice’s hands, another who walked alone through a black desert until even her na eroded.
She turned around, and the elder Sarissa was gone.
In her place, there was only the Professor.
"Do you understand now?" He asked.
"I understand that I’m terrified." Her voice trembled ever so slightly.
"Good." The Professor smirked innocently. "That ans you’re awake."
He offered his hand, and she took it.
They stepped through a fra of light and found themselves back in the corridor, but the library behind them did not vanish. It whispered in a constant undertone to her heartbeat.
But around her, the world snapped.
***
Sarissa gasped, clutching her chest. Her back was drenched in cold sweat, and her hand ached, like sothing sharp had dug into her palm.
The dagger.
It had co through?
"Hey. Hey, you okay?" Miles squeezed her shoulder a bit tighter, but still gently enough.
She blinked at him. He looked pale, tired, but real.
"Yes." She whispered. "But we don’t have much ti."
"You brought sothing back." He glanced at her hand.
"A piece of one of my Stories."
"Then we’d better find out a good use for it." Miles exhaled.
"I think I already know what I must do with it." Sarissa nodded, her gaze hardening.
She extended her hand, and the blade appeared as if it was summoned from her inventory, but not. It materialized from a storm of luminous sparks, but still, it felt different.
"Okay, then." Miles looked at the dagger, curiosity gleaming in his eyes. "What do you have to do with it?"
Sarissa’s lips beca a straight line, and her eyes were darkened by grim resolve.
"I must kill myself."
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