Chapter 51
The stars above the Temple of First Quill began to bleed.
Thin streams of silver light — tainted crimson — ran down the parchment-like sky, dripping onto the ruined floor like tears of betrayal.
Nezutsu stared up in silence, the memory still burning behind his eyes.That battlefield…That kiss…That promise.
Eshryn stood frozen, her hand still on her sword. Kaelith clutched her staff like it was the last thing anchoring her to reality.
"Who is Aeylara?" Kaelith whispered.
Nezutsu's voice came out hoarse.
"I think she's the one who made me forget."
"What?" Eshryn stepped forward. "You mean… she sealed your past?"
He nodded slowly.
"And she loved me once. I don't know why… but I think I betrayed her. And now... she's waking up."
The Temple Shifts
Suddenly, the floor beneath them cracked.
Glyphs — previously dead and dormant — lit up across the tiles in a spiraling pattern. The inked stars above rearranged themselves into a glyph-sigil — one so ancient it pulsed with pre-Time authority.
A voice echoed from nowhere.
"The Seal of Aeylara has broken. The Era of Flame Reversion begins."
"Flame Reversion?" Kaelith's eyes widened.
Eshryn unsheathed her twin daggers. "That sounds like a prophecy. A bad one."
The temple doors — hundreds of feet tall — creaked open. Beyond them stood a hallway of stars, unending, shimmering with mirrored realities.
And at the far end… a throne made of shattered vows.
"She's calling you," Kaelith said.
"Or testing me," Nezutsu replied. "Maybe both."
Subplot Twist: The Forbidden Scribe
As they stepped forward, a familiar presence returned — one Nezutsu hadn't felt in what seemed like lifetimes.
From the mirrored wall stepped a man in dark crimson robes, wielding a black quill like a dagger.
"Well, well, Brother," he said with a crooked grin. "You're still breaking stories, I see."
Nezutsu froze.
"I… know you."
"Of course you do. I'm Verinox. The one you rewrote out of existence."
Kaelith gasped. "Another bearer of Origin Ink?!"
"The first one," Verinox said coldly. "Before he stole it from me. Before she loved him more."
"She… loved us both," Nezutsu said slowly, realization dawning.
"And you chose her over the world. Over me. That's why I cursed you."
"You were the one who sealed me?"
Verinox laughed. "No. I just lit the match. She struck the final word."
"What do you want now?" Eshryn stepped between them.
Verinox raised his hand. "A duel. Sibling to sibling. Pen to pen."
The Duel of the Unwritten
Suddenly, the mirrored hall became a blank page — reality flattening into script. Every word they spoke began forming live in the air.
Verinox: "Let's play a rewrite."
Nezutsu: "I won't let my pain be your ink."
They clashed — not with swords, but with sentences.
Verinox wrote:
"The Ashless One choked on guilt and fell."
Nezutsu countered:
"He stood, even with guilt dripping like blood."
Verinox struck again:
"His flame turned cold. Unwanted. Unloved."
Nezutsu wrote faster:
"And still, the world burned to warm him again."
The room trembled. Whole paragraphs collapsed into black holes of erased fate. Eshryn and Kaelith were forced back as the duel grew fierce — each word a wound, each phrase a sword.
Then, finally, Nezutsu wrote a single word across the entire battlefield:
"Enough."
And Verinox fell, coughing ink.
Before He Faded…
Verinox laughed bitterly.
"She'll never forgive you. You know that, right?"
"I'm not here for her forgiveness."
"Then why seek her throne?"
Nezutsu looked away, then whispered.
"Because… I think I still love her."
Verinox's body began dissolving into letters.
"Fool… romantic fool…"
With that, the Forbidden Scribe was no more — only his quill remained, floating between burning punctuation marks.
Nezutsu caught it.
A Name That Shouldn't Be Spoken
As the three continued down the hall, they came across an archway carved from stardust and bone.
Inscribed on it were the last words of a dying god:
"Let none speak her true name, lest her heart remember its fire."
But the name was there.
Written in flame.
Aeylara Vel'Inahr — The Forgotten Bride.
Nezutsu's breath caught in his throat.
"She was going to be my wife."
Kaelith looked at him.
"Then why did you abandon her?"
Nezutsu stared at the name.
And this time… he had no answer.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]