The stars were watching.
Not from above, but from within—shadows of burned-out timelines watching through seams in reality, blinking in and out like uncertain punctuation. The Vale no longer slept. It waited, cradled between what had come and what could no longer be undone.
And in the center, beneath the waking sky, the Book Without Pages remained open.
It did not flutter.
It did not hum.
It listened.
Jevan stood beside the girl—no longer quite sure if she was child or conduit—and watched as letters began to form in the space between nothing and meaning. They didn't come from ink. They came from decision. From defiance.
From something older than endings.
He could barely read them.
They weren't written in a language he knew.
They were written in will.
And each time a phrase surfaced, the world adjusted—like a breath held too long, finally exhaled.
