Chapter Fifteen: The Edge of the Page
The sky above the Tower of Silence cracked like old paint.
Lightning didn't strike—it punctuated, jagged and deliberate, as though the world itself were editing its own final paragraph.
They stood at the Tower's edge. Below, the spiral wound into shadow.
Ahead, the horizon ended—not in mountains or fog or sea.
But in nothing.
A white flatness stretched beyond sight. Not a field. Not ice. Something else.
Selis knelt beside the map she had pieced together from the ink-burned scrolls of the Forgotten Library.
She pointed to a single black dot, far beyond any drawn border.
"The Well of Beginnings. It lies beyond the margins. Past the last known word."
Remiel frowned. "That's not a place. That's an erasure."
Soot's voice was quiet. "Then we'll write our way in."
Two Days Later…
They left behind roads.
Then paths.
Then even the laws of walking.
Out here, gravity argued with them. Time skipped. Sound rippled backward.
The white expanse beneath their feet shimmered with half-finished letters. Words abandoned mid-sentence. Thoughts the world had once tried to think—and failed.
Tali stepped around a sentence that had no subject.
Remiel nearly fell into a paragraph that rewrote itself every few seconds.
But Soot—
Soot walked straight.
The sixth quill pulsed faintly at his side.
It was guiding him.
Selis pointed ahead. "There. Do you see it?"
At first, they thought it was a trick of the ink-light.
But no—it was real.
A door.
Freestanding. Black. Etched with an unspoken rune.
Tali stepped toward it.
Suddenly, a voice rang out.
Soft. Warm. Authoritative.
"You're early."
They turned.
And standing behind them was a figure none of them recognized.
But Soot did.
Immediately.
She looked like a librarian. Long coat, hands ink-stained, eyes gentle.
But her presence made the script around them flicker in retreat.
Soot stepped forward. "You're not Ministry."
"No. They're my mistake."
Remiel narrowed his eyes. "Then who are you?"
She smiled.
"I am the Last Editor. I cleaned the First Draft. I sealed the Well. I invented the eraser."
Tali's hand went to her blade. "Are you going to stop us?"
"I've stopped you many times before," the Editor said softly. "Each version of you. Each rewrite. You burn too brightly. You end too much."
Soot tightened his grip on the sixth quill.
"Then you know I won't stop now."
The Editor nodded.
"Which is why I'm not here to convince you. I'm here to offer you a shortcut."
They froze.
She extended a hand.
In it was a quill. Not one of the Seven. Smaller. Gray.
"This is the Editor's Quill. It can seal the Well of Beginnings forever. Not restart. Not destroy. Just… quiet."
Tali blinked. "You're offering him a way to stop everything—without breaking the world?"
"I'm offering him mercy."
Soot stared at the quill.
"It's a trap."
"No," the Editor said. "It's a compromise. End the cycle. Let no more Ink flow. Save what's left."
Soot turned to Selis.
She was crying.
"Even a prophet," she whispered, "gets tired of bleeding."
Soot stepped back.
And placed the Editor's Quill on the ground.
"No."
She tilted her head.
"Then you will walk the long road."
He nodded. "And write the last word myself."
The Editor exhaled.
And vanished.
The black door creaked open.
Beyond it: nothingness.
Not black. Not white. Not dark. Not light.
Just absence.
Tali swallowed. "That's where the Well is?"
"No," Selis whispered. "That's where it begins."
Soot looked at his companions.
"You don't have to follow me from here."
Remiel stepped beside him.
"Shut up."
Tali smirked. "You'd just get poetic and mess it up alone."
Selis stood.
And opened the door wider.
Together, they stepped through.
And the door closed behind them.
Elsewhere…
Far above the broken sky, the High Canon watched through the final lens of the Ministry.
"He refused the Editor's offer," he said flatly.
A new voice emerged—deeper, older.
A voice bound in chains.
"Then he must not reach the Well."
"Even the Wordless Host failed."
"Then release the Ink Revenant."
The Canon hesitated. "It hasn't been contained in centuries."
"Exactly. Soot is no longer a threat we erase.
He is a threat we must unwrite."
Back in the marginless void…
Soot felt something shift.
Not wind. Not motion.
A presence.
Something older than the quills.
Older than the Tower.
Older than names.
Tali stepped closer to him.
"What is that?"
He looked ahead.
And whispered—
"The Ink Revenant is awake."