Chapter 113 — Of Fate, Souls, and the Unsung Rule
Akira walked with the earrings warm in his palm, the fairy drifting beside him like a lantern of living light. The forest seemed to hush as if it too waited for the next truth to be spoken.
"So," Akira said at last, looking up, "what exactly is the law of Empyrean Schism?"
The fairy settled nearer and answered slowly, choosing each word like a careful stitch. "It is not a law in the way your world thinks of laws. It is an unsaid law — a pattern woven into the bones of that world. The people of Empyrean Schism did not follow it because they read it on tablets. They lived by it because their souls were born from the soul realm, not from the soil and sea of the planet itself. That makes them different."
Akira's brow creased. "Different how?"
"The souls born of a world are children of that world's fate," the fairy said. "A world's path is fixed; it is the cloth into which those souls are woven. If a soul tries to pull against the weave — to force the world to take another path — the world resists. It will reclaim or erase what resists, because the soul and the world are bound. The fate of the world observes its children; it corrects what would tear its pattern."
Akira frowned. "So what if a soul from a different world comes? Can that soul change things?"
The fairy's light dimmed with thought. "It is not simple. A foreign soul can only change a world for one of two reasons: either the creator of that world wills the change, or the foreign soul is so powerful and so anchored that it can stand against the world's correcting force. Otherwise the intruding soul risks being erased or consumed by the world's memory."
"Meaning it's hard to change a world," Akira said.
"Yes," the fairy agreed, then hesitated. Akira noticed the pause and pressed, "But what?"
The fairy hovered a breath closer. "There is a difference — and it is important. Souls that come from the soul realm are not like world-born souls. The soul realm stands outside a single world's weave. Its inhabitants are older in a sense; their origin is not within one planet's pattern. Because of that, they can bypass, or at least touch, multiple weaves. A soul-realm soul can influence a world in ways a world-born soul cannot, but only if it is strong and resolute. Even then, the cost may be great."
Akira's fingers tightened on the earrings. "Why can a soul from the soul realm override a creator? Or even what people call a god?"
The fairy's wings fluttered once, scattering faint motes of light. "You are saying it wrong, Crown Prince. A creator is not the same as a god. People might call a powerful creator a god because they make worlds and bend rules. But a god — the word in its truest sense — is older than making. A god exists before the alpha and after the omega. A god is the condition of existence itself, something that stands outside even creators. Creators craft; gods are the ground on which crafting happens."
Akira let that thought sink in. The night above the canopy felt suddenly thin and distant, as if the stars were only pages in a book compared to that vastness.
"So," he said quietly, "the soul-realm beings are closer to the source. That's why they can reach across a world's weave. But even they pay a price, because the world pushes back."
The fairy nodded. "Yes. The world will push back. It tides against the intruder. That is why Empyrean Schism's fate was stubborn and why some things were sealed — to stop wounds from widening. Seals can protect a soul from being erased, but they can also hide the truth and make the wound sleep. You carry such a sleeping wound now."
Akira looked up at the twin moons, the earrings warm against his chest. "So sealing my memories might have been necessary… or it may have been a prison."
"Both are possible," the fairy answered. "Protection and prison wear the same face until the moment of choice arrives. When you must decide — whether to wake what was sealed — remember the world's weave will answer. Choose knowing the cost."
Akira's jaw set. The unsaid law had marked him; now the mark had been touched. He tucked the earrings close and walked on, the forest folding its quiet around them. The path ahead felt heavier and sharper — not only a journey back to what once was, but a road through the rules of existence itself.