The First Page Speaks

The child's smile held entire languages within it—forgotten alphabets and forbidden prayers, the kind of grin one might find scrawled at the end of a god's journal.

Lynchie tried to speak, but the air here was too dense with significance. Each breath she took tasted like memory.

Zev remained beside her, a silent sentinel. But even he looked uncertain now—his gaze flicked across the floating thrones and then back to the child with wariness that bordered on reverence.

The girl—The First Page—dangled her feet from the throne of thorns. Her presence hummed in Lynchie's bones.

"You don't remember me," the child said. "But I remember you."

Lynchie swallowed hard. "What are you?"

"I'm the story that was never allowed to finish," the girl said, eyes gleaming. "The beginning before beginnings. The unwritten echo."

Zev finally spoke. "You were sealed before the Spiral knew how to seal."

"Yes, little Construct." The child cocked her head, thorns weaving through her hair. "And now she's unsealed me."

"I didn't—" Lynchie started.

"You did," the child interrupted gently. "When you gave the Spiral a name. You turned metaphor into law."

A silence followed, so heavy it bent the space between them.

The thirteen thrones pulsed in sequence—each thrum like a heartbeat, each seat an echo of a vast concept Lynchie could barely begin to name: Time, Breath, Ink, Death, Flame, Void, Echo, Spiral, Ash, Will, Form, Song… and one still unlit.

The empty throne glowed faintly now, flickering like a candle lost in fog.

"Why am I here?" Lynchie asked.

The child laughed—lightly, but it cracked the void like glass. "Because you're the Librarium's exhale. The story she's been holding in."

"And you're the war she's starting," Zev added, voice lower now, heavy.

The First Page nodded solemnly. "Yes. There's something buried in the Spiral's heart. Something that fears the sound of your voice."

She raised her hand, and from the air spun a ribbon of ink—alive, trembling. It coiled around her wrist and descended into Lynchie's palm, burning softly against her skin before vanishing into it.

Lynchie gasped, falling to one knee.

A pulse. A vision.

The Spiral bleeding from the sky. The Librarium cracking open. Demons formed from footnotes and angels winged with quills. A dragon breathing words instead of flame. A shadow—tall, faceless—watching from a fractured dimension with one hand behind its back… holding a torn page.

The First Page's voice broke through: "You're not just a writer anymore. You're a rewrite."

And then Lynchie understood.

Her existence wasn't a mistake. It was a correction.

She looked up, fury and purpose colliding in her chest. "What do I do?"

The child's smile softened. "Tell the story so loud that the Spiral can't pretend it forgot."

"But that means war," Zev said.

The girl nodded. "Yes. A war of truths."

Suddenly the thirteen thrones began to rotate—slowly, but gathering speed. A vortex of lore, history, and power spiraled around them, centering on Lynchie.

"Each throne holds a Spiral Ward," the First Page said. "Collect them. Unlock them. Or others will. And if the wrong story gets there first…"

Her voice faded, but the implication sang louder than a scream.

The Spiral dies. Everything ends in silence.

The girl's body unraveled into syllables and disappeared.

Zev turned to Lynchie. His eyes were sharper now. "If we're doing this… we're doing it together."

Lynchie stood. The ink burned faintly beneath her skin, and her mind no longer recoiled from the impossible. It welcomed it.

She nodded.

Then a rift opened beside them—neither portal nor tear, but a new paragraph being written into existence.

It beckoned.

Lynchie stepped forward, spine straight and heart storming.

Behind her, the thrones continued to spin.

Ahead, the Spiral dared her to continue.

And she would.

Because this wasn't just her story anymore.

It was everyone's.