Juno didn't fall.
He drifted.
Through layers of silence so deep they crushed thought.
The last thing he remembered was the collapse of the Vale, the moment his mark flared and then yanked him somewhere else.
Now?
He stood on a marble floor that had no end.
Above him, no ceiling.
Only skyless black, stretching into forever.
And floating in the air, millions of books.
They didn't rest on shelves. They moved like birds, slow, gliding, silent. Their pages flipped themselves. Some bled ink. Others blinked.
Some hovered just out of reach, watching him.
Juno stepped forward.
The floor rippled under his boots like water made of stone.
He reached for the nearest book.
Its title flickered:
"Kael — Thread 177 // Rewritten. Terminated."
He opened it,
Inside:
Memories.
Kael as a child.
Kael failing to stop the thread-weavers from taking his brother.
Kael screaming as his mark was burned into him.
Then:
Blank pages.
Just… white.
As if the story had ended mid-breath.
Stamped at the bottom in jagged threadlike ink:
"Deemed unsalvageable. Rewritten."
Juno's breath caught.
These weren't just books.
They were lives.
Erased ones.
Abandoned ones.
Versions of people, of himself, that had been scrubbed out of the weave.
He looked up. Hundreds of titles spun around him now:
"Mace // Thread 39 // Deviation: Compassion. Purged."
"Rin // Thread 90 // Chose self over system. Terminated."
"Kael // Thread 241 // Rebellion at Birth. Incinerated."
"Azerai // [Error: Entry Corrupted]"
His fingers trembled as he reached for the book labeled Juno.
There were dozens.
Each with a slightly different number, date, or color of thread wrapped around the spine.
He opened one,
Inside:
Juno with no tattoos.
A version of himself who served the throne faithfully.
Who hunted down Kael.
Who turned in Rin.
Who erased Azerai with his own hands.
Juno dropped the book like it burned.
"This place... it's a graveyard."
He turned to find a figure standing a few feet away.
Tall. Hooded. Face unreadable.
But their voice?
Female. Familiar. Ancient.
"No," she said gently, "Graveyards are places for mourning. This is where stories go when they are rejected."
He stared.
"Who are you?"
She stepped forward, placing a hand over her chest.
"Once? A weaver. Now? Just a keeper of what could've been."
Books began to swirl around them in a slow, haunting orbit.
She gestured upward. "All of these were lives the throne refused. Stories that veered too far. People who felt too much. Choices that could've sparked freedom."
She looked at him.
"Including yours."
Juno clenched his jaw.
"So why am I still here?"
She paused.
"Because your story hasn't been written yet.
You are one of the few who still... exist between decisions."
He stepped forward, brows furrowed.
"The throne plans everything. The rebellion, the losses, even the wins.
Are we just... puppets pretending we're free?"
Her voice dropped lower.
"That's what the throne wants you to believe."
"But the truth?"
"Every erased thread left a scar. A crack. You and the others, marked or not, are those scars made flesh."
Juno looked around.
All these forgotten versions of them.
Each one told a story the throne couldn't allow.
Each one a piece of the truth.
The Keeper lifted her hand. A book floated down into Juno's hands.
No title.
Just a plain white cover.
He opened it.
Nothing inside.
Blank. Completely.
"What is this?" he whispered.
"That," she said, "is the original."
"Original what?"
....
"The first script. Before the throne touched it. Before fate became a cage."
The book began to flicker, like something trying to remember itself.
Flesh. Sorrow. Choice. Fire. Needle. Love. Undoing.
Then, It caught fire in his hands.
Juno dropped it, but the Keeper didn't flinch.
"The thread rejected it," she said.
"Even memory isn't safe here."
The ceilingless void pulsed once.
Far, far above them, a thread began to descend.
Twisting. Burning. Fracturing.
Juno's mark lit up like it recognized the thread.
But this one wasn't his.
It was someone else's.
Someone new.
The Keeper turned to him.
"Zeyrox is awakening."
"He was real?" Juno asked, breathless.
"More real than any of us were allowed to be."
And then the books began to close.
The library dimmed.
The silence folded in on itself.
The Keeper whispered, almost afraid:
"You need to go now."
...
"Where?"
She stared at him.
"Back into the story."
...
"I thought I wasn't part of it."
She smiled.
"That's what makes you dangerous."
Juno's mark flared.
The floor shattered beneath him.
He fell.
But this time, not into silence.
Into a voice screaming across all of reality:
"I WROTE THE FIRST THREAD, AND NOW I'VE COME TO SEVER IT."