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It was said that the last reader no longer had a name—just a single syllable lost in a whisper. He had come to complete the book. But the book had other plans. The chamber in which it rested was like an open throat of stone: damp, narrow, full of breath that no one breathed. In the center: the book of deadly spells, open but unread. For page 221 was different. The first lines of this spell were finely written, in blood that turned to silver once it dried. They read: "When the name is spoken, he who was never born..." Then the text ended. Not another letter. Not a period. Not a conclusion. And yet the page swirled with every step, as if the sentence were still in the making. Velasin, a young chronomancer from the Soot Academy, didn't believe in curses. He believed in cracks in time, in loops and turns—and that everything begun must also be finished. He entered the chamber, taking no weapon. Only a quill spun from his own hair. And a tiny inkwell sealed with skin. "I will complete you," he whispered to the book. It didn't answer. But the skull above the page tilted a crack. The skeletal hands twitched. Velasin dipped the quill. The ink shimmered purple, as if it knew where to go. He started, just below the last line. "...who never was born, but always died..." A crack ran through the stone floor. No sound. Only a feeling, as if reality were holding its breath. Velasin heard a whisper. Then an itch on his hand. The ink flowed, but no longer from the jar—it came from within himself. His fingers grew paler. His veins formed into lines. And the quill wrote on. "...who dies in every language before it ends..." The page rippled. The writing on it moved, adjusted. The spell wasn't just an incantation—it was a mirror. And Velasin was the glass. He wanted to stop. But the quill no longer held in his hand—it had become his hand. His blood was the ink. His thoughts the parchment. He tried to scream, but the air in his lungs only formed characters that pressed onto the next page. "...who writes himself until nothing remains..." The skeletal hands closed slowly. The page didn't turn over—it disappeared. Melted into the skin that was once Velasin's chest. A new volume grew from the spine of the book. Small, but heavy. No title. Just one syllable, carved in flickering silver: "Un—" But Velasin wasn't gone. Not entirely. Sometimes his face flickers across the page margins. A crease in the leather moves like a breath. And if you read long enough, you'll hear him whisper: "Don't finish. Never finish." Another chronicler, older than Velasin, came years later. She had only one ear, but three voices speaking within her. She read the spell—just the beginning—and plunged into a dream made of words. When they found her, her tongue was black. Her fingers were curled into fine lettering. Her heart beat in meter. She's still alive. In verses no one can read anymore.