The Book of Endings
1128 Words
Silver fire swallowed Mira whole.
It wasn’t heat, but memory. She tumbled through images—some hers, most not. Thousands of lives passed through her, imprinted like echoes in her bones. A child dying in winter, a queen poisoned by her sister, a man praying to a god that never answered.
Then—
Thorne.
A boy once. Terrified, bloodied, crawling through the ruins of a burning village. Crying out for someone. Anyone.
A hand reached for him.
Black-gloved. Inhuman.
The reaper who made him what he is.
Then the scene fractured.
And Mira landed hard, gasping, in a chamber of night.
---
The library was gone.
Now she stood in a dome of shifting stars. Beneath her feet, constellations moved like water. Above her, the Book hovered—opened and alive.
Its pages flipped without wind.
And on each page: names.
Tens of thousands. Written in silver ink.
Then, without her touch, the book turned to a blank page.
Her name appeared.
Mira Ellese Danvers.
Death Date: September 17, 2025.
Method: Soulburn.
Her heart stopped.
The ink shimmered. Shifted. Lines blurred. New words formed below.
Soulbound Exception: Reaper Marked.
Status: Contingent.
Mira reached toward it.
Her hand passed through the page.
And the room around her cracked.
---
“Mira!”
Thorne’s voice tore through the veil. The dome shattered like stained glass, raining stars and ink around her. She fell again—this time toward him.
He caught her midair.
They landed back in the Prague temple. The mirror was broken. Light flickered like a dying pulse.
Thorne held her tightly. His eyes burned with fury and fear.
“You opened it,” he rasped. “You touched the book.”
“I had to,” she gasped. “It had my name. And yours.”
He pulled back. “Mine?”
“Yes,” she said. “There was a second page. Yours was beside mine—blank.”
Thorne’s expression went stone-still.
“No reaper has a page,” he whispered.
“You do now.”
---
Back in their hotel, Mira sat beneath flickering candlelight as Thorne paced like a caged storm.
“The Book of Endings is older than death itself,” he said. “It shouldn’t see you. It shouldn’t know me.”
“I think,” Mira said softly, “we’re rewriting something that was meant to stay broken.”
He stopped pacing. “That’s not comforting.”
“I don’t want to be comforting. I want to live.”
“You are living.”
“For now.”
She looked at him—and for the first time, he didn’t look like death. He looked like a man who had given up eternity for a six-month promise.
“I saw your past,” she said. “In the Book. The fire. The village.”
Thorne turned away sharply.
“It was a long time ago.”
“It made you.”
“It ended me.”
Mira stood. She stepped closer.
“You’re not a monster, Thorne. You’re a man who remembers every life he’s taken and still chooses to save mine. That’s not death. That’s mercy.”
He closed his eyes.
Then whispered, “I can’t save you again. Not if the veil decides to take you back.”
“Then we go further,” she said. “We find the next Eidolon Gate.”
---
The map burned brighter now.
Their soulbind pulsed with energy, syncing to the rhythms of the Book itself. Wherever the next gate was, the bond would lead them there.
Mira didn’t sleep.
She didn’t need to anymore.
Instead, she stood by the hotel window at midnight, watching raindrops sketch symbols on the glass. Behind her, Thorne stirred.
“You’re glowing,” he murmured.
She turned.
“I think the Book changed me.”
He studied her closely.
“The soulburn is slowing. The light inside you—it’s not just mine anymore.”
“Is that… bad?”
He walked to her, and for the first time, touched her face. His hand was warm. Mortal.
“No,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”
---
By dawn, they boarded a train headed east—toward Romania.
The next gate pulsed through their bond like a compass point. Every step closer made Mira feel… larger. Brighter. She started seeing souls walking beside people on the street—fragments of them, trailing like ghostlight.
“You’re tuning into the undercurrent,” Thorne said. “The part of reality most mortals can’t see.”
“Why can I see it now?”
“Because you’re not fully mortal anymore.”
They said nothing for a while.
Then Mira asked, “When I die… what happens to you?”
Thorne’s hand tightened on the edge of the seat.
“The bond severs. My power returns. I go back to the Fold.”
“The Fold?”
“The void between worlds. It’s where reapers dwell when they’re not collecting.”
“Does it hurt?”
He looked at her.
“It’s not pain. It’s worse. It’s nothing.”
Mira reached for his hand.
“I won’t leave you alone in that.”
---
The next Eidolon Gate waited beneath the ruins of Bran Castle.
They arrived under a blood-orange moon. Local legends kept people away—ghost sightings, mysterious disappearances. But Mira felt none of that fear.
She felt drawn.
The catacombs beneath the castle were lined with bones. Ancient scripts curled across the walls. At the end of one passage stood a door of petrified wood, embedded with silver runes.
Her soulbind burned.
And Thorne collapsed.
“Thorne!”
He was on his knees, gasping.
“The bond… it’s unraveling,” he choked. “The Book’s energy… it’s testing us.”
“What do I do?”
“Open the gate.”
Mira placed her hand on the door.
And the world changed again.
---
They passed through the gate.
Beyond was a different reality.
A void made of threads and voices—some singing, some screaming. Souls moved like comets through dark water. Towers of light pierced the sky. In the distance, something massive stirred—like a god too old to speak.
Thorne stood beside her, whole again.
“This is the Between,” he said. “The space that exists between every death.”
“It’s… beautiful.”
“It’s dangerous.”
A figure stepped forward.
She wore white. Her eyes were mirrors.
“I am the Curator,” she said. “You touched the Book. You should not have.”
Mira stepped forward. “I want to rewrite my fate.”
The Curator tilted her head.
“You misunderstand, Mira Halston. You already have.”
The sky shattered.
And the chapter ends.
- Writer
