Up close, the Core wasn’t smooth at all.From a distance, the pillar had looked like polished stone or metal with light running under its skin. Standing right in front of it, I could see the seams: layers of code stacked like sediment, tiny symbols flickering in and out, ghost‑images of worlds surfacing and sinking in its surface.My pen hummed in my hand, the conduit between us a bright, taut line.“Last chance to walk away,” Jax muttered behind me. “Anyone? No? Okay, cool.”“Shut up and stand by,” Selene said, voice tight.The storm howled around us—tiles clashing, blades swinging, ink snapping—but here, within arm’s reach of the Core, the chaos felt… thinner. Like being in the eye of a hurricane.I lifted my pen‑hand.For a second, I hesitated.Not because I doubted the plan.Because I understood, in a way I hadn’t in the Hall, that this was a threshold no one had crossed and come back from.Every almost‑dead author I’d just seen in the Unwritten path flickered behind my eyes—burne
Last Updated : 2026-01-07 Read more