Magic. Sorcery.

  Words that used to belong in cheap fantasy paperbacks or some B-grade movie I’d half-watch on a dead-end weekend. Back home, anyway.

  This wasn’t the place I used to live in.

  Took me a few days to really let that sink in. Long enough to stop hoping I’d wake up sweating in my crappy little apartment bed, wondering what the hell I ate to dream this weird.

  Nah. This was real enough.

  A different world. Different rules. Different sky.

  How’d I figure that out?

  Not from Randall, that’s for damn sure. The old man wasn’t exactly the tour guide type, because I didn't ask anything either. And I sure as hell didn’t go skipping out the front door looking for adventure.

  Nope. Saved by the book. Literally one book. Randall said it was a gift. Looked ancient enough to believe him. The thing was heavier than my regrets and twice as dusty.

  Pellenia: Book of History.

  I cut a deal with the old man — I’d help him around the place, lift things, clean things, act useful — and in return, I got reading time. Fair trade. Funny thing? Reading didn’t even feel like a chore like I imagined it to be. Felt…safe. Familiar. Like school, if school taught you how not to die horribly in a strange world.

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  And trust me — I needed all the help I could get. The first thing that hit me when I opened the book?

  "Empires rise not only on swords and sorcery, but on stories, faith, and forgotten sins."

  Hell of a statement.

  The book laid it all out — the big eras of history. First Age — Age of Awakening. Magic wasn’t born, it was found. Dug up by ancient tribes messing around where they probably shouldn’t have. Spirits walking the earth casually.

  Second Age — Age of Crowns. That’s when things got bloody. When power stopped being about survival and started being about domination. Five kingdoms clawed their way out of the dirt, leaving enough corpses behind to build their thrones on.

  Valin — militaristic, all about honor and warfare. Real sword-up-your-ass types.

  Eria — nature worshippers. Tree-huggers with sharp knives.

  Lyria — secretive, knowledge-obsessed. If it’s hidden or forbidden, they probably want it.

  Chane — filthy rich. The kind of rich that makes kingdoms start wars just to smell their gold.

  Gris — yeah… death cult central. Necromancers, grave talkers, people who treat corpses differently.

  What a neat little lineup.

  "Hah! Look at you, boy — suddenly fancyin' yourself a scholar now?" Randall barked a laugh as if he'd just caught me dancing naked in the woods. "What’s next? Gonna ask me for a pair of spectacles too?"

  I snorted. Didn’t even mean to. Just slipped out. Maybe it was the way he said it — like the idea of me reading a damn book was the funniest thing he'd seen all week.

  "Didn’t know this counted as a luxury hobby, old man." I muttered, legs kicked up.

  Truth was — I wasn’t a reader. Never had been. Back home, I called bookworms nerds and meant every syllable. Thought they were wasting their lives stuck in paper worlds while the real one burned outside their window.

  And now? Now I was eating every single word.

  God, this book had me by the throat.

  Maybe it was how it was written — raw, blunt, soaked in blood and sweat. Or maybe I was just that starved for answers. Either way, I was hooked. And screw it — I was already planning how to get my hands on more after this one.

  "You comin' later, boy? Mithket’s callin’."

  I blinked up from the pages. "What?"

  I heard him — just didn’t get a damn clue what he meant.

  Randall shook his head with that half-sigh, half-smirk thing he did when I was being particularly stupid. "Charcoal delivery. You in kid? Or you plannin' to marry that book and read 'til the sun dies?"

  Ah. Right. That.

  I'd almost forgotten — the man wasn’t just chopping wood for fun. He turned the stuff into charcoal, bagged it, hauled it to town, sold it for enough coin to keep us fed and to pay for ... .taxes.

  This week was supposed to be my first delivery run with him.

  I hadn’t exactly agreed yet.

  But let’s be honest — was I really gonna pass up a trip to town? People. Streets. Conversations I wasn’t supposed to hear. A whole new mess of knowledge waiting to be stolen.

  Yeah. Like hell I was staying home.

  "Give me five," I said, closing the book. "Let me mark the page first.”

  Randall just chuckled, shaking his head. “We're going later kid, later.”