The road through Silverwood Pass was long, winding, and treacherous. The towering trees, their silvery leaves shimmering under the dim light of the twin moons, created an eerie stillness. Even with Ryn and Lena at my side, I felt like we were being watched.

  We rode in silence, the weight of our escape from Solmaris pressing down on us. The High-Level Grimoire was already in Eldric Varos’ hands, and the Forbidden Grimoire lay in Vault Theta, waiting to be unlocked. We were racing against time.

  And then, I saw her.

  A lone figure standing by the roadside, wrapped in a traveler's cloak, hood pulled low over her face. Something about her posture, the way she held herself, sent a strange familiarity through me.

  "Traveler?" I called out cautiously.

  The woman turned.

  And my world stopped.

  Her face was one I had never seen before—but her eyes.

  I knew them.

  Wide, sharp, filled with something that felt too much like recognition. Like she knew me.

  "Haider?"

  My pulse froze.

  "How do you know my name?" I demanded.

  She pulled back her hood, revealing long dark hair, eyes glinting with intelligence—and something else.

  "Because," she said, voice quiet but firm. "I was the one who read your story."

  My breath caught.

  No.

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  No, that wasn’t possible.

  And yet, here she was.

  A girl who had once read my book.

  Her name was Elara Varos.

  Daughter of Eldric Varos, the royal court magician.

  And before she woke up in this world—she had been a reader of my novel.

  "I read everything," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "All 1048 chapters. Every character, every war, every secret you wrote."

  My stomach twisted.

  This wasn’t just reincarnation. She hadn’t been reborn like me—she had been dragged into the story exactly as she was.

  "I was just a university student back home," she admitted. "I read your novel every day. And then one night… I woke up here."

  I stared at her. "How long have you been in this world?"

  She hesitated.

  "Four years."

  I nearly stumbled.

  Four years?

  I had only been here for weeks.

  Time between our worlds didn’t match.

  That meant—

  "You knew everything," I said slowly. "You knew what would happen."

  Elara smiled grimly. "No. Because something changed."

  She exhaled sharply, glancing away.

  "I was supposed to die."

  Elara’s father, Eldric Varos, had found her in the kingdom’s dungeons four years ago.

  She had been arrested for “false prophecy”—because she knew things about the kingdom no one else did. Politics, wars, betrayals—all events she had read in my novel.

  She was supposed to be executed.

  But Varos had stopped it.

  "He didn’t kill me," she said quietly. "Instead, he… adopted me."

  Lena and Ryn were both silent, listening carefully.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because he wanted answers."

  Her father was a scholar, a man obsessed with unraveling the mysteries of magic. And when he realized that Elara knew knowledge beyond any scholar, he saw an opportunity.

  Instead of killing her, he took her in. Trained her. Questioned her.

  And eventually—he believed her.

  "My father was the one who retrieved the High-Level Grimoire," she admitted.

  I narrowed my eyes. "How?"

  Elara took a slow breath.

  "Because he was the only one who could prove its existence."

  The High-Level Grimoire had been locked away in the Kingdom Archives for generations, kept hidden because no mage could understand its contents.

  It wasn’t normal magic.

  It was something else.

  Mathemagic.

  Physics.

  Equations and laws that this world had never even considered.

  But Elara—she knew them.

  She had studied modern physics, calculus, and engineering back in our world. And with that knowledge, she was able to decipher parts of the High-Level Grimoire that no one else could.

  Her father used that knowledge to convince the court that he should be the one to study it.

  And that was how he became the only mage in the kingdom to wield Axion Magic.

  "I knew this world’s future," Elara murmured. "But only up until chapter 1048. After that…"

  She trailed off.

  I finished for her.

  "The story stopped."

  She nodded.

  I exhaled.

  Everything made sense now.

  Elara had been a reader of my novel, pulled into this world years before me. She had used her knowledge of science to help her father unlock the secrets of Axion Magic.

  And now, we were standing on opposite sides of the same conflict.

  Because if Eldric Varos had the High-Level Grimoire—

  Then he was already preparing to open Vault Theta.

  "I don’t want this world to end," Elara said suddenly, voice raw.

  I looked at her.

  "Then help me stop it," I said.

  She hesitated.

  And then, she nodded.

  "We need to move," Ryn said. "The longer we wait, the closer Varos gets to the Forbidden Grimoire."

  Elara adjusted her cloak. "I can get us into Velmathis. But after that… we’re on our own."

  It was enough.

  We saddled up, leaving the Silverwood Pass behind.

  The race for the Forbidden Grimoire had begun.

  And this time, I wasn’t the only one who knew the truth.