The truth revealed itself slowly, cruelly.
The Unwritten Land was not a future.
It was a discarded possibility—a tomorrow the world once rejected.
Erynd's power came from there.
Every map he made stole weight from this land, keeping the present stable while burying alternatives.
He had been a thief of futures.
The land did not want conquest.
It wanted permission to exist.
The empires arrived, as predicted. Fire. Banners. Certainty.
Erynd did the unthinkable.
He tore the map in half.
The world screamed.
Without an anchor, futures multiplied. Cities staggered under choice. Kings lost inevitability. Prophecies collapsed into maybes.
Iria stabilized—no longer temporary.
Kael's shadow snapped back into place.
The Compass-Beast lay down, satisfied.
The Unwritten Land did not replace the world.
It stood beside it.