Chapter 41: Milo's Descent

Milo vanished the next morning.

One moment he was with us—brooding, shadowy, occasionally sarcastic—and the next, gone. No trace. No warning. Just a lingering chill and a half-eaten biscuit.

We searched everywhere. Through the veil, across the mortal realm, even in the shadows where reality bent like a spoon in a toddler’s grip. The Watch was relentless. Thessa punched a tree that looked suspicious. Kael interrogated a cloud. Zeke tried to bribe a squirrel with trail mix.

“I swear it winked at me,” Zeke insisted.

“It’s a squirrel,” Yuel said. “It probably had something in its eye.”

“Or it’s in league with the Voidborn,” Talon muttered.

Ellira sipped from her flask. “If the Voidborn is recruiting rodents, we’re more doomed than I thought.”

We finally found Milo in the Voidborn’s lair.

It was a place stitched from nightmares—walls made of whispering stone, air thick with dread, and a carpet that looked suspiciously like it was made of regrets. Milo lay at the center, half-consumed by darkness, his memories twisted and leaking into the air like ink in water.

He didn’t respond when I called his name.

The Voidborn emerged from the shadows, tall and terrible, cloaked in void. His voice was silk dipped in venom.

“Leave him,” he said. “Or join him.”

The Watch froze.

Thessa gripped her hammer. “I vote we punch him.”

Kael raised a brow. “You vote to punch everything.”

“It’s a consistent strategy,” Thessa replied.

Lira stepped forward, her water magic glowing. “We’re not leaving him.”

Narrin stepped form with his sword at the ready. “Also, we’re not joining you. Your vibe is very ‘bad breakup.’”

The goat bleated defiantly.

The duck hissed and launched itself at the Voidborn’s cloak.

It passed through harmlessly and landed in a pile of cursed scrolls, which it immediately began shredding.

“Is it… editing prophecy?” Yuel asked.

“Or just angry,” Talon said.

Ellira didn’t move. “I’m still deciding if this is a rescue mission or a group therapy session.”

I stepped forward.

My flame met the void.

And I chose neither.

I reached for Milo, my hand trembling, my heart louder than the Voidborn’s whispers.

“You are not your father,” I whispered.

The shadows around Milo flared.

And broke.

He gasped, eyes wide, magic surging. The void recoiled.

Together we stood and turned to leave; however, the Voidborn separates us with illusions of our greatest fears.

And the Voidborn was furious.

It felt like it took forever, but eventually we managed to escape the voidborn’s lair, but something was wrong with Milo. He was different

We returned to camp, battered but breathing.

Milo slept, his body wrapped in flickering shadow and flame. Lira tended to him, her magic gentle. The rest of the Watch sat in uneasy silence.

Thessa paced. “He’s different.”

“He’s alive,” I said.

“Barely,” Kael muttered. “And the Voidborn’s not done.”

Zeke pulled out a scroll. “We got another message from the Queen.”

I groaned. “Let’s hear it.”

Dear Watch,

We noticed a spike in existential dread across the kingdom. We assume this is your fault.

Please stop provoking ancient evils.

Yours in escalating concern,

—Queen & King  of Aeloria

Milo stirred.

His eyes opened slowly, glowing faintly.

“I saw everything,” he whispered. “The Voidborn’s rewrite… it’s not just changing fate. It’s changing truth.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He’s rewriting memories. History. Identity. He wants to erase choice.”

Thessa clenched her fists. “Then what does that mean with our rewrites?”

Kael nodded. “We rewrite louder.”

Lira looked at me. “Can we?”

I stepped toward the Flameborn Codex.

It pulsed with power, waiting.

I placed my hand on it.

And wrote:

As my words write themselves on the pages of the Codex, they struggle to remain; several times, I have to go over the words just to make them stick. As I finally finish

The Codex glowed.

The curse weakens.

A wave of warmth spread through the camp.

Milo sat up, shadows retreating.

“I’m not him,” he said. “I’m me.”

Zeke handed him a biscuit. “Welcome back. Try not to explode.”

“I’ll do my best,” Milo said, smiling faintly.

The goat bleated and dropped a scroll at my feet.

It was another royal message. I don’t bother reading the scroll. Nothing that has come from the kingdom has offered any praise. It was more like congratulations, you are succeeding, but you're not doing it well enough, so this is what you should do in the future. We were all getting sick of it.

With every day that passed, fighting and rewriting what we were and what we were to become was breaking us a little more. Just like everyone, we had doubts, but things were getting harder. Milo was struggling, and the more the shadows came, the more we knew that he was in danger, but it wasn’t something you could talk to him about. He was becoming worse than the aggressive duck.

The next morning, we all tried to be optimistic as we headed out, but the Voidborn’s fury echoed across the realms. We stood together.

“This isn’t getting better. We heal an area, and then the Void ruins another,” Kael growls as we enter yet another village that had seen better days.

“We have to keep doing what we are doing; we will defeat him,” I say as we move through the village.

The Voidborn struck before we could regroup.

A rift tore open above the village, spilling shadows like ink across the sky. The Watch scrambled—Thessa raised a wall, Kael summoned wind, and Lira shielded Milo’s distant form with a dome of water.

The Voidborn’s presence bent the world around him. Trees withered. Light dimmed. Even the goat stopped chewing on Zeke’s boot.

“You defy me again,” he said, voice like a thousand broken promises.

I stepped forward, flame blazing. “We don’t belong to you.”

He raised a hand. My fire sputtered.

“You are written,” he hissed. “And I am the author.”

I gritted my teeth, forcing my flame to rise. “Then I’m about to make you an extremely poor author.”

The duck launched itself at his face.

The Voidborn recoiled.

And the battle began.