Figuring out through instinct what I'd been told directly... that we were all characters playing roles, that free will was negotiable, that everything we thought we chose had been chosen for us by hands we couldn't see?
The thought terrified me.
Because if someone else gained awareness, if someone else figured out the truth, Orrian had said it wouldn't necessarily be good. Had warned me that people reacted differently to understanding their world was written, that some embraced it and some broke from it and some just went quietly insane.
What if it was Soren?
What if he woke up one day and understood that everything he felt might not be his own feelings but scripted emotions, predetermined connections, the Author's hand pushing him toward the reformed villainess for narrative satisfaction?
Would he stay?
