Chapter 14 — Errata
We did not linger.
Whatever had tried to index me had failed, but failure like that never stayed isolated. It propagated. Errors attracted review. Review attracted escalation.
The forest felt thinner now—less willing to pretend we were alone.
By late afternoon, the trees began to space out, trunks giving way to low stone and scrub. The air sharpened, carrying the dry scent of dust and old minerals. Civilization-adjacent. The kind of place maps remembered even when people didn't.
Puck fluttered ahead, scouting. "Good news: no more copy-you things."
"Bad news?" I asked.
"Bad news: the world's doing that anticipatory cringe again."
Valerius slowed, wings flexing. "We're nearing a convergence."
I frowned. "A what?"
"A place where edits have piled up," she said. "Corrections layered over corrections. Reality gets… touchy."
That explained the feeling under my skin—like the ground was waiting to object.
We crested a low rise and saw it.
A settlement.
Small. Stone buildings clustered around a central square. Smoke rose from chimneys. People moved about, ordinary and blissfully unaware that their town sat on top of a conceptual pressure point.
A sign at the road's edge leaned crookedly.
KASTELL VALE
Chartered. Revised. Standing.
"That slogan's doing a lot of work," Puck muttered.
I stared at the town, unease knotting in my chest. "They live here?"
"Yes," Valerius said softly. "Which means the convergence stabilized instead of collapsing."
"Or someone keeps correcting it," I said.
We entered at dusk.
The moment we crossed the boundary, something shifted. Not the air—not the ground.
The rules.
Sounds felt slightly delayed. Movements smoothed, as if sharp edges were discouraged. When a cart rattled past, the noise softened halfway through, edited for comfort.
A woman sweeping her doorstep glanced at us, smiled, and then… forgot to finish the motion. Her broom hovered mid-air for a beat before resuming.
I swallowed.
"This place is wrong," Puck whispered.
"Yes," Valerius agreed. "But it's polite about it."
We found an inn near the square. The sign read THE AMENDED REST, its lettering repainted so many times the words had begun to blur into each other.
Inside, warmth and noise wrapped around us. Laughter. Clinking mugs. Normalcy, aggressively enforced.
The innkeeper greeted us with a rehearsed smile. "Rooms?"
"Yes," I said quickly. "Two. Separate."
She nodded, already reaching for keys—then paused, brow furrowing. Her gaze slid over me, unfocused.
For a terrifying second, I thought she saw the residue.
Instead, she said, "Name?"
I hesitated.
The Shard pulsed.
Careful.
"Arthur," I said. "Just Arthur."
She wrote it down.
The ink bled slightly, then settled.
No last name.
Good.
We took the rooms and met back downstairs. Food arrived promptly—stew thick and hearty, bread warm, everything correct.
Too correct.
I pushed my bowl aside. "Someone's editing this town."
Valerius nodded. "Likely long-term maintenance. Minor inconsistencies corrected daily."
"To what end?" Puck asked.
"Stability," she replied. "At any cost."
As if summoned, a scream cut through the inn.
It was brief. Abruptly cut off.
Silence followed.
The patrons froze.
Then—almost in unison—they resumed their conversations.
Laughter restarted mid-syllable. A mug clinked again. Someone finished a joke no one remembered hearing.
My chair scraped loudly as I stood. "No."
Valerius was already moving.
We followed the sound into a narrow side street behind the inn. A man lay crumpled near a wall, eyes wide, mouth open in a soundless plea.
His shadow was wrong.
It didn't match his body anymore.
It was… revised.
A thin figure stood over him, robed in pale cloth stitched with red annotations. Its face was hidden behind a porcelain mask, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
"Correction in progress," it said calmly.
I felt sick.
"What did he do?" I demanded.
The figure tilted its head. "He remembered something he wasn't supposed to."
The man's shadow twitched, trying to pull away.
Valerius raised her blade. "Step back."
The corrector ignored her.
I felt the margins stir—not tightening, not flaring.
Waiting.
I didn't touch them.
Instead, I spoke.
"Stop," I said.
The word echoed.
Not loudly.
Authoritatively.
The corrector paused.
Its head turned toward me. "You are unregistered."
"True," I said. "But I'm not incorrect."
The porcelain mask cracked further.
"False," it replied. "You are an erratum."
Something snapped inside me.
"No," I said softly. "I'm the reason errata exist."
The Shard surged.
I didn't bend the margins.
I named them.
The space around the man loosened—not breaking, not warping. Just… allowing.
His shadow snapped back into place.
He gasped.
The corrector recoiled, robes fluttering violently.
"Unauthorized amendment," it hissed.
Valerius struck.
Her rapier pierced the mask, splitting porcelain and whatever lay beneath. The corrector unraveled into strips of red ink and pale fabric, dissolving into nothing.
The alley went still.
The man scrambled to his feet and ran without a word.
I stood there, heart pounding.
Puck stared at me. "You didn't cheat."
I looked at my hands.
They were shaking.
"I didn't," I agreed. "I corrected the correction."
Valerius regarded me with something like awe—and concern. "Arthur… what you just did—"
"I know," I said quietly. "I escalated again."
Somewhere beneath Kastell Vale, something noticed.
The town sighed.
A long, relieved sound.
Then—
The inn bells rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Emergency.
I turned toward the square.
"Yeah," I muttered. "We're not staying the night."
The Shard hummed, deep and steady.
Not warning.
Not fear.
Momentum.
And in a distant archive, a new note was appended beneath my name:
Errata not resolved. Escalation ongoing.
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