Truely, it was a fitting end to any hero's journey.
But he couldn't properly appreciate it, at least not knowing what he did now—that this happiness was only a prelude to ruin.
With slightly shaky hands, he slowly began working at the papers edge, a small stinging pain radiating from his cut finger.
The pages gave way much easier than the last one, as if the book itself were revealing its contents to him.
And although the writing was still mostly illegible, the illustrations painted a clear enough image that whatever was not said could be inferred through the vivid images that seemed as though they were alive.
He swallowed slightly as the first lines of text registered in his mind.
It spoke of how the hero, although ignorant of what it meant to be a king, had taken on the role without any hesitation.
The reason wasn't spelled out clearly, but he had most likely done so out of a sense of duty.
It was his way of taking responsibility for the kingdom he had saved. And to fulfil the final wish of the king who had entrusted it to him.
But then the story took a sudden turn, and instead of the hero, it shifted its perspective to his betrothed; the princess who he had rescued from the evil dragon.
It did not speak of her gratitude of being saved nor of relief about the safety of her kingdom.
The words that followed stirred up bitter disgust at what he was reading.
It spoke of her time spent beneath the mountain.
Not as a prisoner to be saved but as something that was kept.
The dragon had not simply guarded her, no, it had used her as a voice, a presence, a thing to break the silence in its domain.
Beneath that line was a mountain peak with a lone, white lily sprouting atop its peak. The flower's petals falling lifelessly onto the ground, leaving nothing but a bare pistil.
The days blurred into nights; time measured not in hours but by when the beast came to visit her.
It was somewhere within that seemingly endless cycle that something in her began to change.
Maybe it would be better to say she had adapted?
The fire burning in her heart dulled first, turning her fierce resistance into quiet compliance.
To survive—retain what little remained of her dignity—she had become colder, numbing herself to the pain of being alive.
So, when the dragon fell and her hero stood before her, blade still warm with the beast blood, she did not see a saviour.
After all, the one who had needed the saving was already dead.
Only another hand reaching to claim what remained in her place.
The crown passed and the kingdom rejoiced.
And she was given away once more, dressed in expensive silk instead of chains.
The picture showed her in an extravagant, white wedding gown fitting for a princess, but the hands wrapped around her neck made it seem like anything but a celebration.
Then, the texts spoke of her disappearance from the spotlight.
Of long nights spent searching, learning and discovering long forgotten texts buried in the annals of history.
And of knowledge that was never meant to be sought.
When she finally returned to her kingdom, it was not as its queen.
Cities burned, rising smoke thick enough to block out the sun, while the land was turned in on itself.
The first to fall were those who had once called her their own; prayed for her safety and wept with her return.
And the last to stand before her was an outsider—their king, as well as her husband.
The text did not dwell on the battle.
Only a single image; a slender hand a heart within its grasp.
In the aftermath of her destruction, she found nothing.
She felt neither triumph nor relief as she sat upon a throne built upon ruin.
There was nothing but silence where something should have been.
Only a gaping hole where something should have been.
The final lines were blurry and unclear, and any words he could grasp were too little to form a clear understanding.
It mentioned wandering, and then a searching for something the text was too smudged to make out.
And so, the story came to a close—its hero dead, and the fate of his heroine a mystery.
A heavy escaped his lips as he ran his hands over his face, eyes closed in contemplation as he organised his scattered thoughts.
It was already clear that there was more to this book than the fairytales its presented.
And judging from the two endings he had seen, it had become clear to him that this book was nothing more than a tragedy masquerading as a fairytale.
Realising the nature of its contents, it felt as though the happiness and security that Thorsten had felt from these stories was being perverted by this discovery.
He felt disgusted at the thought but chose to bury those feelings in light of this new discovery, not willing to let himself be distracted by emotions.
The mere fact that there was more to these stories also increased the probability of finding what he was looking for, so he continued forward, uncovering the stories hidden beneath the margins.
The next story spoke of a king who had defied the end of his world.
The surface tale painted him as a saviour—one who had refused to accept the fate laid out before his people, and through his unparalleled mastery of magic, had secured their future.
But the hidden pages told a different story.
Of a kingdom that had been stripped of their mortality as punishment for defying the laws.
Of bodies that endured long after they should have failed, and minds that frayed beneath the weight of endless, unchanging years.
And at the centre of it all stood the king himself—burdened with the very thing he had once sought to protect.
The final lines were fragmented, but one detail remained clear.
He had gathered what remained of his people within himself… and continued on alone.
His body now a tomb for his subjects to find rest.
The one that followed told of a city at the edge of the world, sustained by a radiant jewel said to grant prosperity without end.
In its telling, it was a place of wonder—untouched by famine or disease, its people thriving beneath the protection of its divine light.
The hidden account stripped that illusion away.
It spoke of outsiders.
Explorers traveling through uncharted waters, seeking to find the edge of the world.
Of their discovery and amazement, followed swiftly by greed.
The jewel was taken; stolen from the temple in which it was enshrined.
Without its protection, the city began to sink, as if being swallowed by the ocean.
Slowly, as if the world itself had rejected what had been done.
The last images were unclear, warped by age and smudged ink, but they showed figures beneath the water, reaching upward.
Whether in prayer…or accusation, he could not tell.
By the time he reached the next set of pages, the unease had settled in fully.
No longer a passing thought, but something heavier as he began to notice a pattern.
But before he could reach a conclusion, he realised that he had already read the last tale.
Faced with nothing but the raw leather cover of the book, a sense of relief settled over him as he realised that he had reached its end.
He may not have found what he wanted, but the results of this search were anything but fruitless.
And although it would take some time, he wanted to confirm his suspicions about some of these stories.
'You can never be too careful.' He thought to himself, glancing at the clock on his wall for the time.
From the time, he realised that he had spent less time on this than he had expected, so there was still some time before lunch.
He didn't mind, there was something he wanted to check before heading down, so he moved to close the book.
"Huh?" A confused breath slipped from his mouth.
His hand stilled, noticing the inconsistent textures transmitted through his hand.
His fingers remained pressed against the back cover as he slowly turned his gaze downward.
The leather on his fingertips still had the familiar roughness, but beneath his thumb was something else.
A coarse, dryness more akin to parchment than anything that should have been part of the cover.
He swallowed, feeling that same, creeping chill run up his spine.
A voice whispered at the edge of his mind, urging him to stop and turn away—He didn't. Or rather, he couldn't.
It was as though something was pulling him forward, towards whatever tale was hidden in these pages.
His fingers shifted, tracing the boundary where the final page should have ended.
Maybe because it was near the end, but the pages here were much drier and brittle than any of the ones he had uncovered earlier.
He hesitated for a moment, before pressing his thumb against the edge and pulling, the pages giving with a faint, brittle tear.
When his eyes started across the page, he realised that its structure did not follow the others.
There was neither a title nor an illustration. No careful spacing between the lines nor any semblance of grammar, just plain text.
The ink itself seemed darker, pressed deeper into the page as though written with a heavier hand.
For a moment, it appeared unfinished.
Then an odd line caught his attention.
'There is a flaw in the telling.'
The line sat alone, unadorned, and pressed deeper still into the page.
'They call it defiance. They call it fate. They call it destiny… How curious.'
The style of writing did not match the rest of the book. Where even the hidden halves had some sort of uniformity—these were sharp and uneven, as if written without a care for who would read them.
'You believe their ascent was their own.'
'I did as well.'
'A comforting thought.'
There was no transition between lines. No proper idea for him to grasp, but his mind still followed each word as though they were his last.
'They burned brighter than they should have.'
'They reached further than they were permitted.'
'And you never thought to ask why.'
The page seemed to narrow towards the bottom, the margins tightening, the lines drawing closer together.
'No matter.'
'The ending remains the same, regardless of how it was told.'
He paused, releasing a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.
Then, lower still:
'They were not the first.'
'And they will not be the last.'
The final lines were smaller. More precise. As though written with intent, rather than impulse.
'Even so… I write this, as both a warning and a reminder.'
'Stories change and roles shift.'
'But the game—'
The sentence broke with no ink following it.
Neither faded nor unfinished.
It just… stopped.