At the Edge of the Map
地図の果てで
At last, the travellers reached the heart of Eldermere.
Almost the entire kingdom had already vanished into the endless grey mist.
Only the and a few streets still remained upon the map.
"It has come to this," Elder Alden said, his old voice breaking.
"Everything we have loved has come to the very edge of nothing."
Finn stood upon the last hill and opened his mapmaker's book.
The forbidden ink waited in his hand, dark and terribly .
"If I drew the whole kingdom again, everything might return," he said.
"But if I used that much ink, I would lose almost everything I am."
Mira reminded him softly of the price he had already paid.
"If you drew everything, you might forget us completely," she warned.
Cade said that no one could ask a boy to erase himself.
Finn looked at the tiny map of all that still survived.
He has come so far, and so many people have trusted him.
"If I did nothing, the whole kingdom would simply away," he said.
"And if I acted, I might save them but lose my own ."
The emptiness has never stopped, not once, since the day it began.
Finn realised that either choice would take something he could not .
He thought of Orin, who had run away from this exact moment.
"I will not run," Finn whispered, though his whole body was shaking.
The elders have done everything they can, and now only he remains.
He dipped his old pen slowly into the forbidden black ink.
"If this is the price of saving Eldermere, then I will pay it."
And with a , he touched his pen to the empty page.