I slept in a hayloft behind a stable on the west side of town. It was far from comfortable, but I had no choice, and the horses didn’t seem to care much about my presence. I woke up at dawn with straw in my hair and a System notification blinking in my vision.
[Companion Quest Active (Pending)]
I needed to find Clara Dale before the hero did. The festival was tonight, and the hero would meet her there, save her from the Thorn Collective, and kick off the romance subplot. That was the original script, anyway. Now, my job was to ruin that development and get to her first.
Clara was the magistrate’s daughter. In my draft, she showed up at the market on the morning of the festival to buy supplies. I checked the Author’s Archive to confirm.
Chapter 5, paragraph two: "Clara Dale visited the market square on the morning of the festival, purchasing herbs and provisions for the evening’s celebration."
One sentence. I’d written her into the story in a single sentence, and now I was betting my life on it.
The market was already busy when I arrived. Vendors were setting up their stalls, and the smell of bread and herbs mixed with the permanent fish situation Millhaven had going on. I found a spot near a wall where I could watch the square without drawing too much attention to myself, then settled in to wait.
She showed up sometime around midmorning.
Clara Dale was twenty, with blue eyes and brown hair pulled back from her face. She wore a green dress with a leather pouch at her belt. In my draft, I’d described her as "beautiful, with kind eyes and a gentle smile." That was all I’d given her. Two adjectives and a personality trait I’d practically copied from a writing template.
The woman walking through the market felt nothing like that description. She moved efficiently, touching produce, checking prices, and nodding at vendors. A guard trailed behind her, a tired-looking man with a sword who’d clearly drawn the short straw for market day duty.
She looked tired. Not the kind of tired you got from a bad night’s sleep, but the kind that settled into the muscles around your eyes and stayed there. Whenever she wasn’t talking to a vendor, her face went still. Not blank, exactly, but still, like someone who was constantly thinking about something they couldn’t afford to forget. I’d written her as a carefree young woman, yet the person standing in front of me was carrying a weight I’d never given her.
I didn’t approach her. After all, she might have been my creation, but she was still the magistrate’s daughter. I’d planned to intercept her and use my knowledge of her secrets to get close, but as I watched her count coins and worry about the price of rosemary, I felt something I hadn’t expected. It wasn’t guilt, not exactly, but something close to it. It was the sort of feeling a creator must get when they realise they’ve made a person without giving them enough to live on.
She eventually turned to leave, and I knew I needed to make my move.
The letters.
In my original draft, Clara had been receiving threatening letters for weeks and had told no one about them. That was the key I’d written for the hero, the secret I’d planted to give him something to bond with her over. Now, I was planning to use that same key for my own benefit.
I quietly began walking towards her, but then I noticed the man.
He was standing across the market near the east gate, wearing a dark coat with his face turned away as he watched Clara. Not the way I was watching her, either. He watched her the way a hunter watched its prey.
I activated Scrivener’s Eye, and the golden lines flickered into view. Clara had thick threads running through her, while other, fainter threads branched away from her. I suspected those thinner ones had appeared because the narrative had filled in the gaps I’d left in her character. Then I traced the threads around the man.
There were none.
And I didn’t mean faint threads, like the ones I’d seen around characters I’d barely written, such as the street vendors or the cook in the tavern. This man had nothing. No faint lines, no new connections, just an absence where the narrative threads should have been. He didn’t look like a gap I’d left for the story to fill, or someone the narrative had created to complete my work. As far as Scrivener’s Eye was concerned, he was genuinely unscripted.
He was watching Clara Dale, and I had no idea who he was or what purpose he served. I’d written this world. I’d written everyone in it. At least, that was what I thought. Yet here was a man who didn’t seem to belong to anything I’d put on the page, and I couldn’t explain why he was there.
Clara continued up the hill, while the man in the dark coat turned and walked towards the east gate. I remained in the market square, surrounded by golden threads that pulsed faintly around me, with a cold feeling settling in my chest.
I’d written this world. I’d written everyone in it. And there was someone in it I hadn’t written at all.