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📖 Bonus Snippet – Paragon’s Rise: The First Trial

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I frowned. "What the hell are you trying to tell me?"

The air shifted again.

Not from the temple.

From inside my own head.

A low mutter brushed through my mind, faint and irritated.

> “Took you long enough.”

I went completely still.

The words rippled through my brain like an aftershock.

The pulse of warmth beneath my fingers hadn’t faded. It still lingered, pressing into my palm, an acknowledgment of something I hadn’t fully grasped yet.

The temple had recognized me.

Now, apparently, so had something else.

I pulled my hand back from the runes, fingers curling instinctively into a fist. The voice hadn’t come from the chamber.

It had come from inside my own head.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Spark gave a soft huff, his tail flicking lazily against the stone. Completely at ease.

I exhaled slowly, my mind already running through the possibilities.

No one else was here.

Athena was gone.

The only other presence in this room was—

> "Oh, don’t strain yourself, man. Thinking’s never been your strong suit."

I snorted before I even realized what I was doing.

"Yeah, well, at least I still have a brain. What’s your excuse?"

The words left my mouth on pure instinct. A response so deeply ingrained it came before thought, before realization—before the weight of who I was responding to caught up.

A half-second beat of silence.

Spark perked up slightly, ears twitching at the sharp pause in my sentence.

My jaw tightened.

I ran the conversation back in my head.

One sentence.

Two voices.

Only one of them was mine.

My breath stalled.

Not possible. Not him.

I turned my head slightly, like I expected to find something, but there was nothing—just empty space and the dying glow of temple runes.

And yet, his voice had been there. Clear as day.

My stomach knotted. My brain refused to move past the impossibility of it.

I wet my lips, trying to make the question feel real. "...Fred? What the hell are you doing in my head?"

Another beat of silence.

Then, a long-suffering sigh.

> "Took you long enough, dumbass."

I froze.

Fred’s voice was clear as day, as real as if he were sitting across from me with that same smug, self-satisfied expression he always wore whenever he got the upper hand.

Except he wasn’t.

He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be. Could he?

I swallowed, forcing my voice to stay even. "Okay. I have some questions."

> "Yeah? Well, so do I. Like, why the hell am I in your head?"

Another pause.

I exhaled sharply and rubbed my temples. "You know, I was about to have my own existential crisis, but clearly, you’ve got dibs."

> "Damn right I do."

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