Silence fell like a blade. Even the clash of chaos and cosmos seemed to pause in reverence — or fear.
Above, the eye of the Threadmaker pulsed with slow, celestial rhythm. It wasn't just watching — it was remembering. The world beneath had been its tapestry once, its sacred design. But now, Kael stood at the center of a story the Threadmaker never authored.
The Weavers, for all their power, faltered. They stared at the eye in dread, as if they too were threads, woven by a greater hand.
Kael stepped forward.
The threads around him parted like water, responding not with resistance but reverence. He was no longer merely a vessel of rebellion — he was becoming a locus, a convergence of all that had been severed, buried, or denied.
Behind him, Lin whispered, "It's waking… What happens when the First Dreamer rises?"
Kael didn't answer immediately. His eyes were locked on the sky, on the immensity of presence above them. "Then the story begins again."
The ground cracked open. From beneath the Garden's soil rose a single strand of golden thread, ancient and uncut — the First Thread. It shimmered with potential, singing to every soul who dared to dream. It was not made of magic. Nor divinity. It was truth in its rawest, most dangerous form.
The Weavers recoiled.
"No one touches that," one hissed.
Kael did.
His fingers closed around the thread, and in an instant, his vision fractured into a million timelines.
He saw himself as a god.
He saw himself erased.
He saw Lin dying, living, betraying him, saving him.
He saw empires burn.
He saw peace.
Every version of existence, every road not taken — all of it coursed through him.
And Kael chose.
He didn't pick the perfect future.
He chose the one where choice itself never died.
The thread lit up, golden fire pouring into the sky like a second dawn.
The Weavers screamed. Their forms unraveled, not destroyed — but freed. One by one, they collapsed into stories of their own: no longer enforcers, but beings regaining purpose.
From the Ashborn ranks, voices rose in song — old, guttural, triumphant. It was a hymn of survival, sung in a language the Loom had once forbidden. It resonated with the First Thread, and the world responded.
The Garden bloomed.
Mountains bent into new shapes.
Lost cities appeared from folded space, restored by the memory in every footstep Kael had taken.
And the Threadmaker?
It smiled.
Then, with a final pulse, it spoke in every soul:
"Weave, not rule."
The eye faded. The seam in the sky closed.
Kael turned to his companions. Lin's eyes were wet. Aelira hovered above, radiant with crackling awe. The Ashborn stood still, quiet.
It was done.
But not over.
Kael held the First Thread in his palm. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
He whispered, "Let's rewrite everything they took from us."
And somewhere — in the deepest archive of fate — a page turned.