The dawn that followed wasn't born from the sun, but from the remnant light of the First Thread. It lingered like a second heartbeat in the world, illuminating cracks that had once been invisible — not flaws, but forgotten truths.
Yet in its wake, they arrived.
From the fissures of unspun possibility came the Threadless — beings who had never belonged to any design, who had slipped through the Loom's reach even before Kael shattered its grip. They wore no time. They bore no name. They were not erased, for they had never been written.
Kael felt them before he saw them. They moved like afterthoughts in a dream — flickering, blurred, real only in the periphery. And yet, when the first one stepped fully into view, the world flinched.
It resembled a man, but where its face should have been was only a void of swirling, shifting fragments — memories that never were.
"Kael Virek," it said, though the voice was not spoken. It occurred, like a concept breathed into existence. "You have rewritten the spine of fate. But you forgot the margins."
Behind him, Lin stepped forward. "They weren't part of the Loom?"
"They were before it," Aelira murmured. "Or beyond."
The Threadless did not move aggressively, but their presence distorted reality. Trees leaned away. Stones hummed with unease. Even the Root beneath Kael stirred with caution.
"We are not enemies," the entity said. "Nor are we allies. We are reminders. When you weave anew, do you account for what cannot be woven?"
Kael raised the First Thread.
The entity shied slightly but did not flee. "Even that cannot bind what was never meant to be named."
Kael frowned. "Then why come now?"
"To offer a question. One every forger must face."
Another Threadless stepped forward, a child-shaped thing with galaxies in its gaze. "What happens when your new pattern excludes others?"
Kael blinked.
They were not here to fight.
They were here to warn him — that rewriting bore the same risk as ruling.
He looked at the Root, at the Ashborn, at the companions who had followed him through death and truth and fire. Then he looked again at the Threadless.
And he said, "Then I will make a weave that bends. One that expands."
A pause. Then the child nodded.
"A weave that lives."
The void-faced one stepped forward again. "Then beware the impulse to perfect. Perfection ends the story."
They began to fade, one by one, dissolving not into death, but into irrelevance — as if they had never arrived, only reminded.
Kael stood alone with the First Thread, and the world buzzed with breathless silence.
Aelira broke it. "Well. That was unsettling."
Lin smiled faintly. "But honest."
Kael turned to them. "We're not done. We never will be. But maybe now... we can start better."
And beneath their feet, the new Loom began to hum — not as a cage, but as a song.