The descent was wordless. Only the dim swing of Sol's lantern lit the way, casting long shadows that moved with lives of their own. The staircase creaked underfoot, not with weight, but memory—like each step awakened something that had been sleeping too long.
Ahri kept close. The golden thread on her wrist hummed gently, reacting to the air, the depth, and the presence of lost things. With each level they passed, her senses dulled—sound became muffled, light bent unnaturally, and even her thoughts came slower, like threading needles underwater.
"How far does it go?" she asked, her voice quiet in case the stone heard.
Sol's answer came without turning: "Until you remember what was never yours to forget."
The air thickened. Threads now hung in curtains across the walls, some glowing faintly, others so old they'd fossilized into brittle strands. Murals faded in and out of view—of celestial wars, of temples crumbling, of women in fox masks and men torn from their shadows.
Ahri paused beside one—an enormous weave depicting a burning moon split in two. A fox spirit stood beneath it, grinning. She recognized the fractured smile.
Miran.
Sol's lantern dimmed.
"We're close."
They reached a vast chamber—a hall carved from fate itself. It stretched further than vision; rows upon rows of enormous scrolls, hanging skeins, and glass-threaded mirrors filled the space. Echoes pulsed through it, not of sound, but of choices—abandoned, betrayed, forgotten.
This was no archive.
It was a graveyard of what might have been.
"These are—" Ahri began.
"Fates that never came true," Sol finished. "Stories severed before they could take root."
He gestured to a central pillar, ancient and woven with golden and violet strands. As Ahri approached, her thread twitched violently.
"I feel it," she whispered.
Sol knelt beside the base of the pillar and pulled free a thin, sealed scroll.
"This," he said, "was left by Yun-Ah Seo." She broke every code, crossed every forbidden threshold, and yet… she still left a path for you."
Ahri took the scroll. It was sealed not by wax but by thread, looped in an impossible knot that shimmered between gold and crimson.
As she reached to unravel it, a cold voice echoed through the chamber.
"Some stories are better left unread."
The air turned to frost. Threads around them snapped and writhed. From the far side of the archive, a figure stepped forward. Tall. Pale. Wrapped in robes of shifting shadows and woven regrets.
A man this time—not the Hollowed. He wore no mask, only a smile that held no warmth.
Sol's eyes widened. "No…"
"Who is that?" Ahri asked.
Sol's voice trembled. "He's called Namu—the Philosopher of the Severed."
Namu bowed, elegant and terrifying. "Ahri Seo," he said, her name curling like smoke in the air. "What an exquisite little pattern you are, walking a path stitched by dead hands."
Ahri stepped back. "I don't want to fight."
"You misunderstand," Namu said. "I don't fight. I question. And I've come to ask you just one thing…"
He lifted a hand. Threads in the chamber bent toward him.
"If fate is something forced upon you before you're even born—why should you feel guilty for breaking it?"
The scroll in Ahri's hand pulsed violently, the knot tightening in resistance.
And behind her, Sol whispered, "Don't listen—he unravels minds the way others unravel thread."
But the question had already taken root.
Ahri looked from the scroll to Namu—and for the first time, she hesitated.