The shrine's light vanished like a breath held too long.
Ahri stood alone now—truly alone.
Sol was gone. The Weftborn had faded. Even the fox spirit's thread had gone quiet, as though holding its breath. All that remained was the shattered altar and the path that once led to the Loom, now frayed at the edges.
But Ahri wasn't afraid.
The silence wasn't empty.
It was waiting.
She turned slowly in the dim light and stepped toward the only thing that hadn't collapsed: a cracked mirror embedded in the stone floor. Its surface shimmered with distorted reflection, warping her shape—gold thread, violet fire, human form—and then the mirror shifted.
Another face appeared.
Not hers.
Miran's.
But not the Miran Ahri had seen before. This version was younger, eyes brighter, hair bound in silver thread. She was smiling—almost innocent. Before the Severing. Before the cult. Before the mask.
Then, the mirror rippled again—revealing that same face, twisted by time, grief, and fury.
"You see me," said the reflection.
Ahri dropped to a knee instinctively, palm pressed to the cold stone. "What is this?"
"Not a memory. Not a message. An echo," said Miran's voice. "What I left behind when I broke my last thread."
A Severed echo. A piece of fate discarded, but not destroyed.
"Why show me this now?" Ahri asked.
"Because you've done what I never could," Miran's voice replied. "You've held the Loom's gaze. You didn't flinch."
Ahri looked into the reflection. "You wanted to tear everything apart."
"No," Miran said. "I wanted to be free. I wanted a fate that didn't kill those I loved just to 'test' me."
The mirror crackled. From within, fragments of the Severed's origin flickered like shards:
A forbidden ritual.A scream of thread breaking.A fox mask sealed with a curse.Miran kneeling beside a fallen sister.
"The Elder chose you," the echo whispered, voice filled with bitterness. "He chose you instead of saving us."
Ahri clenched her fists.
"He lost someone too," she said. "That's why he's helping me."
"And that's why you'll fail—unless you understand the cost of being chosen."
The mirror shattered.
Threads shot outward, wrapping around the broken walls of the cavern, revealing a hidden passage—one made of red thread laced with black.
A Severed trail.
Leading back into the Hollowed Realm.
But this time, it wasn't running away from the past.
It was heading toward something.
Someone.
Ahri took one step forward.
The golden thread on her wrist hummed again—but this time, it didn't guide her.
It followed.
From the edges of the passage, a whisper rose—not from the Loom, not from the fox, not from Miran.
"This path was never meant to be walked twice."
And yet… Ahri walked it.