Every stitch tells a story.
But some stories lie.
And some stitches are written in blood.
---
Crossing the Seam
Sloane stood before the glowing rip — the Seam — suspended in the air like a wound in reality.
Cassien touched her arm. "There's no telling what's on the other side."
"I have to see. If someone is weaving from there… they may already be inside our world."
She stepped through.
The tear folded around her like liquid silk — cool, endless.
Then she fell.
For seconds? Minutes?
Time folded.
---
Empire Reversed
When she landed, she knew this was not her world.
It was familiar. But… corrupted.
The skyline of Velmarra rose sharp and gleaming, stitched with neon light. Floating runway ships buzzed overhead. Fashion wasn't rebellion here — it was law.
She wore a version of her own dress — but in metallic black, programmed with aggression weaves and a pulse-weft spine.
A screen blinked above a floating plaza:
> "All Hail Supreme Weaver S.V."
Sloane blinked.
Her initials.
Then the image loaded.
Herself.
Colder. Sharper.
Crowned in threadsteel.
---
A Different Sloane
Sloane watched from a crowd of masked citizens as her double appeared onstage.
This other Sloane — Supreme Weaver Vey — raised her hands, and citizens knelt in synchronized thread-signal waves. Her voice boomed from amplifiers woven into the air.
"Emotion is weakness. Fashion is order. The loom is law."
Sloane's heart twisted.
This was what she could've become — if she'd chosen control over connection. If she'd never met Cassien. Never trusted anyone. Never broke.
A hand tugged her from the crowd.
"Come with me if you want to live," the voice whispered.
She turned.
Cassien.
But not hers.
This one wore a jagged suit of combat-stitch armor, half his face masked with threadglass.
---
The Resistance Still Lives
He dragged her into a shadow-market beneath the Seam Palace.
There, the Resistance still breathed — barely.
This world's Cassien glared at her. "You're a clone."
"No — I crossed from another Seam. I'm not her."
He stared. Then something in his eyes cracked. Hope. Pain.
"She wasn't always like this, you know," he said. "She believed once."
"What happened?"
"She lost you."
---
A Battle of Two Sloanes
Suddenly, a wave of silver-draped enforcers stormed the market.
They had found her.
Sloane ran — and found herself inside the great Atrium of Threads.
Then she saw herself again.
Supreme Weaver Vey descended in a gown of reflective prism-fabric — showing hundreds of mirror versions of her face.
"Impostor," she hissed.
"I'm you," Sloane said.
"You're weak."
"You're alone."
They clashed — not with blades, but with fashion.
Threads flew like whips.
Gowns morphed into shields.
Every move was couture combat — emotion woven into motion.
But Sloane had something her other self didn't.
Love.
She focused on Cassien. On Ari. On the people she chose.
Her dress shifted into a memory-weave: showing every face that made her who she was.
Supreme Weaver Vey faltered — just long enough.
Sloane slashed through her mirror-core and escaped.
---
Return Through the Tear
She returned through the Seam, collapsing into Cassien's arms.
"You were gone for an hour," he said.
"It felt like days."
"What did you see?"
"A world ruled by fear. By me."
She looked at the Loom Key.
"It's not just fashion we're fighting for."
"What then?"
"Our souls."