The silence in the Archive's upper chamber fractured the moment Corin emerged from the stairwell. Threads vibrated softly along the walls, reacting not with alarm, but with uncertainty — as if the Loom itself was holding its breath.
Ashlyn stared at him, eyes wide, hand still half-drawn toward her bowstring. "Corin… what happened down there?"
Corin stepped into the light, the motion of his body sending subtle ripples through the surrounding Threads. Every movement now left a faint shimmer in the air — not disruptive, but… different. Rewritten.
"I spoke to the Weft Below," he said quietly. "I carried the call, and it… answered."
Ashlyn's eyes dropped to his chest. The thin, golden-black Thread that pulsed just beneath his skin traced along his sternum like a seam — a mark of something stitched not into flesh, but into the pattern of his being.
Fira exhaled sharply. "Gods."
The Remnant stepped forward from the shadows. His ancient eyes locked on the mark. "The Root accepted you."
"It changed me," Corin said. "It didn't make me stronger. Just… clearer. As if I was always meant to be this — but I hadn't been woven tightly enough to hold it."
The Remnant nodded, more reverently than before. "You are not merely Threadbound now. You are Thread-bridged."
"Bridged to what?" Ashlyn asked.
"To everything," the Remnant murmured. "He has stepped between patterns. Between old and new. The Loom is listening to him now — and the First Pattern has noticed."
Ashlyn looked at Corin warily. "Should we be worried about you?"
Corin looked at her. For the first time in days, there was no haze in his eyes. Only focus.
"No," he said. "But Kael should be."
He stepped toward the center of the Archive. The model of the Loom — that intricate diagram of threads and spirals — was no longer inert. It spun slowly now, responding to Corin's presence.
He raised his hand, and threads rearranged themselves mid-air.
A new path appeared — a crimson arc winding through the fractured spiral. Not drawn by memory. Drawn by intent.
"He's moving again," Corin said. "Kael has found another root."
Ashlyn frowned. "Already?"
"He's accelerating," Fira muttered. "He must've felt the shift. When you made contact with the Weft Below, you woke something. He'll know it wasn't him — and he'll try to match it."
Corin traced the crimson arc with his eyes. "This path... it leads east. Beyond the city-borders. Somewhere past the Raveling Wastes."
Ashlyn paled. "The Wastes? Those lands haven't been stable for decades. The Threads there tear people apart. No Seer dares to map them."
"They weren't always that way," Corin said. "They were woven once — a deep foundation, like the Spindle. But something broke. Something was buried."
Fira's expression darkened. "The Threads there were sealed during the Collapse. It was one of the first signs the Pattern was failing. You think Kael's trying to tap into that chaos?"
"He's not just rewriting the Loom," Corin said. "He's drawing from broken roots. Places where order already failed. He wants the Loom to remember what it forgot — the hunger of the Pattern before structure."
Ashlyn swallowed. "And what happens if he succeeds?"
The Remnant stepped forward again. "The world will not end. It will be re-authored. And in that version, none of you may exist."
Corin turned back to the floating diagram. "Then we need to move. We'll need protection, maps, a way through the Wastes. And… we'll need to speak to someone who's been there before."
Fira raised an eyebrow. "No one alive's survived a trek into the Wastes."
Corin met her eyes. "Not alive. But maybe remembered."
Fira's eyes narrowed. "You mean—"
"The Archive keeps memory Threads," Corin said. "Personal ones. Woven imprints from the minds of Threadcasters. Some were stored before the Collapse. Some knew the Wastes before they became what they are."
The Remnant hesitated. "That is forbidden knowledge."
Ashlyn gave him a dry look. "I'm starting to think that phrase doesn't mean much anymore."
Corin turned to him. "Show us where the memory Threads are kept."
The Remnant stared at him for a long moment. Then he bowed his head.
"This way."
—
They passed through three more gates, each sealed with shifting glyphs that shimmered under Corin's touch. Doors that should've rejected any uninitiated mind opened without resistance. Fira muttered under her breath, taking notes in a small, floating codex.
Finally, the Remnant led them into a long, dim hall. Glass cases lined either side, each one containing a single glowing filament — Threads that pulsed in slow, rhythmic loops. Some whispered faintly when they passed, as if reliving moments from lives long dissolved.
"Choose carefully," the Remnant said. "Each Thread holds a life. Once accessed, it can only be entered once. And the price of misusing memory is madness."
Corin scanned the cases. Names flickered across the labels: Archivists, Loomguard Captains, Silent Spinners. But one name caught his eye.
"Here," he said, stepping toward a case near the end. "Veyra Hollowin. Former Cartographer of the Eastern Border. Thread-map class: Spiral-Born. Rank: Threadseer."
Ashlyn stepped beside him. "She went into the Wastes during the early days of the Collapse. Never returned."
"Or maybe… she returned as a memory," Corin murmured.
He reached out and touched the case.
The glass vanished.
The Thread lifted, warm and pale silver, and wrapped gently around his wrist.
There was no warning.
His vision snapped backward—
And Corin was standing in wind.
—
The Wastes before him were not yet broken — just fraying. Loomlines twisted in odd spirals across a gray sky, flickering between blue and violet. Threadstorms gathered in the distance, like thunderclouds of cloth and light.
A woman stood at the edge of a cliff, dark hair whipping in the wind. Her eyes glowed faintly — one blue, one white — and a loomcompass hung from her belt, its needle spinning without rhythm.
She turned.
"You're late," she said.
Corin blinked. "You can see me?"
"I'm a memory, not a corpse," she replied, brushing wind from her coat. "What do you want, boy?"
"I need to cross the Wastes," Corin said. "And I need to know what's buried beneath them."
Veyra laughed — not cruelly, but with disbelief. "You're not the first to ask. Most never make it past the first Spiral Fold. But you… you smell different. Like ash and old patterns."
She turned back toward the swirling plains below.
"Then listen closely, Threadbinder. The Wastes are not just broken Threads. They are where the First Pattern bled into the Loom and was stitched over. What remains is not chaos. It's memory — infected and alive. It dreams in loops. It remembers what it lost."
Corin stepped beside her. "Kael's going there."
"Of course he is," she said. "It's the only place the Loom can't censor him. The only place the Weft whispers freely."
"What lies at the center?"
Veyra turned toward him.
"A root. A song. And a choice."
Suddenly, the vision began to fade. Threads twisted around him, pulling him back.
Veyra's voice echoed behind him.
"If you go there… don't follow the map. Follow the pull. Follow the Thread that listens."
—
Corin jolted back into the Archive.
The Thread fell from his wrist, dim now — spent.
Fira and Ashlyn looked at him expectantly.
"She knew," Corin said. "She saw what the Wastes were hiding. And she said Kael's heading to the Spiral Fold — the eye of the storm."
Fira nodded. "Then that's where we go."
Ashlyn gave a lopsided smile. "Another suicide mission. Guess it's Tuesday."
Corin turned to the Remnant. "Thank you."
The Remnant merely bowed. "The Loom watches, Thread-bridged. Step carefully. Each choice echoes wider now."
Corin looked at the golden-black mark on his chest.
Then up at the looming diagram still spinning in the air.
"Then let it echo."