Sleep was a joke.
Every time Alucent closed his eyes, there it was. That massive shadow looming against the impossible sky. The single burning eye that had looked right through him and seen everything he was trying to hide.
Including things he didn't even know he was hiding.
He sat up in bed, running both hands through his black hair. The cottage was quiet except for the Steamsewer's mechanical humming in the next room. Familiar sounds that should have been comforting but weren't.
Because nothing was familiar anymore.
His reflection stared back at him from the tarnished brass plate across the room. Blue eyes too wide. Skin too pale. Hair catching the lamplight in ways that reminded him of the vision.
Just stress. That's all it was. Too much weirdness happening too fast.
But even thinking it felt like lying to himself.
The vision had been real. As real as the ring burning on his finger. As real as the power that had fixed the loom and made him a tidy profit.
Something knew about him. Something vast and patient and absolutely terrifying.
And it was pleased with his progress.
A soft footstep made him look up. Tavin stood in the doorway, clutching his patched rune vest like it might protect him from the dark. The boy's green eyes reflected the lamplight with an almost animal gleam.
"You saw it," Tavin whispered.
Not a question. A statement of fact.
Shit. The kid had seen it too.
"Saw what?" Alucent tried anyway.
"The shadow. The one on the Loom's edge." Tavin stepped into the room, bare feet silent on the wooden floor. "It looked at you. I felt it looking."
Of course he had. The boy was sensitive to everything that touched the weave, and that thing had definitely been touching something.
"Tell me about the whispers," Alucent said. "What do they say about it?"
Tavin climbed onto the bed without invitation. In the dim light he looked even smaller than usual. Twelve years old and carrying knowledge that would break most adults.
"They call it the Weaver of Fates," Tavin said, voice barely audible. "But that's wrong. It doesn't weave anything. It just tears things apart."
"Why?"
"Because it's hungry. The Loom screams when the threads break, and the shadow eats the sound."
Cold dread settled in Alucent's stomach like swallowed ice.
The Loom. Those visions in Fadeheart. Massive machinery grinding itself to pieces. The cosmic suffering he'd felt pressing against his consciousness.
"The Loom is real," he said.
"The Great Loom. It weaves everything. Reality. Time. The patterns that hold the world together." Tavin's voice got smaller. "But it's sick now. Dying. And when it breaks..."
"Everything ends."
"Everything unravels."
They sat in silence while the weight of that settled over them. Outside, wind rattled the windows with deliberate rhythm. Like something was testing the strength of the walls.
Alucent looked down at his left hand. The Weave Anchor Ring sat there like a piece of concentrated darkness, its symbols shifting in patterns that hurt to follow directly.
Connected. All of it was connected.
"The ring," he said. "It's part of this."
"The whispers say it's an anchor. Something to hold onto when everything else falls apart." Tavin's small fingers traced patterns in the air. "But anchors can be dragged places. Pulled down into deep water."
Right. And he was the one wearing it.
Alucent closed his eyes and focused on the ring. Tried to follow the connection inward instead of pushing power outward. The metal warmed against his skin, and with the warmth came that familiar sense of flow.
But this time he wasn't touching the cultivation system or the broken wall or the loom's tangled energy.
This time he was touching void.
Not empty space. Genuine nothingness. A place where reality had been scraped away like paint from wood, leaving behind absence so complete it had weight and presence.
And in that void, something moved.
Something that noticed when he looked and looked back with intelligence older than stars.
The presence from his vision was there. Waiting in the spaces between spaces. Patient as death, content to watch while he stumbled toward whatever trap it had prepared.
Alucent jerked back from the connection, gasping.
The ring went cold against his finger, but the memory of that watching intelligence remained. Ancient. Malevolent. Amused.
"It's in the void," he whispered. "The empty places where reality got torn away. And it's watching me."
Tavin's small hand found his arm. "The whispers say you're important. That your thread is woven into what comes next."
"What comes next?"
"The Great Unraveling. When the Loom finally breaks." Tavin's voice was getting smaller. More frightened. "But I don't understand why you're important. You're just... you're just a person. Right?"
That was the question, wasn't it?
Was he still a person? Or had the ring changed him into something else? Something useful to cosmic entities that fed on universal collapse?
"I don't know what I am anymore," Alucent admitted.
He looked down at Tavin. Saw the trust and terror warring in those wide green eyes. Despite everything, despite the cosmic horror show his life had become, his first instinct was still to protect this kid.
Maybe that meant he was still human. Somewhere deep down.
"We need to understand more," he said. "About the ring. About the Loom. About what that thing wants with me." He paused. "You're more sensitive to this stuff than anyone I've met. If I'm going to figure this out, I need your help."
Tavin nodded solemnly. "I'll try. But the whispers are getting louder. Sometimes I can't tell which thoughts are mine."
"We'll figure it out."
Empty promise. He had no idea how to keep it. But saying it felt necessary anyway.
They settled back into uncomfortable quiet. Two people trying to process things too big for human understanding. Outside, the wind continued its restless testing of the cottage's defenses.
Alucent was almost dozing when Tavin spoke again.
"The whispers..." His voice was so quiet it was barely sound. "They say the Loom is bleeding."
"Bleeding what?"
Tavin looked up at him. Wide green eyes filled with horror too old for his young face.
"And he drinks the pain."
The words hung in the air like poison gas.
Somewhere in the void between realities, something ancient was feeding on the universe's suffering. Drinking cosmic agony like wine.
And somehow, he was connected to it.
The cottage creaked around them, settling into the night. But underneath the familiar sounds was something else. A rhythm that might have been machinery or breathing or the slow pulse of something vast waiting patiently for its moment.
In the growing darkness, Alucent pulled Tavin closer and tried not to think about what would happen when that moment finally came.
But the thoughts came anyway.