The dream didn't feel like a dream.
It began with silence — the kind that swallows every sound until even your own breath feels stolen. Arielle stood barefoot on a mirror-flat lake, the water so still it reflected the violet-smeared sky perfectly. There was no tether here, no hum, no weight pulling at her ribs. For the first time in days, her body felt quiet.
Then, a ripple broke the surface.
A figure rose from the reflection, walking across the lake as if it were solid glass. Tall, deliberate, his black coat trailing like spilled ink, and those unmistakable violet eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. Draven didn't speak at first. He just stopped a few paces away, head tilted as he studied her like a curious artifact.
"You're steadier now," he said finally, his voice smooth, rich, with a faint undertone that made the air tremble. "The hum doesn't crush you anymore. It's… becoming part of you."
Arielle's hands clenched at her sides. "This isn't real. It's just another one of your tricks."
Draven's mouth curved in a faint smile. "If you were awake, the hum would be screaming. You'd be curled up, clutching your ribs, drowning in a hundred voices that aren't yours. Does that feel like a trick?"
She hesitated, just for a breath, because he was right. The silence here was intoxicating. Her chest didn't ache. The veins beneath her skin didn't pulse like living things. For the first time since the Hollowed District, she felt… normal.
"What do you want, Draven?" she asked, her voice steadier than she expected.
He gestured toward the horizon. The lake stretched endlessly, dotted now with faint points of light — tiny glowing threads, suspended above the surface like fireflies. As she watched, two of them flickered and began to fade.
"Every day," he said softly, "more bonds snap. More people unravel. The coven can't keep up. Selene can't keep up. And you… you're trying to carry them all, aren't you? Stuffing their threads into your chest, letting the hum tear you apart piece by piece."
The fading lights dimmed further, their glow weakening.
"You can save them all, Arielle," Draven continued. "Not one at a time. All of them. Bind them to yourself permanently. No one ever frays. No one ever feels alone again. You could remake the weave into something unbreakable."
Her pulse quickened despite herself. She watched one of the lights go dark completely, vanishing beneath the lake's surface. A sharp ache rippled through her chest, phantom and real at once, as if the bond had been hers to hold.
"And all it costs," Draven said, stepping closer, "is letting go of Selene's leash. Of the Conclave's rules. You're not meant to be their tool. You're meant to be so much more."
Arielle's throat tightened. "You mean like you? Hollow and dangerous?"
His smile widened slightly. "Like me, yes. But not hollow. Full. You think I tear bonds because I enjoy destruction? No. I devour them because it makes me stronger. It makes me whole. The coven calls that monstrous, but what's worse — consuming to live, or dying to protect a system that chews through Threadbinders until they're dust?"
She blinked, his words sticking like burrs in her mind. "What are you talking about?"
Draven tilted his head, his gaze sharp and unflinching. "Did Selene tell you what weaving does to them? Every stitch, every bond they force back together, every tether they hold at bay… it burns their life away. They're unraveling, Arielle. Slowly, beautifully. And they'll never tell you, because they'd rather fade quietly than admit weakness."
The ache in her chest deepened, colder now. Memories surfaced unbidden — the slight tremor in Selene's hand after battles, the faint pallor that lingered longer each day, the way their silver eyes sometimes dulled to gray when they thought she wasn't looking.
"Liar," she whispered, though her voice lacked conviction.
Draven didn't press. He simply extended his hand, palm up, a single glowing thread hovering above it. It pulsed gently, warm and inviting. "Take it. Feel what it's like to weave without pain. Without limits."
Arielle hesitated. Her fingers hovered over the thread. For a moment, she felt the hum in her chest fall silent completely, like a sigh of relief. The weight in her ribs vanished. The black veins under her skin cooled, fading. She could breathe.
She almost took it.
Then, in the reflection of the lake, she caught a glimpse of herself. Her eyes glowed faint violet, the same as his.
She yanked her hand back. "Get out of my head."
Draven didn't look offended. If anything, his smile deepened, patient and knowing. "You'll come to me, Arielle. Not because I'm the villain Selene paints me as, but because I'm the only one who can make the hum stop. The only one who won't let you burn out like the others."
The lake rippled violently, the dream fracturing like shattered glass.
Arielle woke with a sharp gasp. Her body was slick with sweat, her heart hammering, the hum louder than ever. The room was dim — Selene's safehouse, the faint glow of warding threads tracing the walls. But she wasn't alone.
Her arms were wrapped in threads. Her threads. Black and silver, coiling around her wrists like veins, pulsing faintly. They weren't attached to anything, just looping endlessly, feeding on themselves.
She bit back a curse, clawing at them until they dissipated into faint motes of light. Her breathing came rough and uneven as she stared at her arms. The veins beneath her skin were darker now, crawling higher along her collarbone.
The hum whispered softly, almost soothingly. You felt it, didn't you? How easy it could be. How good.
Arielle pressed her fists against her temples, squeezing her eyes shut. She could still hear Draven's voice, see the flicker of violet in her own reflection.
And she hated how a small, traitorous part of her didn't entirely want him gone.