The tether screamed.
Not with sound, but with pressure — a sudden, suffocating pulse that rippled across the Hollowed District, shattering every ward-thread within a three-block radius. Arielle felt it before she saw it, the hum in her chest convulsing violently, knocking her to her knees as the sky split in two.
The tether surged outward like a living vein, black and writhing, devouring the remnants of the street below. Pavement peeled upward in jagged slabs, cars buckled like paper, and the few civilians still trapped in the district scrambled for cover.
Selene grabbed Arielle's arm, hauling her upright. Their usual calm was gone, replaced by taut urgency. "We need to seal it now before it hits the next block."
Arielle's vision swam. Her body was vibrating, the hum so loud she could barely hear their voice. "I can't— it's pulling through me, Selene, it's like—"
Before she could finish, the ground beneath them split. A glowing rift erupted in the street, vomiting tendrils of black tether-thread into the air. One lashed toward a fleeing civilian, a young man no older than twenty, its sharp edge grazing his chest as it passed.
He froze mid-run. The color drained from his face as his life-thread — a thin, silver filament — began to fray and unravel, curling toward the tether like a moth to flame. His eyes went wide with terror, hands clawing at his chest as if he could hold his soul together by sheer will.
Arielle stumbled toward him instinctively, but the hum roared, doubling her over. Every broken thread nearby surged into her ribs, slamming into her chest like shards of glass. She tasted copper. Her knees hit the ground.
Selene's hand shot out, steadying her. "Stay down. You can't take this one. It'll tear you apart."
"Then you—" Arielle tried to speak, but her voice broke as another wave of threads slammed into her. The hum was deafening now, a storm inside her veins, and she could feel the black lines crawling higher along her skin.
The young man collapsed fully, his thread nearly severed. His eyes were glassy, his breathing shallow. In seconds, he'd be gone — not just dead, but unmade, his essence swallowed by the tether.
Selene's jaw tightened. Their silver eyes hardened, and Arielle saw something flicker there — not resolve, but a grim, practiced acceptance.
"No," Arielle rasped, recognition hitting her. "Don't. Selene, don't do it."
They didn't answer. They knelt beside the dying man, their needle glinting faintly as they whispered something in the old tongue — words Arielle had only heard in coven warnings.
The vow-breaker's chant.
Silver threads erupted from Selene's chest, coiling around the man's unraveling filament. For a moment, Arielle thought they were repairing it, weaving him back together — but then she saw the other end of the threads. They weren't reattaching him to the weave. They were stitching his soul-thread directly into Selene's own.
The air stilled, the tether pulse slowing. The man's breathing steadied, his eyes fluttering open in confusion. But Selene's body jerked as the connection sealed, their silver glow dimming, their shoulders trembling from the weight of an extra soul stitched into their core.
Arielle stared, her stomach twisting. "You… soul-bound him. That's— that's forbidden, Selene! That's—"
"It stopped the surge," Selene said sharply, cutting her off. Their voice was even, but their hand trembled as they rose, steadying themselves on their needle. "It saved him. It saved you."
Arielle's pulse hammered in her ears. Draven's words echoed, slick and unshakable: Every stitch, every bond they force back together, every tether they hold at bay… it burns their life away. They're unraveling, Arielle.
She took a small step back, her gaze fixed on the faint glow at Selene's sternum where the bond had fused. "How many times have you done this? How many threads are you carrying that aren't yours?"
Selene's eyes flicked to hers, a flash of something almost like guilt breaking through their mask. "Enough to keep this city standing. Enough that you're still alive to ask me that question."
"That's not an answer," Arielle said, her voice low, shaking despite herself.
Selene didn't reply. They turned away, scanning the dissipating tether surge, their posture stiff. The silver glow around them was dimmer now, their breath shallow. Arielle realized with a cold twist that every soul they carried was another weight pulling them closer to unraveling — another thread fraying their own life.
Draven hadn't lied.
The hum inside Arielle surged again, louder than before, as if feeding on her doubt. She pressed a hand to her ribs, the black veins on her arms pulsing faintly, and for the first time she felt… untethered from Selene. Not by anger, but by fear.
Not fear of them. Fear for them.
But beneath that, deeper and more dangerous, was a whisper she didn't want to acknowledge:
Draven wouldn't weaken himself for others. He wouldn't burn away one stitch at a time just to keep a city breathing.
The thought made her stomach lurch.
Selene finally turned back, their silver eyes steady despite the pallor creeping into their skin. "The surge is over. We need to move before the next one. Can you walk?"
Arielle nodded stiffly, her throat tight. She followed, but her steps felt heavier, her chest louder, the hum almost drowning out the sound of their footsteps.
For the first time since Selene had saved her, Arielle wondered if staying at their side was keeping her alive — or pulling her closer to becoming exactly what Draven wanted.