Selene didn't sleep that night.
Arielle knew because she didn't either. The hum made rest impossible, thrumming against her ribs like a heartbeat that wasn't hers. She lay on the cot staring at the ceiling, the faint rune-glow casting shifting shadows across the walls, while Selene sat near the window, motionless but not still. Their eyes never closed, their hand idly spinning the needle between their fingers as if they were stitching something in the air.
Outside, Starlight City barely breathed. The storm's aftermath had left the streets eerily quiet, no distant hum of traffic, no murmurs of late-night vendors. Only the faint, irregular chime of loose threads rattling against wards somewhere far below.
When the clock hit the deep blue hour — halfway between midnight and dawn — Selene finally stood. "Stay here," they said softly.
Arielle propped herself up on one elbow. "Where are you going?"
"To make sure they're not lying to us."
They didn't elaborate, and Arielle didn't ask. She just nodded and watched as Selene vanished soundlessly into the shadows.
The White Spire loomed against the pre-dawn sky like a needle piercing the stars, its surface a seamless column of pale stone veined with faintly glowing wards. Selene moved along its base like smoke, their silver glow dimmed to nothing, every step silent against the frost-touched street.
They knew this place. Knew where the wards were strongest, where the cracks had been stitched over but not sealed. And they knew, too, that the Conclave would never tell Arielle the full truth. Not when her hum had become this.
The archive chamber was buried three levels beneath the Spire, guarded not by soldiers but by threads — taut, razor-fine lines of energy woven in shifting patterns across the entry hall. Any who stepped wrong would be sliced to filaments before they even knew they'd crossed a ward.
Selene traced the pattern in their mind, fingers brushing against the faintest hints of vibration, and slipped through in a breath.
The chamber beyond smelled like ink and cold iron. A single scribe sat at a floating desk, quill scratching against parchment, while rows of crystal-thread conduits pulsed faintly along the walls. Selene moved like a shadow until they reached the far shelf, pulling a sealed dossier marked with a crimson weave sigil.
They didn't open it there. Not until they were three blocks away, standing beneath a half-collapsed viaduct where the wards didn't reach, did they finally unseal the thread-lock and let the pages unfurl in their hands.
What they read made their pulse stutter.
Directive 47-Delta:The Anchor designated Arielle Caden exhibits escalating resonance instability.Projected risk of spontaneous tether integration: 84%.Recommended mitigation: extraction of Anchor core before threshold breach.Note: Core extraction is not survivable. Subject termination authorized upon breach initiation.
Selene's grip tightened until the parchment crumpled in their hand. They had expected containment. Monitoring. Maybe even sedation. But this—
They closed their eyes, inhaling slow, controlled breaths until the tremor in their fingers stilled. Then they burned the dossier to ash, the threads unraveling into a faint wisp of silver smoke.
Back at the safehouse, Arielle was awake when Selene returned, though she didn't move from the cot. The sigils on her skin were dimmer now, but the hum still pulsed beneath her ribs like a living thing.
"They're not just locking me up, are they?" she said without looking at them.
Selene's jaw flexed. "No."
Arielle finally met their gaze. "What's the plan?"
Selene hesitated — something they rarely did. "They want your Anchor core. Before you… change."
The hum thudded hard in Arielle's chest, like it was laughing.
"They think killing me will stop it," she said flatly.
Selene didn't deny it. "They think taking your core will sever your bond to the tether. Contain the threat before it grows."
"And you?" Her voice was quiet, but sharp. "Do you think they're right?"
Selene stepped closer, crouching so their eyes were level. "I think they're afraid. And fear makes them stupid. You're not lost yet, Arielle. I'm not letting them treat you like you are."
Arielle searched their face, finding only the same calm resolve she always did — and yet, beneath it, a flicker of something strained. She wondered how many threads they'd stitched tonight just to keep the city's hum tolerable. How many more would burn them out before the week ended.
The silence stretched until the air itself seemed heavy. Then, softly, another voice cut through.
"You already know they'll come for you at dawn. Why not leave before they knock on the door?"
The hum surged like a struck chord, vibrating through Arielle's ribs as the air near the far wall rippled. Threads coalesced into a figure, tall and deliberate, his coat flowing like shadow-thread.
Draven.
Selene's hand snapped to their needle, silver light flashing along its edge. "You're not welcome here."
Draven ignored them. His eyes fixed on Arielle, calm and sharp. "The Conclave will kill you. They'll make it clean, efficient. You won't even have time to regret staying loyal."
Arielle's fingers curled against the cot. "And you're here to… what? Rescue me?"
"I'm here to offer you a choice," Draven said evenly. "Live. Keep the power you've taken in. Stop burning yourself to hold bonds together for people who would slit your throat the moment you scare them."
Selene's voice cut like a blade. "He doesn't save Anchors, Arielle. He owns them. Every one he's 'rescued' is tethered to him, their will bound by his weave."
Draven tilted his head, unbothered. "Better to be bound and breathing than burned out and buried." His gaze softened — just slightly — as it returned to Arielle. "You've felt it, haven't you? The hum isn't just pulling you apart anymore. It's changing you. The Conclave can't stop that. But I can teach you to survive it."
The hum inside her pulsed again, slow and steady, like a second heartbeat answering his words.
Selene stepped closer, their silver glow sharpening. "Don't listen to him. He feeds on desperation. You're not a weapon. You're not a monster. You don't need him."
Arielle's breath came shallow, her mind a tangle of threads — Selene's calm resolve, Draven's dark certainty, the Conclave's cold pragmatism, and the hum that had grown so loud it felt like it might split her apart.
And somewhere beneath it all, an image flickered: herself, standing between a shattered skyline and a blooming tether, her veins alight with sigils, her eyes no longer her own.