The strike shattered the wound.
For an instant, the world was pure white. Then it wasn't a world at all.
Stone, sky, glass—everything dissolved into threads of light, unraveling like torn cloth. The keepers' screams vanished into sparks. Aldric's body burst apart, his crown melting into formless shadow. The plain fell away beneath Elara's feet until there was nothing but void, stitched together by burning chains.
She clutched Tomas's hand. His grip was weak, blood slick between their palms, but he held on.
"Elara…" His voice was a broken whisper. "Where are we now?"
Her sun-eye burned, showing her what her human eye could not. They stood not in emptiness, but in the inside of the Hour itself—an infinite abyss of memory and silence, its walls alive with faces that whispered and wept.
The Hour's voice pressed into her skull: YOU BREAK, YET YOU ARE STILL WITHIN. YOU ARE THREAD. THREADS RETURN TO THE LOOM.
The void rippled. From its depths rose visions—memories, not hers, yet forced into her mind.
A village, older than any record, tormented by silence that swallowed their voices. Priests hammering chains on an altar, binding the silence into form. Children offered, their eyes burned to suns. Generations of keepers, each bound link by link.
And through them all—the same presence. The Hour, eternal, unbroken, devouring.
Elara staggered, clutching her head. "It… it's always been this. Always fed."
Tomas's hand caught her shoulder, pulling her back. His face was pale, sweat-soaked, but his voice was sharp. "Then we end it."
But the Hour twisted his words.
In her ears, it whispered: He will die here. Bind me, and he lives. Break me, and you lose him.
Her chest seized. She looked at Tomas—bleeding, shaking, barely standing.
And for a heartbeat, she faltered.
The Hour knew. The void shifted, spilling more visions:
Tomas lying still, chains through his chest. Tomas screaming her name as silence swallowed him. Tomas turning his eyes to hers, sun-bright, his voice a whisper: "Why didn't you save me?"
Her tears blurred the light. "No. No, you're not real—"
The Hour's chains lashed, wrapping Tomas's arms, dragging him back into the abyss. He cried out, his body writhing, his voice raw. "Elara! Don't let it—!"
She lunged, catching his hand. Her grip slid on blood and iron, but she refused to let go. Her scream tore across the void. "You will not take him!"
The key flared in her grip, brighter than before, searing the chains to ash.
Tomas fell into her arms, gasping, his chest heaving. His eyes met hers, weak but blazing. "I told you. It doesn't get to have me."
The void convulsed.
The Hour's true form revealed itself at last—not an eye, not a mouth, but a loom of chains, stretching across infinity, weaving silence into the fabric of existence. Every keeper's face was a thread. Every scream was a stitch.
The voice thundered: BREAK, AND ALL ENDS. BIND, AND YOU ENDURE.
The chains writhed, striking like serpents, tearing chunks of light from the void. The loom shook, unraveling faster.
Tomas gripped her hand, blood dripping from his fingers. His voice cracked, but his words cut sharp: "Elara, don't you dare bind it. If the world ends—then let it end with us, not on its leash."
Her sun-eye blazed. Her human eye wept. The key burned in her palm, alive with fire.
And as the loom screamed, she raised it high.
"We break you."
The silence howled.
And she struck.
The loom shuddered, its chains grinding like the ribs of a collapsing world.
From its infinite web, faces pressed outward, thousands of them. Some screamed, their mouths wide with eternal agony. Others whispered with cracked lips, pleading, cursing, begging.
"Elara…"
She froze.
It was her mother's face, her voice worn thin. "Daughter, it is not so terrible. The silence is peace. No more pain. No more fear. Only stillness. Join us."
Her heart wrenched.
Another face pushed forward—her grandmother, her eyes hollow flames. "Foolish girl. You think you're breaking it? You're feeding it. You're no different from us."
The voices grew until the air trembled. "Join us. Break us. We are you."
Tomas swayed beside her, his body tearing itself apart with each breath. Chains writhed at his feet, searching, hungry. One coiled up his leg, burning flesh away to black. He screamed, dropping to his knees.
"No!" Elara hacked at the chain with the key, light flaring, severing the link. But when it fell, three more rose, dragging at his shoulders, his arms.
Tomas's voice cracked, raw and hoarse: "Don't… stop. Whatever happens, you keep going."
The Hour's voice swelled over his cry: HE IS ALREADY THREAD. LET HIM WEAVE. TAKE YOUR PLACE AT MY HEART.
And then she saw it—herself.
Not as she was, but as the Hour would have her: crowned in fire, seated at the center of the loom, chains coiled around her limbs, her sun-eye blazing brighter than stars. Around her, the keepers bowed, the silence stretching infinite. She ruled not as victim, but as master.
The vision was intoxicating. Power. Dominion. An end to weakness, to fear, to loss.
Her body trembled. The key wavered.
"Elara."
Tomas's hand gripped her wrist, his blood smearing her skin. His eyes, fever-bright, burned into hers. "That's not you."
The throne flickered, the chains cracked, and for an instant, she felt herself again.
She screamed, slamming the key into the vision. Light tore it apart.
The loom recoiled. Chains shattered, sparks raining like meteors. The keepers wailed, faces splitting.
But Aldric crawled from the wreckage—half-shadow, half-flame, his body warped, his voice guttural.
"You don't understand!" he bellowed, clutching at the strands of the loom. "If you destroy it, there will be nothing left. No world. No memory. Only the void!"
He hurled a chain at her, his form unraveling. She swung the key, cutting through it.
Her voice rang, shaking: "Then we'll make something new."
The loom's core pulsed—massive, blinding, each beat louder than thunder. Chains lashed in every direction, striking like a thousand whips.
Elara held Tomas's hand, lifting him even as he stumbled, his body breaking. She raised the key, the fire in her veins matching the silence's roar.
The Hour's voice surged, raw and endless: BREAK OR BIND. CHOOSE, OR BE NOTHING.
Elara screamed her defiance, her sun-eye blazing.
And with Tomas's hand in hers, she raised the key toward the heart of the loom.
The chains struck.
The world convulsed.
And then—
The silence did not simply roar—it layered. A thousand voices folded over each other, like rivers forced into one course, each trying to drag her in a different direction.
Bind me.Break me.Save him.Lose him.
Every voice was hers.
Elara staggered, clutching her skull as images poured into her—scenes of a life she had never lived but could have.
A cottage with Tomas, smoke rising from the hearth.Children's laughter in fields of gold.A town where no statue loomed, where silence was only night's soft hush.
Her knees buckled. The key almost slipped from her fingers.
"Elara!" Tomas's grip on her shoulder was iron, though his body trembled. His lips bled where he bit them to stay awake. His voice was ragged but fierce: "That's not real. Don't you dare believe it."
The vision shifted.
Now Tomas stood tall, unbroken, his chest unscarred. He looked at her with eyes unclouded by pain. He smiled, strong, whole.
Bind me, whispered the Hour, and he will be this again. Forever.
Her chest clenched so tight she thought it might split.
She wanted to believe. Saints, she wanted to believe.
But the real Tomas—bleeding, gasping, still holding her up—spat into the void. "You lying bastard. She doesn't need your leash."
The illusion cracked, the golden field collapsing into shards of silence.
The loom retaliated.
Its chains moved like serpents now, twisting into shapes, forming beasts of shadow with faces stolen from the keepers. Wolves with children's eyes. Serpents with her mother's mouth. They lunged, their jaws opening on soundless screams.
Elara swung the key, each strike searing one into ash. But for every chain-beast cut, another rose.
Her voice tore the air: "It doesn't end!"
"That's the point," Tomas hissed, slashing with a chain he had ripped free, swinging it like a whip. "It won't stop. So we do."
Aldric's shadow staggered closer, his crown now a jagged cage of light. Half his body had been claimed by the loom, his arm unraveling into threads. His voice broke as he screamed:
"You think you're heroes? You're insects chewing at a god's roots! Break it, and nothing survives—not you, not your children, not a single memory!"
His eyes burned with both fury and desperation. "I kept the silence caged for centuries! I gave it my soul, my blood, my name! And this is how you repay me?"
Elara's sun-eye flared. "You fed it. You let it devour. We are not you."
She struck. The key's light carved through Aldric's shadow. His scream fractured into echoes, his form collapsing into threads pulled back into the loom.
The Hour shrieked, and the void itself shivered.
The loom's core pulsed harder, its heartbeat rattling Elara's bones. Each throb unstitched more of reality, pulling at her skin, her memories. She felt her first step, her first word, Tomas's first smile—ripped loose, dragged toward the loom.
She clutched her head, choking. "It's stealing—"
Tomas fell to his knees, his face contorted in agony. "Don't let… don't let it take us!"
The Hour's voice surged, booming with command: YOU ARE THREAD. RETURN. BECOME WHOLE.
Chains coiled around them both, pulling them toward the heart.
The key pulsed in her hand, almost alive, its light answering her heartbeat.
Elara screamed, forcing herself upright, pulling Tomas into her arms as chains tightened. Her voice split the silence:
"I am not your thread. I am your unmaking."
She raised the key, its fire burning brighter than ever.
The loom reared, chains writhing, faces shrieking.
And as its core opened like a vast, burning eye, she drove the key down toward its heart.
The silence ruptured.
And the world broke.