The first thing Nova noticed was the silence—total, suffocating silence. The sound of shifting stone, of whispered breaths, of the Anchor Array's crystalline hum—all had vanished. It was as if the universe had paused to watch what came next.
From the shadows above, they descended.
Not by steps.
Not by gravity.
But by thread.
Figures cloaked in woven light, their faces hidden behind masks stitched from broken languages and melted time, floated downward on strands that pulsed with living memory. Each thread shimmered, showing fragments of forgotten events: a child's funeral in a world that never existed; the signing of a peace treaty undone by time travel; a future catastrophe echoing into the present.
Ada took a step back.
"The Weavers," she whispered. "The real ones."
Nova said nothing.
He'd seen their shadows once—beyond the wormhole, inside the mind of the dying star. But now, in front of him, stood the ones who had tied reality's fabric into knots. Not ancient one. Not demons.
Engineers of impossibility.
There were three of them.
One wore a mask carved from bone and gold—its eye sockets eternally open, as if in horror. Another wore a shroud of woven glass, fractured constantly and re-forming. The third had no face at all—only a spiral of thread pulling inward, endlessly folding.
*-----------------------*
"You have the Key," said the first Weaver. Its voice was neither male nor female, neither kind nor cruel—it simply was, like the ticking of a clock.
Nova held it tighter. "You created the knots."
The second Weaver tilted its head. "Not created. Maintained."
"Why?"
The third did not speak. It simply extended a long finger toward the suspended singularity at the center of the Anchor Array.
"It must not awaken," the first said.
"What is 'it'?" Ada asked, voice trembling.
The Weaver of the spiral turned toward her. The threads making up its body vibrated.
"A question no world should answer."
Nova stepped forward. "You tied the knot that merges timelines. You bled eras together. Why?"
"To buy time," said the first.
"For what?"
"For... delay."
*---------------------*
The Weavers moved toward the Array. The air rippled around them, as if their presence bent memory itself.
Nova stepped into their path.
"You've buried truths. Collapsed entire histories. For delay? What are you afraid of?"
The Weaver of the glass cloak turned, and for a brief moment, Nova saw into its core—into a storm of collapsing stars, of civilizations consumed before they were born.
"We are afraid," it said simply, "of what you will become."
Nova didn't move.
"You've seen my echoes. But I made my choice."
The bone-masked Weaver replied, "You made one choice. In one world. The Key is not a tool. It's a pivot. With every step, it draws other Novas closer."
Nova narrowed his eyes. "You mean versions of me?"
The spiral Weaver nodded. "Some were consumed. Some ascended. Some became what sleeps beneath the knots."
*--------------------------*
Suddenly, the room changed.
Threads shot from the Weavers, connecting to the Array. The crystals hummed violently. Around them, the chamber faded—and a vision unfolded:
Nova standing on a black sun, surrounded by thousands of copies of himself, each wearing different faces, carrying different burdens.
Some held swords. Others held crowns. One held the universe—compressed and screaming—in his palm.
The Weavers stood above them all, puppeteers of possibility.
Nova staggered back.
"Stop it," he growled.
The threads tightened.
"You must see," they said in unison. "The weight of your name."
One Nova screamed and exploded into dust.
Another turned to light.
A third merged with a Primordial and became a god.
Nova clenched his fists. "I'm not them."
"You are all of them," whispered the glass Weaver. "And they are all you."
---------------
He reached into his cloak and flung the Thread Key into the air.
The Weavers reacted too slowly.
With a flick of his wrist, Nova caught the Key mid-fall—and stabbed it into the base of the Anchor Array.
A shockwave of pure memory exploded outward.
The Weavers screamed—not in pain, but in revelation.
The masks shattered.
The cloaks unraveled.
And beneath their woven forms were… not creatures. Not entities.
Just threads.
Living threads, given will.
They had no faces. No minds. Only the purpose given to them by the machine at the end of time.
And Nova had just severed that connection.
The Anchor Array went dark.
The spiral above the singularity collapsed.
For the first time in eons, the knot loosened.
And the timelines… sighed.
*--------------------*
The Weavers collapsed, fading into threads that scattered like sparks.
Ada rushed to Nova's side.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't kill them," he said. "I released them."
Veylin looked up, eyes wide. "What now?"
Nova turned to the now-silent machine.
"We find the next knot," he said. "And then the next. Until we reach the end of the Loom."
Ada's voice was faint. "And what waits at the end?"
Nova looked at his hand.
The Thread Key was gone.
Only a scar remained.
"Either truth," he said softly, "or the lie that started it all."
*-----------------------*