The sky had returned, but it no longer looked the same.
A cracked sun hung low on the horizon, casting light that was too sharp, too clean—like it had been cut from the edge of a blade. It painted the Rift-basin in tones of scorched bronze, stretching Kaelen's shadow long behind him as he walked.
He hadn't spoken in hours.
Not since the Tower.
Not since the shard had whispered fragments of his past into his blood.
Aelira followed silently, her cloak rippling in the brittle wind, every sense alert. The Rift around them pulsed with quiet menace—dead trees grown from glass, the bones of creatures too large for comprehension half-buried in ash, and the occasional shimmer of movement in the corner of the eye.
It was a deadland haunted by memory.
And Kaelen could feel every ghost.
They didn't haunt him.
They were him.
It started small.
As they crossed a collapsed bridge over what might've once been a river of molten crystal, Kaelen paused. The wind shifted. The temperature dropped.
And across from him stood a figure.
Wearing his face.
Same silver hair. Same refined body. Same empty eyes.
But dressed in gold. Regal, pristine, untouched by dirt or blood.
Aelira's blades were halfway drawn before Kaelen lifted a hand. "Don't."
The reflection smiled.
"King," it whispered, mockingly. "Or would you rather 'Weaver' now? I forget which lie you chose first."
Kaelen's hand twitched.
"You're a shard," he murmured.
"More than that. Less than you," the shade said, stepping closer. "A possibility. An echo of who you were supposed to be before you broke it all."
Kaelen stared. "Why are you here?"
The reflection didn't answer with words.
It lunged.
They clashed beneath a dead sun.
Kaelen moved with practiced grace, each motion deliberate. He manipulated the fractured Matter beneath his feet, drawing a jagged blade from the very dust of memory. His echo met him with a mirrored weapon, forged from gold and regret.
Aelira didn't interfere.
She knew better now.
This wasn't a battle of survival.
It was reclamation.
The echo was fast—too fast for anything real.
It moved through patterns Kaelen recognized but couldn't replicate, paths written in forgotten rhythms. Its strikes weren't aimed at the body, but the Weave itself, as if it were trying to unravel Kaelen thread by thread.
Kaelen took a gash to his side. Blood spilled.
But he smiled.
"I remember you now," he said coldly. "You were the part of me that wanted peace. The part that compromised."
The echo faltered.
Kaelen's blade surged with heat and light, melting its golden reflection.
"I didn't break the Pattern because I failed," he hissed. "I broke it because I refused to settle."
He stabbed forward—
—and the echo shattered into dust.
Ash fell like rain.
And Kaelen stood alone once more.
By nightfall, the Rift had begun to shift again.
They set camp beside a sunken ruin—half buried in glass-sand, its once-arched halls now collapsed into a maze of angles. The stone was marked by glyphs Kaelen didn't recognize consciously, but his blood stirred as he traced them.
Aelira watched him closely.
"You're different," she finally said.
Kaelen didn't turn.
"I am different."
He stood, his voice quiet but edged.
"That echo back there wasn't the only one. There'll be others. Fragments. Regrets. We're entering a region corrupted by me—past versions, dead choices. Reflections cast by the Loom when I first cracked it."
He turned to her, eyes glowing faintly with silver fire.
"Stay close. Don't believe what you see."
They descended into the ruin after midnight.
The wind howled behind them, sealing the world above in silence. The tunnels below smelled of old dust, ink, and salt.
Kaelen led them through corridors that folded in impossible ways. Some turned in on themselves like Möbius strips. Others repeated endlessly until he snapped a thread of Time to cut the loop.
In one chamber, they found corpses seated around a black table—each bearing Kaelen's face.
Aelira didn't flinch.
Kaelen did.
"These were versions of me who chose negotiation," he murmured. "Tried to work with the Scales. Tried to become part of the solution."
He touched one.
It crumbled into ash.
"I remember their thoughts. Their doubts. They failed."
They moved deeper, following a hum Kaelen felt in his ribs.
The Weave was thin here.
Threadbare.
At the lowest point of the ruin was a chamber of mirrors. Dozens of them, arranged like petals of a dead flower—each facing inward toward a dais.
Kaelen stepped onto it.
The mirrors lit up.
And his reflections moved—independently.
Some were monstrous. Some divine. One wept. One laughed maniacally. Another simply stood, holding a blade dripping blood.
Aelira reached for her weapon.
Kaelen touched her wrist. "No. Let me."
He stepped forward.
The mirror directly ahead flared.
And Kaelen was pulled through.
He stood in a throne room made of stars.
Beneath him, galaxies coiled. Above him, gods knelt.
This was him—as a god.
Radiant, untouchable, adored.
A woman stood at his side.
Aelira?
No—not Aelira.
Someone else.
Her features blurred, dreamlike.
"Do you regret it?" the god-Kaelen asked. "Choosing pain over perfection? Struggle over serenity?"
Kaelen shook his head.
"I chose freedom."
The god-self tilted its head.
"And what will you do when freedom becomes your cage?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
He turned his back.
And the mirror shattered.
He returned to the ruin gasping.
Aelira steadied him.
"You saw it?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I saw what I could've become. A god with no memory of the cost."
He touched the Loom within.
And this time, it didn't resist.
It accepted.
He felt something click.
Another shard, another understanding.
Not power—yet.
But permission.
When they emerged from the ruin, dawn was rising.
Or something like it.
A new sun.
One Kaelen didn't recognize.
Aelira glanced at it warily. "Did we shift timelines?"
Kaelen stared at the sky.
"No. The timeline shifted us."
He turned.
"We're being watched. Not by a person. By the Pattern itself."
Aelira's grip on her dagger tightened.
"And what does it want?"
Kaelen smiled faintly.
"To see if I'm worthy of rewriting it."
He looked ahead.
Toward a distant mountain.
Beyond it, the next Weavecore.
Where the Loom had pointed before the Spire.
Where something older than memory slept beneath stone.
"Come," he said.
And they walked into the rising light.