Bren's boots struck the frost-hardened path with dull thuds, each step mirroring the tension that had been brewing since they left the Mirrorgate. The wintry wind clawed at their cloaks, tearing through the trees like a thousand whispering voices. The path was narrow, wound through skeletal woods known as Hollowreach, a liminal place where reality frayed and the Veil between worlds thinned. It was the kind of place children were warned not to wander into, even in the height of day.
But they weren't children anymore. And daylight had long since bled from the sky.
Kael walked slightly ahead, his presence quieter than usual, as though still lost in the vision of his own dark future. The Echo Protocol had changed him. Something in the way he moved, the way the world seemed to bend slightly around him, suggested the burden of new power—and with it, fear of what that power could become.
Bren didn't say it aloud, but he felt it too. All of them did.
Behind them, Syra and Jax exchanged wary glances. Syra's normally sharp gaze was unreadable, and Jax… Jax had been silent since they left the chamber. That wasn't like him.
The silence eventually cracked when Kael stopped suddenly at the edge of a wide clearing. Frost-covered stones jutted from the earth like shattered teeth, and a derelict waystation stood in the center—half-swallowed by creeping vines, moss, and time.
"We rest here," Kael said.
Jax grunted but said nothing, moving toward the stone perimeter. Bren joined him, crouching by a half-collapsed wall, his breath fogging the air.
Syra approached Kael. "You saw something in the final mirror. You haven't spoken about it."
Kael didn't look at her. "Because it's not something I want to share."
"It might help us prepare."
"It might break us."
She held his gaze for a long time before backing away. "You're not the only one carrying visions, Kael."
That night, the wind didn't sleep. It howled through Hollowreach with mournful clarity, and none of them found real rest. Kael stood sentry, his eyes fixed on the distant treeline. The others took turns, but even in their sleep, they twitched, flinched, whispered names of the dead or forgotten.
At dawn, a new presence arrived.
Not with footsteps, but with stillness.
A hooded figure emerged from the mists, walking calmly into the clearing. No weapons drawn. No aggression. But the pressure of his presence was suffocating.
"Kael Voss," the man said, voice low and ageless. "The Weaver has summoned you."
Kael stiffened. "The Weaver?"
"The one who threads fate's design. She waits in the Loom."
Syra stepped forward, hand on her blade. "How did you find us?"
The man turned to her, his eyes hidden beneath the cowl. "Because your threads have already begun to unravel. Come willingly, or be unmade."
Jax snorted. "Great. More cryptic lunatics."
Kael raised a hand. "No. He's not lying." He took a step toward the man. "We go."
---
The path to the Loom wasn't a path at all.
The moment they followed the figure past the clearing's edge, the world shifted. Trees bent backward. Colors drained from the sky. The wind went still.
Then came the descent.
Through spiraling staircases that didn't obey gravity, through tunnels of glass that showed the past instead of reflections, through meadows where stars grew on vines.
No one spoke. The laws of language felt fragile here.
Finally, they reached a plateau bathed in violet light. In the center stood a dais of woven gold and obsidian. Upon it, a woman sat cross-legged, her eyes closed, hair silver and long as rivers.
The Weaver.
When she opened her eyes, they weren't eyes at all. They were constellations.
"You are all echoes now," she said. Her voice carried not through ears, but through memory. "Living contradictions of what was and what could be."
Jax frowned. "That supposed to be a compliment?"
She smiled faintly. "It's a warning."
Kael stepped forward. "Why summon us?"
"Because fate is no longer stable. Your survival has broken its spine. The Veil grows thin. The Tyrant King is awakening."
The name silenced them all.
Bren's voice came out hoarse. "The Tyrant King? That's a myth."
"So were you," the Weaver replied.
Kael clenched his fists. "What do we do?"
"You have choices. You can embrace your threads and weave them anew—or you can sever them, returning balance at the cost of your existence."
Syra's jaw tightened. "What happens if we do nothing?"
The sky darkened. The Loom shimmered.
"You've seen the echoes, Kael. You know."
He did. Cities burning. Oceans retreating from poisoned shores. The Tyrant King not marching through the world—but rewriting it.
"You must seek the Shard Arbiters," the Weaver continued. "Scattered fragments of will left behind by those who defied fate before you. Each one holds a sliver of the truth, and power to reshape what comes next."
Bren finally spoke. "Where do we find them?"
"They will find you… if you're worthy."
And with that, the Loom began to collapse—threads snapping into sparks, the dais folding into itself like a dying star.
The ground vanished.
And they fell.
---
Kael landed first, air driven from his lungs. He rolled to his feet just as the others appeared around him, groaning, clutching limbs.
They were no longer in the Loom.
They stood on the edge of a great canyon, lightning crackling overhead, and a city of blackened stone in the distance. It pulsed with a red glow from within, as though it breathed fire.
"Where… are we now?" Jax muttered.
Kael looked at the brand on his arm—the fate-seal glowed, hot and searing. His heart hammered.
"Trial one begins," he said. "The first Arbiter waits."
Syra looked down at the canyon. "And if we fail?"
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"Then everything dies."
---