"Some choose to see.Some choose to pull.But I—I chose to thread myself into the fabric.And now the pattern is mine to shape."
The echo of that choice lingered.
Not like a thought.
Not even like a memory.
It clung to the inside of his skin. It crept along the path behind his ribs. It filled his breath with something heavier than air—like thread soaked in dye, pulled too taut, not yet dry.
He could still feel it, the seam that had formed in Chapter Ten, not as a scar but as architecture. A change in the structure of him.
Before, the threads responded.
Now, they resonated.
That morning, Darian stood before the mirror in his room. The light leaking through the cracked window was softer than it should have been. It diffused unnaturally—like glass warped by heat, or time, or some pressure from the other side.
The mirror didn't show him. Not at first.
It showed the room behind him—quiet, still, mundane.
And then it shimmered.
Lines began to appear—not drawn, not reflected. Woven.
Overlaid like transparent embroidery, stitched across the air.
The mirror glitched.
His reflection emerged, fragmented.
Three Darian's.
Each offset by a breath.
One blinked too soon. One too late. The third just watched.
He reached out—slowly.
The mirror responded.
His hand passed through the surface.
No ripple.
No resistance.
But he felt it—a tug.
Not on his hand.
On his self.
Like part of him had remained on the other side.
He pulled back.
The reflection collapsed.
Returned to normal.
But the threads were still visible in the air, even when the glass forgot them.
He could feel it now: the echo of every moment he'd ever pulled a thread, seen a symbol, heard a whisper in an unthreaded room.
They hadn't gone.
They had circled back.
Because Darian had sewn something into the pattern—
—and the pattern was answering.
By midday, he noticed the shifts.
Subtle.
A door opened when he wasn't near it.
Footsteps echoed where no one stood.
Servants moved in loops—repeating steps, gestures, muttered words. Like their thread had snagged.
He followed one such loop. A boy delivering firewood to the grand hall. Darian passed him once.
Thirty minutes later—same boy, same firewood, same look of quiet dread.
Except this time, Darian stood in his path.
The boy walked straight through him.
Not as in brushed past.
Through.
Darian stumbled back, breath stolen from him. Not by contact.
By separation.
Something had split.
He returned to the place beneath the chapel. The spiral gate was gone, but the sensation remained.
He whispered:
"Where am I?"
And the wall breathed back:
"Not here."
Then: silence.
That evening, the candle in his room was burning before he lit it.
The glove had moved.
No one had entered.
But someone had adjusted the seam inside the cloth.
The thread he'd felt in his chest pulsed faintly. He removed the glove.
Saw that the spiral on his palm had gained a second ring. Not complete—yet.
But something was adding to it.
He hadn't done that.
At least—not consciously.
He wandered the lower halls until he found a new corridor.
He had never seen it before.
The stone was darker.
Older.
The air thicker.
And at the end, a door made of stitched leather. Not nailed. Not hinged.
Sewn shut.
He reached out.
The threads parted.
Inside, a circular chamber.
At its center: a mannequin.
Dressed in servant's clothes.
But with his face.
Not a mirror.
Not a trick.
The mannequin was a threaded reconstruction. Every detail perfect, except for the eyes—stitched shut.
A sign at its base:
"Echo: Patterned. Watching Self."
He turned to leave.
But the room had changed.
The door was gone.
And in its place: a tapestry.
Unfolding.
Thread by thread.
Scenes from his life—but not as he remembered them.
Moments altered.
Positions reversed.
People he hadn't known—now staring at him through the woven image.
And behind every scene: a symbol.
A spiral. Sometimes twisted. Sometimes broken.
Sometimes mirrored.
He stepped closer to one thread in the tapestry.
It twitched.
And whispered in his voice:
"You chose to be seen."
He ran.
Not in panic.
In desperation.
The room unraveled behind him.
Walls folding, turning to cloth, collapsing.
He passed through a slit in the air—an opening not cut but torn—and found himself…
…back in his cot.
Candle out.
Everything unchanged.
Except for one thing:
His reflection was still watching him.
And when he blinked—
It didn't.
He donned the glove again.
Reached for the thread above his bed.
It didn't appear.
But he felt it.
Inside.
He whispered:
"What is following me?"
And the silence cracked.
A voice answered from the floor:
"Not following.Not leading.Copying."
He found it two days later.
The copy.
Not perfect.
Not visible.
But there.
A thread pulled too tight.
A gesture too similar.
A servant girl with the same spiral—half formed—behind her ear.
He tried to speak to her.
She didn't see him.
Or pretended not to.
But as she passed, she whispered without turning:
"You're not the only Darian anymore."
"I stitched myself into the pattern.But now the pattern has begun to stitch back.And it's stitching without asking."