The wind whispered across the temple rooftops like a lullaby out of sync with the world. Moonlight filtered through the swaying branches of the courtyard's ginkgo tree, casting flickering shadows across the stone floor where Ahri knelt, still and alert. The golden thread curled loosely around her wrist, pulsing with a quiet, steady rhythm.
Jin stood nearby, sleeves rolled up, her fingers working calmly through a weave of shimmering silver-blue thread. A protective seal, delicate and circular, glowed between them like a lotus blooming on water.
"You're distracted," Jin said gently.
Ahri blinked. "No, I'm not."
"You are. Your weave is unraveling."
Ahri looked down. The pattern she'd been forming had slipped, tangling in on itself. She frowned and tried again, but the golden threads refused to take shape.
It wasn't just her concentration—something deeper was out of balance.
Since the vision in the Severed's lair, Ahri hadn't been the same. The mask, the memory, the way her thread pulled violently toward something unseen—it all felt like a warning half-spoken. The Elder noticed it too. He watched her more closely, speaking less during lessons, letting the threads instruct her in silence.
Tonight, though, silence only sharpened the tension.
Jin reached over and steadied Ahri's hands, guiding them into the proper motion.
"You don't have to force clarity," she said. "Sometimes you just have to let the thread show you."
Ahri exhaled slowly. She let go of the pressure to control and instead listened—felt—the weave around her. Gradually, her golden thread responded, gliding into a spiral of light.
Then it stopped. Tightened. Pulled.
Ahri's breath hitched.
The thread yanked sharply, like a tether gone taut. Not toward Jin. Not even toward the Elder. It pointed outward, beyond the temple's walls.
Her eyes turned violet as the vision crashed into her.
She stood atop a sea of clouds—vast, silent, and grey. The sky above pulsed like a living fabric, threaded with constellations she didn't recognize. Across from her stood a figure cloaked in mist. Not human, not spirit. Something... woven from broken light.
"You've reached the edge," it said, its voice distant, overlapping itself in echoes. "But the tapestry has no end."
Ahri stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The figure held out a hand. In its palm sat a shard of something ancient—a blackened charm shaped like a crescent moon.
"You've seen her now," it whispered. "You've touched what was Severed. But the Shadow watches still."
The vision ended with a snap.
Ahri gasped and fell back, the golden thread around her wrist crackling with sparks.
Jin caught her. "Ahri! What did you see?"
Ahri sat up slowly. "Not a place… something beyond the weave. A watcher. A warning."
The Elder approached then, his steps silent on the stone floor. He looked at the glowing, frayed edges of her thread and frowned.
"This is no longer just a disturbance," he said. "The Severed are reacting to your presence. You've awakened something they feared would never return."
Ahri stared at the threads around her, now dimmer than before. "What do they want?"
"To unmake the Loom," the Elder said. "And you may be the last Threadseer capable of stopping them."
There was silence again—but not the peaceful kind. The kind that hangs before thunder.
Then a bell tolled.
Three times.
The temple's emergency ward—a call no one had heard in years.
Jin rose to her feet. "Someone's crossed into the inner sanctum."
The Elder's gaze turned grim. "The Severed have come to us."
Ahri stood, body tense, eyes still faintly glowing.
The golden thread pulled tight once more, and this time, it didn't stop.
In the sanctuary's central chamber, where the Loom of Echoes hummed with ancient memory, the air grew cold. A gust of wind snuffed out the lanterns one by one. As the last flame died, a woman stepped from the shadows, her cracked fox mask gleaming under the moonlight filtering in from above.
Miran.
Her voice echoed, soft and merciless: "Let's begin unraveling."