Kaelen didn't sleep well.
The moonlight filtering through the cracked dome felt too bright. The fire in his chest pulsed restlessly, too quiet to ignite, too loud to ignore. Even Lirael's calm breathing nearby didn't help this time.
When he finally drifted off, it wasn't rest that met him.
It was memory.
---
He stood in a burning forest. Charred branches clawed the sky. Fire crawled up twisted trees like serpents of silver light. And there—at the center of it all—stood a figure.
Tall. Strong. Cloaked in ash and flame. His face turned slowly.
It was *his*.
Kaelen, but not the Kaelen he knew. Older. Hardened. Eyes glowing like coals. In one hand, he held a blade made entirely of light—a sword with no edge, only heat and intent.
And he spoke.
> "You are the thread that was never meant to return."
Behind him, the flames collapsed inward, folding into darkness. A Gate—fractured and screaming—shattered into spinning shards.
A woman's voice called out from the chaos:
> "Kaelen—!"
Then, silence.
---
Kaelen jolted upright, heart racing, breath catching in his throat.
The ruins were still. Lirael stirred nearby, eyes flickering open.
"Another vision?" she asked softly, already sitting up.
He nodded. "Same battlefield. Same burning trees. Only this time… he looked straight at me. And he said something. Called me a thread that wasn't supposed to return."
Lirael frowned. "That's the soulbound memory fracture deepening. You're bleeding into his end. It's not uncommon—but it means your power is waking."
"Then why does it feel like something is breaking inside me instead?"
She didn't answer. Her silence was answer enough.
By midmorning, they were moving again, heading toward the ruins of **Ardynel**, one of the long-abandoned Tethered Gates. Lirael led the way in silence, navigating ancient stone paths cracked with roots. Kaelen followed, his mind drifting back to the fire, the sword, the voice.
He didn't feel stronger. He felt *haunted*.
The trees grew older as they climbed—white-barked giants with branches like reaching fingers. Moss draped everything, thick and silent. When they reached a stone outcropping, Lirael raised a hand to stop him.
"There," she whispered. "The Gate."
It stood at the heart of the ruins like a broken crown—seven floating stones, each the size of a man, once bound together by glowing threads of energy.
Now, those threads flickered. Dim. Frayed.
One of the stones had fallen. Cracked. Bleeding faint silver mist into the air like steam.
Kaelen felt the hum before he saw it—a low, steady vibration running through his bones, like an echo from deep below the earth.
"That sound…" he murmured.
"It's the Loom," Lirael said. "The whole world is woven through it. The Gate is fraying. It shouldn't be."
Kaelen stepped forward, slowly. The moment his foot touched the circular stone platform, something seized in his chest.
Pain flared—hot, bright—and the world tipped sideways.
**Vision. Again.**
He was standing—*as Starsworn*—inside a glowing room of glass and silver. A council chamber. Seven robed mages argued around a loom of light strung across a crystal frame.
> "He's slipping," one said. "The fire is too much—he'll fracture the weave!"
> "He's our last chance!" said another. "If he fails, the Threads snap!"
Then—flames. Screams.
The vision twisted.
The battlefield returned. A woman screamed his name. Her body crumpled beside a shattered gate.
**Lirael.**
Kaelen collapsed to his knees, gasping.
"Kaelen!" Lirael was beside him in an instant, one hand on his shoulder.
He looked up at her, eyes wide. "You died. At this Gate. In that memory… I was him. I watched you fall."
Lirael's hand froze.
Slowly, she sat beside him.
"I thought that memory was sealed," she said quietly. "I didn't want you to see that."
"It felt like it *was* me," he said. "But it wasn't me. It was him. I saw both… and neither."
She looked at him for a long moment. "You're getting too close to the soul's edge. The deeper you pull from Starsworn, the harder it will be to stay Kaelen Vale."
He nodded, voice low. "I'm not sure there's a difference anymore."
There was silence for a while.
Then she said, "There is. The difference is choice."
He looked at her. "What did you mean earlier—when you said I wasn't meant to return?"
Lirael hesitated. "Most soulbounds pass peacefully. The Loom takes them. But your thread was caught. Twisted. *Pulled back*."
"By what?"
She didn't answer.
Or maybe she didn't know.
---
That night, they sat by a small fire, the broken Gate pulsing faintly in the distance. Kaelen kept staring at his hands, half-expecting fire to spark.
Nothing came.
But for the first time, he wasn't sure if he *wanted* it to.
Lirael passed him a waterskin. "You're quieter than usual."
"I'm not sure who I'm becoming," he said.
She smiled, faintly. "Then become someone *new*."
And for the first time since awakening in this strange world, Kaelen let the silence settle between them—not as a weight.