Kaelen hadn't spoken since nightfall.
He sat at the edge of the firepit, legs folded, arms resting on his knees, watching the silver mist still curling faintly from the broken Gate nearby. It pulsed sometimes—like a fading heartbeat.
Lirael didn't press him. She waited, quietly feeding the fire, the tension between them soft but palpable. When he finally broke the silence, his voice was quiet, almost reluctant.
> "In the vision… I saw you die."
Lirael glanced up, her expression unreadable. "That was the Gate's echo. A splinter of what happened long ago."
"But I *felt* it," Kaelen said. "The heat. The grief. Like I was him, but also myself. And then… I wasn't sure who I was anymore."
"That uncertainty means you're close to fracture," Lirael said. "Your soul-thread is unraveling faster than I thought."
She stood, brushing moss from her cloak. "We need to act before it slips beyond recall."
Kaelen looked up. "You said there might be a way to stabilize me."
"There is," she said. "But it's old magic. Pre-Loom. More instinct than spellcraft. If it works, it'll hold you together. If it doesn't... you'll be trapped between echoes."
Kaelen stood slowly. "What do I need to do?"
Lirael stepped closer, her tone solemn. "Trust me."
---
They crossed into a narrow clearing near the Gate, where the forest floor was shaped into an ancient ritual circle of carved stone and earth-sunk pillars—clearly elven, but long forgotten. The symbols etched along the edges pulsed faintly as Lirael approached, responding to her presence.
She moved deliberately, laying down glyphstones and drawing with powdered ash and crushed fireroot. As the circle lit, Kaelen felt his pulse shift, his senses stretch outward.
"Sit," she instructed.
He stepped into the circle's center and knelt. Immediately, the pressure changed—like being submerged beneath still water.
Lirael stood at the edge. Her hands glowed faintly with green-gold light as she began the invocation.
> "Thread to thread. Echo to breath. Flame to bone. Let what drifts find root."
The stones responded, humming with ancient resonance.
Kaelen's heartbeat synced with them.
Then came the pull.
---
The world bent.
He stood suddenly in a hollow of silver space—surrounded by threads stretching endlessly in every direction. Time seemed still. Light shimmered and curved around him. In the center: *his* thread.
It was badly frayed. Unraveling.
And near it—intertwined by something quiet and golden—was another thread.
Lirael's.
Not her soul. Not her mind. But her will.
Anchoring his.
From the fraying ends of his thread came memories not his own—of the Starsworn, of battles long lost, and of a fire that would not die.
Kaelen stepped toward it and placed his hand near the unraveling fibers.
They flared.
And with them came pain. Not from wounds—but from everything he had carried without knowing. The pressure of inherited expectation. Of memory worn like armor. Of a name he never asked for.
He didn't push it away.
He *held* it.
> "I'm not him," he whispered. "But I'll carry what he couldn't."
---
The light burst.
The threads twisted and rejoined, not seamlessly, but **stronger**—kinked like a scar that healed over a wound.
Kaelen fell forward, gasping.
He was back. On his knees in the circle. Lirael stood over him, breathing hard, her hands still faintly glowing.
The ritual fire flickered. Then went still.
Kaelen looked at her, dazed. "Did it work?"
She nodded slowly. "You're stable. For now. But the bond was rough. You've changed."
"Good," he said. "I'm tired of feeling like a ghost in my own skin."
She met his eyes, her voice lower now. "You'll start feeling your powers more clearly. But they'll come with the memories. Be ready."
Kaelen nodded.
And this time, the silence between them was not fear, or confusion.
It was **resolve**.