The silence that followed the creature's collapse was brief.
It didn't linger like the silence before. This one was different. It trembled, uneasy, as if the air itself was trying to rid its mouth of blood and bile. The chamber groaned, the ceiling shifting above them. Small flakes of dust and brittle stone fell in soft showers, catching the fading light. Nearby, the remnants of fire from Elara's thrown vial still hissed as they died on the broken tiles—wet crackles echoing like the last breath of a dying thing.
Kyren leaned against a cracked wall, one hand pressed against his ribs. He winced as he breathed, pain stabbing through his side with every inhale. Each breath came jagged, like dragging broken glass through his lungs.
Elara turned to him, still catching her breath. Blood clung to her cheek like ink smeared across old parchment. She wiped gore off her blade, glancing at him.
"How's it feel?" she asked, voice low but steady.
"Like a storm's still inside me," Kyren muttered. His voice was hoarse, but not from screaming—from surviving.
He could still feel the monster's screech echoing in his bones. Louder than the pain was the thought that circled beneath everything else:
I should be dead.
But something had shifted.
Under his skin, it was like threads inside him had moved. Some pulled tight. Others had come loose. His Thread Mark—it still glowed faintly on the back of his hand. The strange mark pulsed in rhythm with his heart, slow and steady, as if it breathed with him.
Kyren stared at it. Not with fear, not anymore. With a question. Then he clenched his fist.
"We should move," he said.
Elara nodded. She didn't ask about the mark. Not yet.
They moved through the corridor in silence. This part of the underground felt older. The walls curved inward, shaped into tight arches. Ancient stone bricks lined every surface, worn smooth by time. Water trickled through cracks in the ceiling, dripping softly into shallow pools. The air smelled thick with mold and something else—something metallic and sharp, like rusted iron mixed with rot.
Elara walked ahead now, blade still drawn. Her steps were quiet, practiced. Every so often she'd glance back at Kyren, checking that he kept up.
Eventually, they came to a fork.
One path was choked with fallen rubble. The stone had collapsed inwards, forming a jagged wall of debris. No way through. The other tunnel sloped downward. It was darker there, and the air was colder, like a breath from something sleeping far below.
"This way," Elara said, gesturing toward the sloped path.
Kyren hesitated, then followed.
After only a few steps, he stopped. Something felt off.
A small sound—barely audible. Like something shifting behind stone. A soft scrape, the whisper of fabric brushing stone.
Elara froze mid-step. She raised her blade, slowly.
Then, from behind a broken statue near the wall, a voice called out.
"Don't hurt me."
It was soft. Frightened. A girl's voice.
From the shadows stepped a figure—a young girl, cloaked in a dull, tattered wrap. She looked maybe fifteen. Pale skin. Thin arms. Dried blood streaked one side of her face, as if she'd been hit or grazed days ago. Her hair was tangled and dust-covered, her eyes wide with fear.
She raised both hands slowly, trembling.
"Please," she whispered. "I didn't mean to see it. I was only looking for a way out. Then I heard the screaming."
Kyren took a step forward, his body still tense, but his hand lowered. "What's your name?"
She hesitated. "...Nina."
Elara looked at Kyren, eyes questioning. He gave a small nod.
"You're alone?" Elara asked, keeping her voice calm.
Nina nodded slowly. "I think so. Everyone else died. Or vanished. I've been hiding. I thought that thing would find me. But you... you killed it."
Kyren studied her. She didn't have a Thread Mark—not one he could see. But there was something in her eyes. Something sharp. Observant. Older than it should've been.
"Come with us," Kyren said quietly.
Nina blinked. "Why?"
"Because you survived. That matters."
And because, somewhere deep inside, Kyren felt it. This wasn't just luck or chance. It wasn't random.
Nina stared at him for a long moment, then gave a small, shaky nod.
The three of them turned down the sloped corridor, heading deeper into the dark.
Behind them, the corpse of the creature lay still, steam curling from its ruined flesh.
But farther ahead—where the dark grew thick and the stone whispered old names—the threads of fate were beginning to shift again.
The corridor they entered was different from the rest of the ruins above. The stones here were darker, not merely by shadow, but by some ancient stain in their very material—like the walls themselves had soaked up centuries of suffering. Each step echoed in a way that made it sound like something else was walking just behind them, mimicking their pace but never showing itself. The air turned colder the deeper they went, clinging to their skin like a wet sheet, making every breath harder, heavier.
Kyren's hand rested on the wall as they moved, feeling for vibrations, for anything alive beneath the stone. His ribs throbbed. Each step sent a ripple of pain through his side, but he said nothing. There were more important things now—like the faint hum in the air. Not mechanical. Not magical. It was the sound of something alive, but not breathing. A presence.
Elara took the lead. Her torchlight flickered over carvings now—etchings in the walls that looked older than language. Spirals woven into symbols. Eyes without pupils. Threads that twisted in and out of themselves. One of the murals showed a figure kneeling before a circular gate made of bones. Another showed the same figure walking through it—changed. Twisted. Their limbs longer, their eyes replaced by dark threads.
"What is this place?" Nina whispered.
"It's older than Ashgrove," Elara murmured. "Maybe older than the rifts themselves."
Kyren stared at a carving where a coin floated above an altar. His fingers itched.
"Duskreth," he said aloud, barely a breath.
Nina looked up at him. "What did you say?"
Kyren blinked. "I… don't know."
Ahead, the corridor widened into a chamber. The floor dipped, forming a wide circular pit surrounded by stone steps. At the center of the pit lay a large disk of black metal, engraved with countless lines and knots that spiraled inward toward a glowing point.
The air here was thick with something unseen. Memory. Pain. Time.
Kyren stepped closer. His Thread Mark pulsed violently now, as if drawn to the disk.
Then—
A hiss.
From the ceiling above, something detached. A figure. No, not a person. A husk. Its body was gaunt, skin stretched tight over bones, its limbs too long. It had no eyes—just hollow sockets that oozed black ichor. It dropped without sound and landed on the far edge of the pit.
Then another dropped. And another.
Half a dozen eyeless husks stood in a circle around the disk.
Elara raised her blade. "They were waiting."
Kyren didn't move. His eyes were fixed on the center of the disk. Something was still glowing there—like a dying star trapped beneath the surface. It pulsed once.
And the husks screamed.
High. Shrill. Not sound. A thread in the air tearing.
They charged.
Kyren drew his blade. Elara met the first with a clean strike, cleaving its arm from its body. But it didn't fall. It kept coming, black threads leaking from the wound, trying to stitch itself back together.
"Don't let them near the disk!" Kyren shouted.
Nina backed toward the wall, her eyes wide. "What are they?"
"Unwoven," Elara spat. "Souls torn out of the Loom."
Kyren didn't understand. Not fully. But he didn't need to. His body moved before thought. He slashed low, cutting one at the knees. As it fell, he saw the threads inside its body—dark, writhing, snapping free like severed nerves.
They fought like ghosts stitched into meat. Every wound they suffered seemed to try and repair itself. Every step they took was unnatural, like marionettes dragged by unseen hands.
One of them leapt over the others, straight toward Nina.
Kyren was already there.
He caught it mid-air, blade burying into its chest. It shrieked and clawed at his face, but he twisted, drove it to the ground, and severed its head.
The others recoiled.
The disk pulsed again.
And from its center, a shape began to rise.