The skies fractured at dawn.
Not with thunder. Not with fire.
With silence.
The Veil—so long the invisible boundary that wove fate and future—shivered above us like gossamer glass, bending around the forest's edge, trying to hold itself together.
And at its center, me.
I stood at the cliff's edge, the Threadless gathered behind me, waiting.
Watching.
The ancient force beneath us stirred again—a pulse that didn't just tug at threads, but rewrote them. It had no name. No anchor. It was the original desire—wild, unformed, and endless.
Riven approached slowly. "You don't have to do this alone."
I smiled faintly. "But maybe I was made to."
"I don't believe that," he said, stepping beside me. "You were made to choose."
Behind him, Kael held out the last remnant of my Mark—still flickering, faintly violet, like a star on the edge of death.
"This can tether you again," he said. "You can be whole. Anchored. Loved."
I turned toward the shimmer in the sky. The Veil was crying—threads unraveling, stretching between realms, between past and future. If I reached now… I could remake it.
Or… I could let it fall.
Not in ruin.
But into rebirth.
"What happens if I refuse both?" I asked. "If I neither restore the Veil nor abandon it?"
Kael's eyes widened. "Then you'll stand between. Forever."
"And maybe that's what the world needs," I whispered. "A bridge. Not a blade."
I stepped forward, holding both hands out—one to the last Mark, one to the wild pulse beneath me.
And then… I merged them.
Light burst—not white, not violet, but something in between. Something new.
A third thread.
Not anchored. Not threadless.
Just free.
The forest exploded in shimmer. The Threadless fell to their knees, not in worship—but in awe. Because they felt it. Not the pull of control, but the hum of choice.
"I am not your savior," I told them.
"I am your mirror. And now—go write your own threads."
Riven reached for me.
But I was already fading—becoming wind, stardust, memory.
Still tethered.
Still loved.
But no longer bound.
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