The ruins of Ji'an didn't rise.
They loomed.
Kael stood at the edge of a shattered mountain pass, wind slicing past him like it was trying to whisper secrets in a language older than sound. Below, half-buried in frost and time, sprawled the ancient Imperial Archives—an endless sprawl of towers and broken spires tangled in overgrowth.
Glass bones. Marble veins. Walls carved not with names, but memories. Ji'an wasn't built by hands.
It was written into being.
"This place gives me the creeps," Rin muttered, stepping beside Kael, arms folded tight against the cold. "And I grew up sleeping in burned-out temples. This is different."
"It's because it's alive," Juno said quietly. His eyes flickered gold as his vision peeled back the illusion. "Every stone here has been carved with memory. Not just stored—infused. It's one giant tether. An archive of everything the throne wanted to keep... and everything it couldn't let die."
Kael narrowed his eyes. "Which means it remembers more than it should."
Juno nodded grimly. "Including us."
---
The moment they stepped into the city, the air changed.
It pressed down—heavy, suffocating, but not hot. It felt personal. Like being watched by the past itself.
Old banners hung from towers, faded crests flapping listlessly in the wind. Every few steps, ghostly echoes flickered in and out—men in scholar robes transcribing spells, generals carving treaties into jade, lovers arguing in corridors long turned to dust.
Mace exhaled sharply, eyes scanning the haunted silence. "What kind of vault is this?"
Juno didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
A scream cut through the quiet.
But not from anything living.
The ground trembled. A tower nearby cracked down its side, as if waking from a nightmare. Its surface rippled—and then bled ink.
And from it emerged them.
Threadborn.
Not tethers. Not phantoms. Something else.
Creatures built of words, memory, and pain. Each one bore a broken face from history—some wearing ancient emperor masks, others faceless but armored in forgotten dynasty robes. Their bodies were stitched from scrolls, swords, and the pages of fallen kings.
"They're formed from memory," Juno said, voice low with awe and dread. "The vault's last defense."
Kael drew Threadcutter, the blade singing low in response.
"Then let's remind them why some stories need to end."
---
The battle wasn't a clash.
It was a conversation in blood.
Rin danced through the inked warriors like fire through a library, her crimson runes flaring and burning through parchment flesh. Mace met them with raw force, sabers cleaving through twisted limbs and forgotten laws.
Juno's voice rose into a chant—a binding spell layered in three languages, one dead, one divine, one human. The Threadborn staggered as the air split, runes branding themselves into their skin like truths too ancient to survive.
And Kael—
Kael moved with Threadcutter like he'd never known anything else.
The blade didn't cut.
It rewrote.
Where it passed, the Threadborn screamed—and vanished, their ink melting back into the stones, their stories severed.
---
But Ji'an wasn't finished.
As the last echo of the fight faded, the ground opened beneath them.
Not a collapse.
An invitation.
A staircase, impossibly smooth, spiraling down into the heart of the city.
Kael looked at the others. No one spoke. No one needed to.
They descended.
---
The chamber below was not stone.
It was script.
Every surface—floor, walls, ceiling—was covered in writing. Ink floated in the air like dust motes, sentences forming and unforming around them. Memories of kings, of rebellions, of forbidden magic and lost gods whispered through the air.
In the center: a pedestal.
And on it, a single book.
Black cover. No title. Bound with thread the color of dusk.
Kael stepped forward.
Threadcutter pulsed violently.
Juno reached out. "Wait. That's not just a record. That's a contract."
Kael froze. "What do you mean?"
Juno's face was pale. "Every ruler who wielded power over the tethers... every one of them wrote their name in this book. It binds them. It binds the world to the throne's law. Reality's spine. You touch it, and you risk becoming part of the chain."
Kael stared at the book. It didn't radiate power—it radiated permanence. This wasn't a weapon.
It was the terms.
Of everything.
And written deep in the heart of the cover... was his name.
Not carved.
Not added.
Already there.
---
Kael reached for it anyway.
Rin gasped. "Kael—"
His fingers touched the cover.
And the world broke.
---
Kael wasn't in Ji'an anymore.
He stood on a battlefield of stars and blood, surrounded by thrones shattered into dust. Light and shadow fought across skies that screamed. At the center of it all: a child.
Alone. Crying.
Threadcutter in one hand. The book in the other.
The child looked up—and it was Zeyrox. Younger. Untouched. But already burdened.
And standing behind him: the throne.
It had no form.
Just eyes.
Too many.
And mouths that whispered:
> "Write your name. Or be erased."
Kael watched as Zeyrox bled into the page.
And screamed.
---
He woke with a start.
The others were staring at him. Worried. Terrified.
Juno's voice was a whisper. "You saw it too, didn't you?"
Kael didn't answer.
He turned to the book.
Then unsheathed Threadcutter—
And cut.
The blade seared through the air, slicing the contract in half.
The ink screamed.
The chamber exploded in light.
And when it faded—
The book was gone.
And so was his name.
---
Above Ji'an, the stars shifted once more.
The seventh thread had been offered.
But Kael had refused to bind.
He had rewritten his fate.
And the throne?
Now it was watching.
Truly watching.
Because for the first time in centuries—
Someone had said no.