The silence inside the Cradle of Threads was not absence—it was suppression. Like a void that swallowed sound, time, and thought. Cael stood frozen in that immense cavern of shifting silk and weeping stone, the Origin Thread still humming softly in his chest. It pulsed in rhythm with his heart now. Not separate. Not alien.
It was him.
His fingertips trembled as he reached toward the glimmering pool before him—a basin woven from threads of memory, magic, and something older than language. Above it, the reflections of countless lives flickered in and out, like dreams trying to remember themselves.
Vyn stood behind him, quieter than ever. Her veil had slipped from her face during the descent, revealing a scar that hadn't been there before. A burn, faint and spiraling like a brand.
He had questions—too many. But he couldn't ask them. Not yet.
He dipped a single finger into the pool.
And the world stopped breathing.
The Memory took him.
Not gently. Not like a vision. It seized his mind and pulled him backward, through a thousand screaming voices and the echo of dying stars.
Cael stood on black stone. The sky was crimson. All around him were bodies—some human, most not.
A battle had been fought here.
A war had been lost.
A voice rose from the ruin, rich and terrible.
"You were never meant to wield it, child of silence."
A woman stood before him, her skin the color of pale ash, her eyes endless voids. No whites. No irises. Just hunger.
"But you came anyway. Because you thought you could choose your own Thread."
The woman raised her hand.
"Let me show you the price."
Reality snapped.
Cael fell backward, out of the memory, choking on air. Vyn caught him, but her touch felt distant.
"What... was that?" he gasped.
Vyn looked pale. "A memory fragment. Imprinted into the basin. You saw her?"
Cael nodded. "Who was she?"
Vyn didn't answer. Instead, she turned toward the tunnel behind them. "She's one of the Forgotten Walkers. The ones who tried to rewrite the Pattern. They paid a price. You almost did too."
Cael sat up slowly. "Why didn't you stop me?"
"I couldn't," she said softly. "This place... tests you."
As they moved deeper into the Cradle, the walls became more unstable. Cael could feel something watching. Something that remembered him. A sensation he couldn't shake—like he had been here before.
They reached the heart of the chamber. At its center was a loom. Enormous. Ancient. Alive.
It spun threads that weren't there a moment ago.
Vyn approached it reverently. "This is where the Threads are chosen. And broken."
Cael touched the hilt of his dagger. His old one. Useless now, against anything he faced.
"You said I wasn't born for this Thread," he murmured. "Then why did it choose me?"
She looked at him then—really looked.
"It didn't," she said.
"What?"
"It didn't choose you," she repeated. "You took it. You did something that shouldn't be possible. You stole a destiny that wasn't yours."
Cael felt the chill of those words settle into his spine.
"And that's why the others will come for you."
He frowned. "Others?"
"The Shepherds of the Loom. The Singers of Collapse. The Weaverborn." Vyn's voice lowered. "And if they find out what you are…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
Cael stepped forward and placed his hand on the ancient loom.
It shivered.
The threads shifted. And for a moment, he saw everything.
Kingdoms falling.
Skies burning.
A voice whispering from behind a shroud:
"Break the world, Cael. Only then can you thread a new one."
When he withdrew, Vyn was already preparing their path forward. She handed him a folded scrap of woven parchment.
"What is this?" he asked.
"A map," she replied. "To the Spire of Stillborn Stars."
Cael raised an eyebrow. "Already?"
She nodded grimly. "If you want answers... real ones... you'll find them there. But be warned—what's buried in the Spire can't be unlearned."
"Good," he said, tucking it away. "I'm tired of not knowing."
The Cradle began to dim behind them. Threads fading like dying stars.
As they left, Cael didn't look back.
He was no longer just a traveler.
He was a thief of fate.
And fate always demanded a reckoning.