The cold air bit through Rafael's cloak as he stepped into the ruin-choked basin beneath the Threadspire Range. The sky above bled violet hues, as if the Loom itself were bruised and leaking through the cracks of reality.
Behind him, Dasha adjusted the weight of her gear, silent but steady. Clara lingered a few steps back, fingers ghosting over her staff. She hadn't spoken much since they'd crossed the threshold.
Neither had he.
But now wasn't the time to unravel. Not yet.
"This place feels... bent," Clara muttered. "Like it remembers being somewhere else."
Rafael nodded. "Everything here is stitched wrong. We're close probably."
A gust of wind rippled through the basin, bringing with it whispers that weren't quite sound. Dasha flinched, hand hovering near her dagger. Even her usual sarcasm was absent.
They pressed onward, boots crunching across fractured tile and thread-infested stone. Towering statues, half-erased by time and warping energy, loomed like broken guardians. Clara's eyes darted between them, her grip tightening.
As they navigated broken bridges and memory-glass canyons, Rafael found his thoughts drifting. Not toward the Uncore. Not even toward the possibility of Echo lurking nearby. But to the fragments of his past—ones he'd buried deep.
He remembered a field of flowers, not from this world, but another. Even maybe not this loop—the one he had left behind. A serene female bard with long wavy dark hair and expressive eyes.
Clara had looked just like her. Not merely in face or body shape, but in vibes. The same recklessness when she strummed her lute, the similar hum when no one was watching.
In his past life, this bard had been his closest friend—maybe something more, had fate allowed. But that life had ended with fire and steel and betrayal.
He'd watched her die to save him.
It was the first time he had truly known what it meant to be powerless. The moment he swore he would never let those he loved fall again.
And now he remember him again. A cruel fate. A sadistic reminder.
He remembered the night before he died—that bard woman, bleeding in his arms, whispering her final song into his ear. A binding thread. A promise to find him again, somehow. The memory clawed at him, raw and alive.
'Who are you? And where are you now? Why suddenly I miss you like crazy?'
Dasha's voice brought him back. "Movement ahead. Metallic. Not Mawspawn."
He looked up. Dasha crouched low, her profile illuminated by a threadlight pulse leaking from the chasm's edge. She gestured sharply, signaling a scouting pattern. Clara moved left, silent as starlight, while Rafael followed Dasha through the shadows.
Through the tangle of rootstone and rusted pillars, a shadow moved—massive, yet precise. And then it stepped into view.
A warframe.
Or what was left of one.
Threadlight crackled from its joints. One eye socket glowed blue. The other flickered like a dying star.
Clara gasped. "It's... Theo?"
The warframe turned its head slowly. Its voice was glitched, garbled. But unmistakable.
"Clara. Rafael. Dasha. You're... late."
Theo Harriman—once Brick, the bruiser with a laugh that shook rafters—now stood broken and fused with armor not meant for men. Half-man, half-machine, wrapped in threadmetal and grief. Jagged seams of glowing light pulsed where skin met steel.
Rafael stepped forward cautiously. "What happened to you?"
Theo's voice modulated. "Fell. Fought. Woke. Something in the Threadspire pulled me back. Changed me. I kept fighting."
Dasha glanced over his shoulder. "And them?"
Shapes moved behind Theo. First one, then a dozen. Awakened husks, once-human. Not quite Mawspawn. Not quite dead. Their threads were tangled, parasitic.
"They followed me," Theo rasped. "I hold them back. But not forever."
Rafael's hands curled into fists. The Loom frayed around them. The Uncore's presence was thickening, like mold in the seams of fate.
Clara stepped forward, touching Theo's arm. "We'll get you out. You're not alone, Brick."
For a moment, something behind the warframe's flickering eye seemed to soften.
But then the sky screamed.
A threadquake hit the basin, splitting the ground with a deafening crack. The husks shrieked and charged.
Dasha drew her blades. "So much for sneaking."
Rafael raised his hand, threadlight spiraling around his fingers. "Then we fight. Together."
The past clawed its way forward, but they stood united. Clara's magic surged with a violet pulse, defending Theo's flank. Dasha danced between husks, daggers flashing, striking only when it counted. Rafael wove barrier and bolt, pulling from the very threads of fate around him.
The battle was chaos incarnate. Theo's fists crushed with mechanized fury, but even he staggered under the endless wave. Clara screamed as her staff cracked against a twisted husk, blood mingling with threadlight. Rafael felt something inside him stretch, a memory of another battlefield, another Clara, falling.
No.
Not again.
He pulled from deeper than ever before. Beyond the threadlight. Beyond the Loom. Into something older. And it answered.
Light exploded from his palm, shattering the ground and scattering the husks like ash in wind. For a moment, the entire basin was silent but for the ragged breaths of survivors.
Theo knelt. Clara collapsed beside him. Dasha leaned against a crumbled wall, eyes wide.
Rafael exhaled. The light faded.
"We're not done," he said quietly. "But we're still standing."
And somewhere in the distance, the threads stirred anew.
---
The threadlines twisted.
And fate, once more, pulled taut.
But in the quiet aftermath, as they regrouped, Clara approached Rafael again.
"I remember now," she whispered. "Not everything. But... a meadow. A storm. You said you'd find me."
Rafael turned to her slowly, breath caught.
"I didn't know if you'd come back," he murmured.
"I did," she said. "Just... not all at once."
They stood like that for a moment, two souls tangled across time.
Then Dasha cleared her throat. "If you two are done eye-fondling, we've got more husks on the ridge."
Rafael chuckled under his breath. "Some things never change."
And as they turned to move forward again, the path lit by smoldering threadlight and old promises, Rafael knew: this fight wasn't just for the world.
It was for the people he'd lost. And those he'd found again.
The threadlines twisted—wounded, yes, but holding. In the quiet aftermath, Clara reached for Rafael's hand, and he let her. For a moment, there was only breath and heartbeat and the unspoken bond of those who'd chosen to stand. Fate had pulled taut—but it had not yet broken.
---
[Narrated by an outer being called 'S*****r']
[The Threadspire pulsed with waiting silence. I sense it dying. I gave him some power of mine called p*** a****.]
[Their story wasn't over. It's far far away from the ending. You know, I "knew" it before them. Do you think their path would be easy? Huh, how foolish you are.]
[One thing. Just sit still, enjoy the ride. You'll thank me in the future. Believe me.]
[If they portray me as a villain, be it. They know nothing, after all.]
***