The ascent from the basin was slow and bitter, like dragging old wounds across jagged stone. Every step up the fractured ridgeline tore at Rafael's already-weary body, and at the fragile thread of unity that bound the group together.
The light of threadfire still lingered in his veins, a ghost of the battle they had just survived.
Behind him, Clara supported Theo's massive warframe shell, her jaw clenched tight against the pain in her ribs. Dasha, ever silent, flanked them like a shadow, blades sheathed but senses razor-sharp.
No one spoke. But the silence wasn't empty. It was heavy with unspoken truths, with memories clawing their way back to the surface.
The sky above churned like an oil-slick sea, threadlines etched deep into its clouds, spiraling out from an unseen core. The Loom wasn't just fraying anymore.
It was bleeding.
They reached a narrow plateau before dusk. From the ridge, they could see the Weftwild sprawled below—its once-proud structures now reduced to haunting silhouettes.
Spires leaned like broken needles against the skyline, and chasms pulsed with erratic threadlight, opening and closing like wounds that refused to heal.
"Whatever the Uncore's doing…" Clara murmured, her breath fogging in the chill, "it's not just corruption anymore."
Rafael nodded grimly. "It's rewriting reality."
Theo's mechanized voice was a low growl. "I can feel the seams. Everything's... wrong."
"We move," Dasha said, scanning the horizon. "Needlepoint Hollow's our best chance."
They made their way down the other side of the ridge, navigating a ravine choked with threadrot and psychic static. The land here was alive, or at least aware.
It shifted underfoot, responding to thought, memory, fear. Once, Rafael stepped on a moss-covered rock—and it changed, hardening into bone. Another time, Dasha nearly vanished into a ripple of inverted gravity.
Rafael saw visions as they walked. Not dreams—reflections. Possibilities. Futures.
Clara lying motionless, her eyes open and glassy. Dasha leaving him, her back turned, face unreadable. Himself, threadbound and hollow, his soul replaced with pulsing sigils and fire.
"Don't look at them," Theo warned. "The future isn't fixed. Never."
But it was hard not to.
He remembered something else as they walked—something buried deep in memory. A time before all this, back when he was still whole.
The bard lady had once sat with him in a hospital room, her hands trembling after a failed mission. He had held them until they steadied. "We don't fall apart," she'd whispered then. "We bend. We bend so we don't break."
And now he didn't know where she is, nor who she is. He wondered if she remembered that moment, too. And missed him like he miss her.
By nightfall, they reached the overgrown ruins of Needlepoint Hollow. What had once been a proud sanctuary of the Order was now a scorched husk, its tower slumped like a snapped spine. Only the lower vaults remained untouched—shielded by ancient wards and fading runes.
Dasha scouted ahead. Minutes later, she returned with a brief nod. "Clear. For now."
They entered cautiously. The main vault doors, sealed by the threads of the old world, opened for Rafael's touch. Inside, stale air greeted them—dry, cold, but safe. Runes flickered weakly to life, shedding pale blue light across the cracked stone walls.
They collapsed in the central antechamber. Clara curled near the wall, gently unwrapping the bandage around her ribs. Theo slumped to one side, mechanical limbs twitching in low-power mode. Dasha leaned against the doorframe, daggers still within arm's reach, eyes half-closed.
Rafael sat alone in the center, his fingers brushing the carved sigils on the floor. He traced them over and over, like a monk reciting prayers. But there was no peace in him. Only tension.
"We rest in shifts," he said at last. "I'll take first watch."
"Like hell you will," Dasha muttered. "You almost burned out back there."
"I'll rest when I know we're safe."
She didn't argue, just returned to her place, muttering something under her breath that could have been a curse—or a prayer.
Clara looked up at him. Her face was drawn, the lines of exhaustion etched deep. "We're coming apart, Rafe."
"I know."
"You think we'll make it?"
"I think we have to."
Silence again.
He didn't tell them about the splinters he'd felt earlier—the strange moments when his own body didn't feel like his. When his hands had moved before he'd thought to move them. When his reflection in the cracked wall shimmered, just for an instant, with the Uncore's mark.
The corruption wasn't just in the land.
It was in him.
As the others slept—fitfully, uneasily—Rafael kept his vigil. The Loom around him twisted and groaned like an ancient ship straining at the seams. He felt threads twitch beneath his skin.
Splinters.
Of power. Of identity. Of fate.
And he wasn't sure how many more pieces he could lose before he stopped being himself.
In the late hours of the night, Rafael wandered deeper into the hollow's lower chambers. The old scripts on the wall glowed faintly, responding to the resonance in his blood. His steps led him to a sealed alcove, once used by Threadcallers to record prophecy.
There he found carvings—ancient, prophetic, dangerous. One depicted a figure wreathed in fire, their form cracking into fragments. Another, a spiral devouring itself. And between them, a sigil he recognized from his dreams.
The Uncore's brand.
It had marked him long before he ever entered the Loom.
***
Beneath the sanctuary, in the deepest vault where none dared tread, a single thread pulsed.
Not frayed.
But calling.
And something answered.
***