I. The Rift's Final Hour
The Wound was breaking.
Fissures of Veil-energy lashed out, distorting the air with raw, unraveling power. The Riftborn worked desperately to stabilize the collapsing realm, but Selene's grim expression told Kael the truth:
Time was running out.
Eos Veyra stood at the altar's edge, her half-real form flickering between memory and presence. Her hands traced the glyphs carved into the ancient stone—symbols older than the Architects themselves.
"The Thread you carry is the last tether to the Veil's hidden core," she said. "Once you place it here, the path will open."
Kael felt the Lost Thread pulse against his palm. It was waiting.
Jara adjusted her rifle. "Before we do anything irreversible… What's behind this door, exactly?"
Eos's gaze darkened. "The last remnant of the true Veil. And the one who still watches over it."
Veyra inhaled sharply. "You mean Lyra."
"I mean what's left of her."
The Rift shook. The Hollow Ones were coming.
Kael clenched his jaw.
No more hesitation.
He stepped forward and placed the Thread into the altar.
And the door opened.
---
II. The Weavers' Tomb
The air folded.
Kael felt himself being pulled—not physically, but in a way that defied every law of reality. The Legion was dragged with him, their forms dissolving into light as they passed through the threshold.
Then—silence.
They stood in a vast chamber, unlike anything Kael had seen before. The architecture was impossible—woven strands of Veil-energy curving into spirals, glyphs shifting along the walls as if watching them.
At the center of it all stood a single monument:
A tomb, suspended in the air, wrapped in threads of frozen starlight.
Kael's heartbeat quickened.
This was it.
Veyra stepped forward cautiously. "It's… a cocoon."
Jara circled the structure, gripping her rifle. "Looks like it's holding something in."
Kael's symbiont burned. The tendrils of his veins shimmered with golden light, resonating with the energy around him.
Eos watched him carefully. "She's inside. But she's not the same."
Kael swallowed hard. "Then tell me what she is."
Eos exhaled. "A Weaver unmade. A soul caught between creation and destruction."
The tomb shuddered.
And from within, something stirred.
---
III. The Sleeper Awakens
The threads began to unravel.
Kael stepped back as the cocoon's fibers twisted and snapped, light spilling from the cracks like liquid stardust. The air grew heavy—not with power, but with something deeper, something ancient.
Then—she emerged.
Lyra.
Or at least… a version of her.
Her body shimmered with shifting patterns of Veil-energy, her skin etched with golden fractals. Her eyes—once warm—now burned with an unnatural light, neither alive nor dead.
For a moment, the chamber was silent.
Then, Lyra spoke.
"…Kael?"
His breath caught. "Lyra."
She reached for him, fingers barely brushing his—
And the entire room screamed.
The walls convulsed, the glyphs warping into jagged, hostile shapes. The Veil's presence howled through the chamber.
Eos's voice cut through the chaos: "She's not whole! She's still tethered to the Weave!"
Lyra gasped, her form flickering. "Kael—don't—"
And then reality fractured.
---
IV. The Veil's Wrath
A shockwave erupted from Lyra's body, hurling the Legion back.
Kael barely caught himself before slamming into the tomb's steps. His symbiont flared, stabilizing him—just in time to see the chamber twist into something wrong.
The walls split open, revealing an endless void of shifting light.
From within it, figures began to emerge.
Not Hollow Ones.
Not Frayed Ones.
Something older.
The Weavers.
Or what was left of them.
Their forms were wretched—once-glorious beings now warped beyond recognition. Their limbs elongated, faces fractured into shifting masks of agony and hunger. Their voices layered over each other, a thousand whispers speaking as one:
"The Thread must remain severed."
Selene drew her blade. "They're guardians of the last Veil-thread."
Jara snapped her rifle into position. "Guardians? They look like they'd rather eat us."
Kael pushed himself up. "They're protecting Lyra."
Eos's voice was grim. "No. They're protecting the Loom itself."
The Weavers moved.
And the battle began.
---
V. The Loom's Last Defenders
The Weavers struck like lightning, their forms shifting through space in unnatural movements.
Jara fired first—her plasma round phased through one of them, barely disturbing its shape.
Selene's blade cut deep—but the wound closed instantly, the Weaver's form knitting itself back together.
They couldn't be killed conventionally.
Kael's mind raced. Think. What are they? What do they want?
Then, he saw it.
The Weavers weren't attacking Lyra.
They were attacking him.
His symbiont flared. The golden veins of his body pulsed in sync with the shifting threads of the Veil.
They weren't just guardians.
They were weaving him out of existence.
Eos shouted, "They're rejecting you! You don't belong here!"
Kael clenched his fists. "Then I make them accept me."
He turned to Lyra—her form barely holding together, her eyes filled with pain.
And he did the only thing he could.
He reached for her.
---
VI. The Last Thread
Their hands met.
For a single, perfect moment—everything stopped.
Kael saw everything.
The first Weavers, forging the Loom from the echoes of dying stars.
The Architects, twisting the Veil to their will.
The Fracture, shattering their creation.
Lyra, making a choice she never told him about.
She had sealed herself inside the Loom.
To keep the Veil from unraveling completely.
Kael gasped as the vision shattered, his mind burning from the knowledge.
Lyra's voice was barely a whisper. "You shouldn't have come here."
The Weavers howled. The tomb collapsed.
And the last thread snapped.
---
VII. Epilogue: The Unseen Loom
Kael woke to the sound of the Veil breaking.
The Rift was gone.
They stood on the edge of an unfamiliar world, the sky twisted with colors that didn't belong.
Lyra was unconscious beside him, her form flickering.
Eos knelt, her expression unreadable. "You tore the last thread."
Jara groaned. "That's bad, right?"
Veyra exhaled sharply. "It means the Loom is completely exposed now. Whatever was kept sealed… is free."
Selene sheathed her blade. "Then we have little time."
Kael looked down at Lyra, his hands shaking.
She was here.
But at what cost?
The Veil whispered.
And somewhere, something stirred.
---