I. Ripples in the Silverglass
The night draped itself over Primoria like a shroud.
In the Hall of Aetherglass, where reality thinned to a whisper, Ashardio stood before an ancient mirror. It was not a mirror in the common sense—no glass, no silvered backing. It was a pool of still, vertical liquid, suspended in an obsidian frame, humming with threads of unmade possibility.
"The Maw sees through reflections," Lilim had warned. "It hunts the unfinished versions of us."
Yet here he was.
Drawn to it.
Compelled.
His own reflection blurred, not by movement, but by indecision. Dozens of subtle variations of himself shimmered beneath the surface—some older, some younger, all wrong.
One stepped forward.
It smiled.
"We are not so different, you and I. Just threads pulled taut in opposite directions."
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II. The Voice of Unraveling
This other Ash was… familiar.
His face bore the same sharp angles, the same storm-grey eyes. But his presence was fractured, wrong in ways the mind resisted. His shadow moved independently, curling like smoke, dripping silver as if bleeding from reality itself.
"You think you weave to save," the reflection whispered. "But the Loom does not want saviors. It wants catalysts."
Ash's breath fogged the space between them, yet no air separated their worlds.
"You're a Maw-spawned illusion. ""No, Ashardio. I am possibility. The version of you who never lied to himself."
The mirror's surface rippled.
"When you sacrificed Seren, you did not falter. Not truly. That was the first stitch of truth. The Loom remembers."
III. The Mirror Trial
Without warning, the world tilted.
The Hall of Aetherglass dissolved, replaced by a vast, endless plane of liquid silver. Ash stood upon it—barefoot, weightless, yet every step sent ripples into eternity.
Above him: constellations stitched by golden threads.
Beneath him: faces. Countless versions of himself, trapped beneath the surface, their mouths sewn shut with glowing filament.
"Every choice threads you closer to me," the Mirror-Ash intoned, circling him like a predator."The Maw does not destroy. It reclaims what the Loom discards."
The reflection raised a hand. From his fingers dangled a single, severed thread—Seren's.
Ash's light flared instinctively. But here, in this space of unresolved truths, his magic felt sluggish. Warped.
"You fear the Maw, but you've never asked why it persists."
The reflection leaned in.
"Because the Loom needs an antagonist. Without unmaking, weaving loses meaning."
IV. Revelation through Fracture
Suddenly, Ash's chest seared.
Silver thread erupted from beneath his skin, wrapping around his limbs, pulling him downward. His reflection stood over him, serene, triumphant.
"This is your destiny, Weaver. To become what you fight. The Loom's blade and the Maw's hunger, entwined."
Ash's thoughts fractured.
Memories flickered: • Eloen's laughter, before it turned to screams. • Seren's smile, hollowed by sacrifice. • Lilim's guarded gaze, knowing more than she spoke.
In this maelstrom of broken reflections, a single truth burned:
"I am both pattern and flaw."
With a guttural roar, Ash unleashed his magic—not as light, not as flame, but as unbound intention.
The silver threads snapped. The reflection reeled.
"You cannot sever what you are!""No," Ash hissed, rising, "but I can choose how tightly I'm woven."
V. The Shattered Mirror
The Aetherglass quivered.
Cracks lanced across its surface, fractures mirroring those within Ash himself. His reflection snarled, its form glitching, distorting.
"You've delayed the inevitable, Ashardio. But every Weaver becomes the Maw eventually. One stitch at a time."
With a final pulse of defiant light, Ash shattered the mirror.
The silver flooded away, retreating into unseen depths.
The Hall of Aetherglass returned, but it felt thinner now. Less stable. More… aware.
Ash staggered back, heart pounding.
He hadn't won.
He had only been acknowledged.
VI. Lilim's Warning
When Lilim found him again, her expression was unreadable.
"You looked into the Mirror, didn't you?""It looked into me," Ash replied.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, fingers lingering.
"The deeper you weave, the more of yourself you'll leave behind. Remember that."
Ash didn't answer.
The threads around him whispered, louder now.
The Loom.The Maw.Two names for the same, insatiable hunger.
And Ash was walking their razor-thin edge.
VII. Echoes That Cling
The shards of the Aetherglass didn't stay broken.
As Ash walked away, their edges whispered—fractured reflections latching onto his shadow, clinging to his footsteps like parasites. No one else could hear them. But he could.
"Unmake to remake."
"Weave your own Maw."
"Every savior becomes a tyrant in time."
Each step through the Academy's ancient halls felt heavier. As if reality itself was recalibrating, shifting its weight against him.
But the worst part?
A subtle pulse beneath his skin.
A foreign rhythm, matching the Maw's thrum. As if the Mirror had left a splinter behind.
VIII. The Splinter's Hunger
By the time Ash reached his quarters, the pulse had become a presence.
Small.
Insistent.
A seed of Unraveling, embedded beneath his sternum, feeding on doubt.
"This is how it begins," he realized. "Not with conquest. With corrosion."
He stood before his window, watching the Academy's spires pierce the night sky, but even the stars seemed… wrong. Slightly misaligned. Threads pulled taut in the wrong directions.
Ash closed his eyes, reaching inward.
His magic flared—not bright and pure, but jagged. Flickering between weave and unweave.
Light magic wasn't supposed to behave like this.
"Lilim was right. I'm changing."
But to what?
IX. Lilim's Hidden Loom
A soft knock. Three precise taps.
Lilim.
She entered without waiting for permission. A rare breach of her iron-clad courtesy.
"Show me your hands, Ash."
He obeyed.
Golden filaments danced across his palms, but interwoven now were strands of silver-black, pulsing with the same rhythm as the Maw. Infection or evolution, he couldn't tell.
Lilim's face hardened.
"The Mirror marked you. It never gives visions freely."
From within her cloak, she produced a spindle—an artifact older than Primoria itself. Obsidian core, etched with runes that shimmered wrong.
"We have one chance. To bind the splinter before it roots deeper."
"And if we fail?" Ash asked.
Her silence was answer enough.
X. A Dangerous Weave
The ritual was unlike any sanctioned weave.
No glyphs. No chants.
Only intention.
Lilim guided his hands, their threads intertwining. Her magic—once serene—now crackled with tension, like green lightning caged in glass.
"Don't fight the splinter. Frame it. Make it yours."
Ash felt the foreign thread resist, writhing, hissing in a tongue older than memory.
But he didn't sever it.
He rewove it.
Twisting the Maw's signature into his light, not to purify, but to redefine.
Not a flaw.
Not an infection.
A tool.
When the last knot sealed, Ash staggered.
The pulse remained—but now, it beat in time with his heart.
XI. The Price of the Weave
Lilim collapsed into the nearby chair, visibly drained.
"We've delayed the inevitable. But you've done what no Weaver dared before."
Ash flexed his fingers. The light responded—not as obedient glow, but as a blade honed by paradox.
"I didn't want this power."
"Power never asks for permission."
From the far corners of the room, the shadows shifted.
Not Maw-spawn.
Not yet.
But watching.
Waiting.
Ash met Lilim's gaze.
"If I'm to be their Loom's blade, I'll choose where I cut."
Her smile was thin, but real.
"Good. You'll need that arrogance where we're going."
XII. The Loom Remembers
As the hour bled into dawn, Ash felt the Academy itself adjust.
The fractures hadn't healed.
They had… acknowledged him.
The Loom had always been distant, its patterns immutable.
But now?
Now it watched.
"Not a savior. Not a destroyer. Something in between."
In the distance, bells tolled a fractured melody.
A warning.
A welcome.
Ashardio's reflection, splintered and whole, smiled back from the obsidian glass.