The hall stood frozen. The final thread swung lazily in the air, catching the torchlight. Silence blanketed the Diwan-i-Khas. Even the hardened soldiers hesitated, their hands hovering near sword hilts.
Khurram was the first to move. He lunged to the loom, his breath harsh, his eyes scanning the empty space where Aarifa had been. Nothing remained. Not even footprints.
The Emperor descended from his dais with measured steps. His face was grim, carved from stone. He came to stand beside Khurram, gazing down at the loom, the weaving, and that solitary hanging thread.
"What trickery is this" Jahangir said, his voice low and dangerous.
Khurram shook his head. "This is no trick." He turned to Aslan, whose face had gone pale beneath the flickering torches. "You did this. Where is she?"
Aslan stood still, his dagger lowered, but his entire body was taut, like a bowstring pulled too tight. "I did nothing," he said. His voice was not smug now. It was almost reverent. "She completed the weaving. It... chose its path."
The ministers began murmuring, a ripple of panic growing among them. Words like witchcraft and betrayal buzzed through the air.
Jahangir raised his hand and the hall fell silent once more. He spoke to Aslan in a voice that brooked no argument. "Find her. Bring her back."
Aslan hesitated. "Majesty... if she is where I think she is, none of us can reach her."
"And where do you think she is" the Emperor demanded.
Aslan's gaze flickered toward the cloth. The falcon. The fire. The broken throne. Now, there was more. Woven into the heart of the flames was a doorway. An arch. A gate spun from silver and shadow.
He swallowed hard. "She has crossed into the Threads Between."
A collective intake of breath passed through the gathered courtiers.
The Threads Between. The space of prophecy and memory. The place where fate was not yet written and yet already was. Only the weavers of old spoke of it, and even then in fearful whispers.
Zahra pushed forward from the sidelines, her face stricken. "If she has crossed over, how do we get her back"
Aslan finally sheathed his dagger. "You do not. She must find her own way."
Jahangir turned to the guards. "Take him," he ordered, pointing at Aslan. "Chain him in the Red Tower until he speaks sense."
The guards moved, but Aslan did not resist. As they dragged him away, he called back over his shoulder, his voice rising above the clatter of armor.
"Mark this moment. Aarifa's choice will remake the world you know. And none of you will escape its cost."
The heavy doors slammed shut behind him.
Khurram remained by the loom, one hand brushing the weaving as if it might still hold her warmth. His jaw tightened. He turned to the Emperor.
"Permission to leave the court, Majesty."
Jahangir arched an eyebrow. "Why?"
"I am going to find her."
"You do not even know where she is."
"I will find her," Khurram said again. His voice left no room for doubt.
The Emperor studied him for a long moment, then gave a curt nod. "Go. But if you bring ruin to my gates, do not expect mercy."
Khurram bowed sharply and strode from the hall, his heart pounding.
He would find her.
No matter where the threads had taken her.
Aarifa awoke in darkness.
No... not darkness. A twilight space, woven from endless shades of grey and silver. The ground beneath her was not stone or soil but strands of something that shimmered when she moved. Above her, the sky pulsed faintly like a living thing.
She rose slowly, every muscle aching. Her hands found the loom still clutched against her chest. The weaving... was gone. Only the loom remained, its frame cracked, its threads frayed to nothing.
"Where am I?" she whispered.
The air around her shifted, almost as if it were listening.
A sound reached her ears. Not words exactly, but a kind of music. Faint, beckoning, threaded with sorrow and longing. She turned toward it.
Shapes began to form in the mist. Paths woven from light and shadow, some crumbling as she watched, others strengthening with each heartbeat. She took a step forward and the mist parted before her, revealing a corridor made of twined silver threads.
There was no other choice.
She followed it.
As she walked, images flickered on either side of her like memories stitched into a tapestry. A girl at a loom, her hands flying faster than sight. A falcon soaring over a burning city. A throne broken in two. A man whose face she could not see, offering her a blade wrapped in velvet.
Each vision left her more breathless than the last.
"You should not be here."
The voice came from ahead, deep and resonant. She quickened her steps. The mist thickened, resisting her.
Finally, she broke through into a clearing.
A figure waited there.
An old woman, cloaked in black and silver, her face hidden behind a veil spun of countless tiny mirrors. In her hand, she held a spindle, from which threads of every color imaginable flowed endlessly.
"Who are you?" Aarifa asked.
The woman tilted her head. Her voice was neither kind nor cruel, but heavy with knowing. "I am what remains when all weavers fall silent."
Aarifa clutched the loom tighter. "I need to go back."
"Back" The woman laughed, the sound like dry leaves. "There is no back. Only forward. Only choice."
"I have to finish the weaving."
"You finished it. And in doing so, you tore open the veil. You stand in the Threads Between now, child. You can never go back unchanged."
"I do not care," Aarifa said fiercely. "I will find the way."
The old woman regarded her a long time. Then she pointed with her spindle. "Then choose your path."
Before Aarifa, two threads descended from the air, twining down like vines.
Her fingers hovered between the two threads.
The golden one shimmered with aching warmth. The black one pulsed with a heavy, restless pull.
Aarifa hesitated. Somewhere deep inside, she understood that this choice was not about escape. It was about belonging. About who she might become.
The mist coiled tighter around her, heavy with whispers she could not understand.
"You must choose," said the woman in the mirrored veil, her voice no louder than the breath of the threads themselves.
Aarifa reached out.
But before her skin could brush either thread... a hand caught her wrist.
She gasped and turned.
Standing behind her was a man.
Young, with hair dark as night and eyes like polished obsidian. He wore no turban or armor. Only simple clothes stitched from fibers she had never seen before, faintly glowing where the mist touched them. He was not part of the court. He was not even part of her world.
Yet he looked at her as if he had been waiting for her forever.
"You do not have to choose yet," he said softly. His voice cut through the mist like a single clear note of music. "Come away from the loom. Let me show you another way."
For a long breath, Aarifa stared at him, heart hammering.
The threads flickered. The mirrored woman said nothing.
And for the first time since she entered the Threads Between, Aarifa realized she was not just a visitor here.
She was being hunted.
By fate.
And by those who wished to change it.
The man's hand stayed firm around her wrist.
"Come with me," he said again, voice lower now, coaxing.
The mist thickened... the threads trembled...
And Aarifa, torn between the loom and the unknown, between the life she had left behind and the mystery before her, took one step toward him.
Only one.
But it was enough.
The loom shuddered and began to unravel behind her, its light folding inward like a dying star.
And the man, whose name she did not yet know, smiled as he drew her deeper into the Threads Between.
Deeper into a choice that would change everything.