The shadows in the chamber lengthened as Mumtaz stepped forward, her smile never touching her eyes. The soft clink of her jeweled anklets echoed like warning bells in Khurram's ears.
"I trusted you," he said, his voice sharp. "I told you everything. About the Threads. About Aarifa."
Mumtaz's laugh was low, almost musical. "And I listened. Every word. Just as I planned."
Khurram stared at her, the weight of betrayal settling like iron across his shoulders. "Planned?"
She tilted her head. "You think I waited all these years in silence for nothing? Watched you fawn over that girl—an outsider? A weaver who doesn't even know the rules of the game?" Her eyes gleamed with cold fire. "You handed her the threads, Khurram. You put the loom in her hands. And now the world dances on a pattern I did not write."
"She's not a threat to you," he growled. "She never was."
"She's everything I should have been," Mumtaz snapped. "Do you know what the Threads showed me when I first touched them? That I was meant to rule. Not stand beside you as an ornament. I was supposed to weave the empire."
Khurram stepped back. "This was about power."
"This was about correction," she said. "You don't see it, do you? Aarifa didn't just change the tapestry. She broke it. Now anything can happen. That kind of freedom is dangerous. Especially in the wrong hands."
"And you think your hands are the right ones?"
"I don't think," she whispered. "I know."
Behind her, the wall shimmered. Another tapestry hung there—hidden until now. Its threads were dark, soaked in shades of betrayal and blood. And at the center was Aarifa. Not as a falcon, but as a serpent.
"You rewrote her pattern," Khurram said slowly. "You... forged a false future."
"I didn't forge anything. I corrected it. Do you know what happens when people like Aarifa gain too much power? Civilizations collapse. Empires burn. We were never meant to let her choose."
"She's not alone anymore."
Mumtaz smiled, slow and cruel. "I know. That's why I acted quickly."
The ground beneath Khurram's feet shook. The room vibrated with energy—wild, unbalanced. The Threads Between were reacting.
He lunged toward the tapestry. "What did you do?!"
"She's trapped," Mumtaz whispered. "Not physically. Spiritually. I wove a seal into the Threads when she rebuilt the loom. Every thread she spun... tightened the noose."
Khurram's blood turned cold. "You've cursed her."
"No. I've contained her."
He stepped back, fists clenched. "Then I'll unravel every thread myself. I'll undo what you've done."
"You'll destroy everything," she warned. "The Threads Between, the mortal realm. All of it."
"Then so be it."
Suddenly, the shadows stirred. A low rumble passed through the chamber.
Behind Mumtaz, the tapestry began to burn.
Not by Khurram's hand.
But by Aarifa's.
Somewhere in this realm, the weaver girl was fighting back.
Mumtaz's expression cracked. "Impossible."
Khurram smiled coldly. "You never understood her."
The flames spread, devouring the false pattern, turning the serpent back into a falcon. The Threads screamed.
Mumtaz took a step back. "No. No, she was bound. She was—"
A golden thread burst through the tapestry and wrapped around her wrist. It glowed like judgment.
Khurram watched as the Threads began to pull.
Mumtaz's scream echoed through both realms.
He turned from her, no longer afraid.
"Aarifa," he whispered. "Hold on. I'm coming."
The palace was quiet; too quiet.
Khurram went to the chambers where Mumtaz had kept Aarifa and led her through the back corridors, bypassing the guards. The threads that had once pulsed between them in the Threads Between now tingled faintly in their veins, guiding them.
They reached the inner sanctum of the old palace.
But Mumtaz was waiting.
She stood near the firepit, veiled in white silk, a golden falcon brooch pinned to her chest. Her gaze flicked from Khurram to Aarifa.
"You brought her back," Mumtaz said, voice like honey over steel.
Khurram nodded, tense. "She was never yours to lose."
"No," Mumtaz agreed, stepping closer, "but she was mine to shape."
Aarifa didn't flinch. "Then say it. No more riddles. Why did you bring me into this?"
Mumtaz smiled, a slow, chilling smile that peeled away all illusions. "Because you were the missing thread, child. The one outside the pattern. I needed you to unravel it from within."
Khurram stepped between them. "You used her."
"I guided her," Mumtaz corrected smoothly. "But she strayed. She chose chaos over design."
Aarifa's fists clenched. "You wanted the tapestry destroyed."
"No," Mumtaz said, tilting her head, "I wanted to rewrite it. One where Khurram is not a prince burdened by prophecy, but a ruler unshackled. Where the throne is not shared, but claimed. And you—"
She turned to Aarifa, eyes gleaming.
"—you were never meant to return from the Threads Between."
Silence fell like a blade.
Khurram's voice was low. "You tried to trap her there."
"I succeeded," Mumtaz snapped, for the first time revealing the venom beneath her silk. "But the realm is weaker than I thought. It let you both crawl back."
Aarifa stepped forward. "Why me?"
"Because you see too much," Mumtaz said. "You question what should be obeyed. That makes you dangerous."
"And you?" Aarifa asked. "What does that make you?"
Mumtaz smiled again. "The only one willing to do what must be done."
Outside, thunder rumbled. A storm brewed not from the skies, but the palace itself. The Threads Between weren't done with them yet.
Khurram unsheathed his blade.
"You've betrayed everything we stood for."
"I've preserved it," Mumtaz said, lifting her chin. "Unlike you, I never let love blind me."
Guards appeared at the door. Her guards.
Aarifa stepped closer to Khurram, back-to-back with him. "So this is it."
"No," he said. "This is where it begins."
The guards surged forward.
Khurram raised his blade, Aarifa beside him, hands already crackling with thread-light. But Mumtaz didn't flinch. She stepped back into the shadows of the chamber, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"You were never meant to survive this, Aarifa."
The walls groaned.
The floor beneath them pulsed once—twice.
Then the world fractured.
Threads exploded from the stone, coiling like serpents, and a hidden sigil beneath the room lit up in gold and red.
Aarifa's scream caught in her throat as the threads wrapped around her wrists and ankles, yanking her toward the center of the room.
Khurram lunged—
Too late.
Mumtaz's eyes burned with triumph.
"You entered the mortal realm, Weaver," she whispered. "But you never left my web."
The floor vanished beneath Aarifa's feet.
And she fell.
Straight into the waiting darkness.