The gates of the Woven City stood taller than any castle I'd ever seen.
Wrought from obsidian and threadstone, they shimmered like starlight against stormclouds. Runes danced along the arch, alive and watching, like the city itself remembered every soul that entered—and every one that never left.
Kael whispered, "Don't speak unless spoken to. The city breathes in oaths and exhales consequence."
I nodded.
The guards—silver-eyed and cloaked in silk that shifted colors with each breath—watched us closely as we passed. No one challenged us. The mark of the Vault's orb still pulsed faintly on my hand, and I could feel it resonating with the magic embedded in every wall, every brick of the city.
We walked streets that bent upward, spiraled into open balconies, and twisted into towers that hung upside down in the air. The city wasn't built by mortals—it was woven, by someone who believed time and space were threads meant to be tangled.
Everywhere I looked, people whispered. They knew who I was.
They remembered.
The Keeper's chamber was at the very heart of the city—a floating temple above a void of golden light. To get there, we had to walk across a narrow bridge made of glass and words.
Riven hated every step.
"Why does it whisper?" he muttered.
"It's reading you," Kael replied. "The city tests everyone who walks it."
"And what is it saying about me?" Riven asked bitterly.
"That you're afraid," I answered. "Not of dying… but of losing me."
He glanced at me, eyes shadowed. "Then it's not wrong."
The temple doors opened before we touched them.
Inside, the Keeper waited.
He wasn't what I expected.
Not a shadowy ancient mage or a monstrous weaver of fate.
He was young.
Golden-skinned, silver-haired, and dressed in robes that shimmered with constellations. His eyes, however, were ancient—too knowing, too still.
"Sera," he said, voice like falling water. "You've returned."
"I've come to break the thread," I said, stepping forward.
He studied me for a long moment. "And are you ready to destroy the last truth holding your soul together?"
"What truth?"
He raised his hand, and a single silver thread unraveled from his palm. A memory. Mine.
It played between us—my past self, standing over a battlefield, holding Kael's heart in my hands. A version of me who had killed him to stop the Loop from resetting.
Riven gasped. Kael said nothing.
I fell to my knees.
"No," I whispered.
"Yes," the Keeper said. "You broke the Loop before. But you didn't survive it. Your current life… is a second chance. A rewrite. One where Kael lives. Where Riven returns. Where you have power again."
My voice trembled. "Then what happens if I break it now?"
"You'll live. But your heart will choose." He stepped closer. "Only one path leads forward, Sera. And you cannot walk it with both of them."
I stared at him.
And I finally understood.
To break fate… I would have to break one of us.
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