The white consumed everything.
Not light—something stranger. A color that wasn't color, a sensation that lived between heartbeats. Violet's body stretched and compressed at once, as if the world were trying to decide whether she was real.
Then ground hit her knees.
She gasped, hands slamming against cold stone, stomach lurching violently. The cave materialized around her—familiar walls, familiar shadows, the eternal twilight bleeding through the entrance.
"First time is always the worst," Muninn said from somewhere above her.
Violet coughed, tasting copper. Her vision swam. "That was... horrible."
"Yes. It doesn't improve much with practice." The white raven hopped down to a lower branch, tilting his head. "But you survived. That's more than some can claim."
She pushed herself upright slowly, the world still tilting at odd angles. Her fingers trembled. "How long was that? It felt like—"
"Instantaneous. Time moves strangely between spaces." Muninn's feathers ruffled. "We're in the Realm of Night still. The Valley of Winds lies in your realm. I'll take you there shortly."
Violet's breath steadied. She looked up at him, really looked, and something in her chest twisted.
He was the same. Exactly the same. White feathers marked with red, bright eyes that held centuries, that particular tilt of his head when he was thinking.
But he didn't know her. Not yet. Not the years they'd spent together, the spells he'd taught her, the nights he'd kept watch while she and Luciel slept.
"Muninn," she said quietly. "Do you... do you remember?"
His eyes fixed on hers. "Remember what?"
"The first life. Before I came back." Her hands clenched in her lap. "Do you know I've regressed? That I've lived this all before?"
Silence hung between them.
Then Muninn's beak curved slightly. "Ah. So you do understand what's happened."
"Then you remember too?"
"Not everything." He hopped closer, studying her with an intensity that made her skin prickle. "I remember you. Fragments of time spent in this cave, teaching a sick girl how to channel mana without killing herself. I remember..." He paused. "I remember feeling something tear when you vanished. Like a thread snapping."
Violet's throat tightened. "What about Luciel? After I left—what happened to him?"
Muninn's feathers stilled. For a long moment he said nothing.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? You were with him, you—"
"I remember you, child. Only you." His voice carried a weight she'd rarely heard from him. "Everything after you left is fog. I know I stayed with him. I know..." He trailed off, then shook his head. "But the details slip away like water through talons."
"Why?" Violet leaned forward. "Why can you remember me but not him? Not what happened after?"
Muninn was quiet for another breath. Then he spread his wings.
"Because you've disturbed something far greater than yourself. Sit, Princess. This will take time to explain."
***
Violet sat.
The cave's silence pressed around them like a held breath. Muninn settled on a rock before her, his posture unusually formal.
"Do you know the name of the God of Time?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"Aethren." The words rolled off his tongue like music, each syllable resonating in the still air. "Born of the Mother Goddess at the world's beginning. When he emerged from her womb, he was wrapped in a cocoon."
Violet listened, barely breathing.
"At that moment, time didn't exist. There was only the eternal now—no past, no future, just the endless present." Muninn's eyes gleamed. "But when Aethren Velumis opened his eyes and tore free of his cocoon, something changed. The cocoon didn't dissolve. It transformed."
"Into what?"
"Threads." His voice softened. "A hail of silver threads that bound every world the Mother Goddess had created. Some worlds received many threads, woven thick and tight. Others received few, their time flowing different, slower or faster."
"And this world?" Violet asked.
"This world—the one torn between two realms—has threads wound so complex even I cannot see them all." He tilted his head. "The threads weave the chapters of everyone's lives. They braid when relationships form. When someone dies, their thread breaks."
Violet's hands tightened. "And I broke mine."
"No." Muninn hopped closer. "You did something far stranger. You disturbed the grand weave itself."
The words hung heavy.
"When you died and returned," he continued, "you didn't just break your thread. You tangled it backward, wrapped it around itself, created a knot in the tapestry of fate."
Violet's pulse quickened. "A knot?"
"The danger isn't just in changing what happened, child. It's in what happens when you go against what was supposed to be." His eyes darkened. "Every time you save someone meant to die, every time you kill someone meant to live, you create more knots. And knots..."
"What do knots do?"
"They strangle. They tighten. They make the threads repair themselves." Muninn's feathers rustled. "That's why I only remember you. The weave has already started mending around the tear you made. For me, until those threads reach backward to restore my memories, I'm caught between what was and what is."
"But you remember teaching me magic. You remember... us."
"Because that's where your knot began." He gestured with one wing. "You're the main braid where the weave started unraveling. For me, you're still a stranger I haven't met yet—except for those moments when our threads were tangled together."
Violet's mind raced. "So everyone else... Maria, Garrett, Luciel... they don't remember anything?"
"They never lived it. Not yet. Not in this thread." Muninn's voice gentled. "Only you carry both timelines. Only you know what's coming."
"And what's coming is knots." Violet's jaw set. "Every time I change something."
"Yes."
"What happens if there are too many?"
Muninn held her gaze. "The weave collapses. Time itself could fracture. Or..." He paused. "Or Aethren might notice what you've done. And gods rarely forgive those who tamper with their domain."
Silence pressed down like a weight.
Violet sat very still, processing. She'd thought the fight was against Velanor, against Calla, against the ones who'd destroyed her family.
But it was bigger than that.
She was fighting fate itself.
"I understand," she said finally.
Muninn studied her. "Do you? Because understanding and accepting are different things."
"I understand that I'm creating knots. That the world is trying to fix what I've broken." Her voice steadied. "But I'm not going to stop."
"Even knowing the danger?"
"Especially knowing the danger." Violet met his eyes. "If going against these threads is the only way I can save everyone... then I'll fight the weave. I'll fight the knots. I'll fight the god themselves if I have to."
Muninn regarded her for a long, weighing moment.
Then he laughed—soft and low.
"You really have no sense of self-preservation, do you?"
"I died once already. What's the worst that could happen?"
"Many things, child. Many, many things." But there was warmth in his voice now, something like pride. "Still. I suppose stubbornness is its own form of courage."
He hopped back, spreading his wings. "But I won't be coming with you."
Violet's chest tightened. "What?"
"I need to return to Luciel." Muninn's tone was firm. "He's important. I don't weather he will survive without my help or not, his fate must reach the point where you meet him—when you're supposed to meet him. If I'm not there, if his thread breaks or tangles too soon... You can meet Luciel now but it will create a new weave changing the future you have experienced...
You may have became close to him last life, but it won't be true now, this future holds new questions even if you know everything... For that they are threads..."
"The weave collapses," Violet finished, understanding even as disappointment flooded through her.
"Precisely." He tilted his head. "You're not the only one holding threads together, Princess."
She swallowed hard. "Then how am I supposed to get to the Valley of Winds? How am I supposed to come back?"
Muninn's eyes gleamed. "I thought you'd ask."
He bent down and plucked fourteen white feathers from his breast, each one shimmering faintly with that strange not-color she'd felt during teleportation.
"Fourteen journeys," he said, laying them before her. "Seven to go somewhere. Seven to return. Use them wisely."
Violet's hands trembled as she gathered the feathers. They felt warm, alive, humming with contained power.
"This is all I can give until we meet again—when we're supposed to meet." Muninn's voice softened. "Guard them well. And Violet?"
She looked up.
"Don't create too many knots. The weave can only take so much strain before it snaps entirely."
"And if it snaps?"
"Then everything ends. Past, present, future—all of it unravels into nothing."
The weight of that settled into her bones.
"I'll be careful," she said.
"No you won't." But he said it almost fondly. "You're going to charge forward and save everyone you can, consequences be damned. Just..." He paused. "Try to remember that some threads are meant to break. Not every death can be prevented. Not every fate can be changed."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Violet held one feather up, watching the light catch on its surface. "I know I'm going to try anyway."
Muninn sighed—a very human sound from a very inhuman creature. "Then let me tell you how to use them."
He hopped closer.
"Hold the feather in your hand. Picture the place you want to go—the clearer the image, the more accurate the arrival. Then speak the word of travel."
"What word?"
"Kanum."
The syllable hung in the air, heavy with meaning Violet didn't fully understand.
"Just that?"
"Just that. The feather will do the rest. But remember—once you use it, it's gone. Burned up in the crossing. Choose your destinations carefully."
Violet nodded, tucking the feathers carefully into the inner pocket of her coat. Thirteen remained after this journey.
Thirteen chances.
Thirteen threads to pull.
She stood, steadying herself. The cave felt both familiar and foreign, a place caught between what was and what would be.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For answering my call. For helping me even when you barely remember why."
Muninn's eyes softened. "The threads remember even when I don't. And something in me knew..." He trailed off. "Something knew you were worth answering for."
Violet's throat tightened. She wanted to tell him everything—about the years they'd spend together, about the way he'd made her laugh even in the darkest times, about how much his friendship had meant.
But the words stuck.
Those memories were hers alone now. Hers and the ghosts of a future that would never be.
"I'll see you again," she said instead. "In a few years. In this cave."
"Will I know you then?"
"I don't think so. Not at first." She smiled sadly. "But we'll get there."
Muninn ruffled his feathers. "Then I look forward to meeting you, Princess-who-knows-my-name."
Violet pulled out one feather. It felt impossibly light in her palm, trembling with barely contained power.
She closed her eyes and pictured it—the Valley of Winds. Rolling grasslands, sharp cliffs, the smell of wind and wild things. The place where Vael's tribe lived and laughed and hunted before the First Princess turned it all to ash.
The image burned bright in her mind.
"Kanum," she whispered.
The world lurched.
White consumed her vision, sensation unraveled, and the last thing she heard was Muninn's voice, distant and fading—
"Don't die again, little thread-breaker."
Then the cave vanished.
And Violet fell toward a future she was determined to rewrite.