The pulse did not stop.
It deepened.
Arin staggered back, clutching at the makeshift rail of the barricade as the stone beneath the street rolled like muscle beneath skin. Not violently—no cracking, no breaking. Just movement. Controlled. Intentional.
Lira pulled him behind her, stance low, one hand already on the dagger strapped to her thigh though she knew—they all knew—a blade was useless against this kind of Weavework.
Officer Maira's voice was barely a breath. "It's responding to him again."
"Arin, look at me," Lira said sharply.
He almost couldn't.
The glow threading up his spine had reached the base of his skull—soft, cold, too familiar to be new and yet impossibly alien. His pulse matched the rhythm of the road. Each throb felt like a whisper pressing against the inside of his bones.
Arin…
He slammed his eyes shut. "It's calling."
Lira swore under her breath—something she rarely did in front of other Wardens. "Calling what? You? Or something else?"
"Both," he whispered.
The air shifted.
Fog that had been pooling low now lifted, as though drawn upward by an unseen force. It twisted into narrow columns—thin spires of drifting fabric‑light, like the dream he'd had. The dream he hadn't told Lira everything about. Not yet.
Maira stepped back, one hand pressed to her throat. "Warden Lira… this is beyond containment protocol."
"I know," Lira said, eyes scanning the shifting fog. "Fall back to the next block. If anything changes, signal twice. Go."
Maira didn't argue. She fled.
Only when the officer's footsteps vanished into the mist did Lira turn fully to Arin.
"Tell me everything. Now."
Arin swallowed hard. His breath came fast, uneven. "The dream wasn't just a dream."
"I figured that much."
"There were threads in the fog—like these." He gestured shakily to the drifting spires. "And a shape kept forming. A spiral. The same one from the street."
Lira didn't flinch. She listened—focused, steady, grounding him. "And the voice? You said it called your name."
Arin nodded. "It felt close. Too close."
She exhaled through her teeth. "Arin… this looks like an Awakening."
His blood ran cold.
"No," he said instantly. "No, those are myths—stories mothers tell to explain old ruins."
"Maybe once," Lira said softly. "But something in Caelum is tearing itself open, and you're at the center of every point of rupture. Myth or not—the Weave is reacting to you."
The ground pulsed again, harder this time. Both of them staggered.
"Back!" Lira barked, pulling Arin away from the warped lane.
But something else had changed.
The glow beneath the stone began to converge. Thin lines—Weave‑threads—drew inward toward a single point at the center of the distorted street. Like nerves gathering. Like a heart forming.
A hollow silence fell.
Then the stone split.
Not a break—not rubble or dust.
It opened, parting like two halves of a slow‑moving door.
A shaft of pale light streamed upward from the depths.
Arin couldn't breathe.
Because the light wasn't empty.
A figure lay suspended within it—weightless, motionless, wrapped in threadlike bands of glowing Weave‑energy. Not fully visible. Not fully real. More suggestion than shape.
But unmistakably human.
Lira gasped. "By the Veil…"
Arin's entire body trembled. "That's—"
He didn't finish.
Because the figure shifted.
Just once.
Barely.
But enough.
The threads around it tightened, pulsing in the same rhythm as Arin's own bones.
Lira's grip on his arm turned iron‑hard. "Arin. Listen to me. Whatever you think this is, whatever you feel pulling you toward it—you do not go near that light."
But Arin didn't hear her.
The world had gone dim around the edges, soundless except for that steady, building thrum.
The same thrum from his dream. The same thrum from the sigil. The same thrum beneath his skin.
The figure lifted its head.
Its eyes—glowing, silver, empty of everything except recognition—opened.
And a single word echoed from the depths of the stone, soft as breath, sharp as breaking glass:
"Arin."
The name struck him like a blade. Not spoken aloud, but woven into him—threaded through marrow, stitched into thought.
He staggered forward despite Lira's grip. His body betrayed him, drawn by resonance.
"Stop!" Lira's voice cracked with urgency. "It's binding you."
Arin's vision blurred. The fog spires bent inward, converging toward the shaft of light. Each column carried faint threads that shimmered, weaving patterns across the air.
He remembered his mother's warnings, whispered in the dark: The Weave chooses. It does not ask. It does not forgive.
The figure's gaze held him. Recognition without emotion. A mirror without reflection.
"Could you stop?" Arin whispered, though no answer came.
The threads pulsed again, and the figure's lips parted. Not words this time—just breath. But the sound carried weight, pressing against Arin's chest.
Lira yanked him backward, dagger drawn though she knew it was useless. "You're not taking him," she hissed into the fog, as though the Weave itself could hear.
The light flared in response.
Arin's shadow stretched across the cobblestones, elongated, distorted, until it touched the edge of the shaft. When it met the light, it pulsed—silver veins threading through the darkness.
Lira cursed again, pulling harder. "Arin, fight it!"
"I'm trying," he gasped. "It's inside me."
Her eyes burned with determination. "Then we cut it out."
But the Weave was not something that could be cut with a blade.
The ground rolled once more, deeper, heavier. It felt less like stone now and more like flesh—like the city itself was breathing.
Arin's knees buckled. He pressed his hands against the cobblestones, and silver lines shimmered beneath his palms, tracing upward into his veins.
The figure in the light shifted again, threads tightening around its body. Its eyes never left his.
"Arin," it whispered once more, softer now, almost tender.
He shuddered.
Because it wasn't just calling his name.
It was remembering it.
The barricade groaned, iron braces trembling as though the district itself resisted containment.
Lira stood firm, her dagger useless but her resolve unbroken. "We're leaving," she said, voice low and fierce. "Now."
Arin couldn't move. His body was tethered, his breath caught between fear and recognition.
The figure's gaze pierced him, threads binding tighter.