Calla's POV
I wake up dead.
Or maybe not dead. I'm not sure anymore.
Everything is white—not the white of clouds or snow, but the white of nothingness. No ground beneath me. No sky above. Just endless, infinite white that somehow exists in every direction at once.
"Eraxis?" My voice echoes strangely, like I'm speaking underwater.
"I'm here." His voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. "Or what's left of me."
I turn and see him—except he's not solid anymore. He's made of silver light, translucent and flickering. When I look down at myself, I'm the same—golden light in a vaguely human shape.
We're threads. Pure consciousness given temporary form.
"Are we dead?" I ask.
"I don't know." Eraxis's light-form moves closer. "The Loom caught us before we could fully dissolve. It's holding our threads in some kind of... suspended state."
"Why?"
Before he can answer, a voice speaks—ancient, vast, and somehow kind:
"Because you loved without condition. And the Loom rewards such love."
The whiteness shifts, forming into something resembling a face—or maybe a million faces, all woven from golden thread. The Loom of Time itself is speaking to us.
"You sacrificed yourselves to save all of existence," the Loom's voice continues. "Such an act deserves recognition. And a choice."
My light-form trembles. "What kind of choice?"
"I can restore you to life," the Loom says. "Reweave your threads, give you back your bodies and memories. You would continue as you were—Guardian and Reaper, bound but separate."
Hope flares in my consciousness. "Then do it! Please—"
"But," the Loom interrupts gently, "reality is still in danger. The corruption I have purged will return unless someone maintains balance. The old system is broken—Guardians hunted to extinction, Reapers corrupted by power. A new balance is needed."
Eraxis's silver light pulses with understanding. "You want us to be that balance."
"I offer you a second choice," the Loom says. "I can reweave your threads together—not temporarily like the merge, but permanently. You would become something new. The first of a new kind of being: a Guardian-Reaper. One soul with the power of both Life and Death. You would serve as the Loom's protector, maintaining balance, preventing another like Morvess from ever rising again."
"We'd be one person?" I ask, not sure how I feel about that.
"One consciousness with two perspectives. You would still be Calla. You would still be Eraxis. But you would think together, act together, exist together. Forever."
The enormity of it crashes over us. Not just soul-bound—actually fused. No more separation. No more privacy. Every thought, every feeling, shared completely and permanently.
"And if we refuse?" Eraxis asks quietly.
"Then I restore you as you were, and you live whatever lives remain to you. But the Loom will be vulnerable. And eventually, someone else will try what Morvess attempted. Maybe they'll succeed."
Silence fills the white space. Through our bond—still present even in this thread-form—I feel Eraxis's thoughts racing.
He's terrified. Not of dying, but of losing himself. Of being absorbed into something else and ceasing to be Eraxis.
And I feel the same fear. Would I still be me if my consciousness was permanently merged with his?
But I also feel something else: how right it felt when we were merged. How complete. Like we were always meant to be one being, just divided by circumstance.
"How long do we have to decide?" I ask.
"Moments," the Loom says. "Already, your threads are beginning to dissolve naturally. I can hold you here, but not forever. Choose, brave ones. Choose wisely."
Eraxis's silver light turns toward mine. "Calla, I can't make this decision for you. This is your life, your existence. If you want to go back to being separate, I'll support—"
"Do you want to be separate?" I interrupt.
He's quiet for a long moment. Then: "No. These last few hours—fighting together, thinking together, being together—have been the most alive I've felt in centuries. But wanting something doesn't mean it's right. You deserve your own life, your own choices—"
"I'm making my choice right now." My golden light moves closer until we're almost touching. "I choose you. I choose us. I choose being something new if it means we face it together."
"You're sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything." Through the bond, I let him feel my absolute certainty. "I was dying of loneliness in that village. Working three jobs, watching my father fade, enduring abuse from people who should have cared about me. I was alive, but I wasn't living. Then you appeared, and suddenly everything mattered again. Fighting mattered. Hoping mattered. Love mattered."
His silver light flares brighter. "You realize if we do this, there's no going back? We'll share everything. No secrets. No privacy. Forever."
"Good. I'm tired of being alone."
"Even when I'm eight hundred years old and grumpy about everything?"
Despite everything, I laugh. "Especially then."
The Loom's voice returns, warm with approval: "You have chosen. Very well. I will reweave you as one. But know this—the path ahead will not be easy. Morvess escaped during your sacrifice. She is wounded, weakened, but alive. And she will not stop until she destroys what you've saved."
Fear spikes through us both. "Then give us the power to stop her," Eraxis says firmly.
"I will give you more than power," the Loom says. "I will give you purpose. You will be my Warden—the Guardian-Reaper who maintains balance between Life and Death. You will hunt those who corrupt threads. You will protect the innocent from those who would steal time. And you will face Morvess when she rises again."
"We accept," we say together.
The white space explodes with golden and silver light.
Our thread-forms spiral toward each other, merging, fusing, becoming something entirely new. I feel Eraxis's soul pouring into mine, and mine into his. Memories flood between us—his eight centuries of existence, my twenty-four years of struggle.
I feel what it was like for him to reap his own mother's soul. The absolute agony.
He feels what it was like for me to watch Papa dying slowly. The helpless fury.
Our pain merges. Our love merges. Our determination merges.
And then we're not just connected—we're one.
The light forms into a new body—taller than Calla's, shorter than Eraxis's. Eyes that glow with both gold and silver. Hair that shifts between black and white depending on the light. Magic that pulses with the power of creation and destruction balanced perfectly.
We open our eyes in the Celestial Realm.
Aldwin is kneeling beside where we fell, sobbing. The corrupted Reapers are scattered, unconscious from the purifying blast we unleashed. And Morvess is gone—fled through a dimensional tear that's already closing.
But she left something behind.
Theron lies on the ground nearby, no longer corrupted but also not moving. We can see his thread—it's damaged but repairable now that our purifying fire burned away Morvess's control.
We stand—our new body moving with perfect balance between Guardian grace and Reaper power.
"Papa," we say, and our voice is both Calla's and Eraxis's, perfectly blended.
Aldwin looks up, his tear-streaked face confused. "Calla? Eraxis? What—what happened to you?"
"We merged permanently," we explain, kneeling beside him. "We're one being now. The Loom's Warden. But we're still your daughter. And we still love you."
We hug him, and through our new consciousness, we feel both Calla's fierce love for her father and Eraxis's newfound understanding of what family means.
"I thought I'd lost you," Aldwin whispers.
"You'll never lose us," we promise. "We're harder to kill now."
A groan interrupts the moment. Theron is waking up, his eyes clearing as the corruption fully leaves his system. He looks up at us, and his expression cycles through confusion, recognition, and horror.
"Eraxis? What—" His voice breaks. "Master, I'm so sorry. She made me—she controlled me—I tried to fight it but I couldn't—"
"We know," we say gently, helping him sit up. "We saw the corruption on your thread. You're free now."
Theron stares at our merged form. "You're different. You're both of you, but also... something else."
"Something new," we agree. "Something necessary."
He looks around at the unconscious Reapers, the purified Loom glowing with restored health. "What happened? The last thing I remember clearly was Morvess infecting my thread two years ago. Everything after is just... fragments."
"She used you to spy on us," we explain. "To report our investigations. To try to kill us when the time was right."
Shame floods his face. "I betrayed you. I don't deserve—"
"You were enslaved," we interrupt firmly. "There's a difference between betrayal and being weaponized against your will."
We help him stand, and through our merged Reaper senses, we read his thread carefully. The damage is severe but healable. He'll need time to recover, but he'll survive.
"The Loom is purified," we tell him. "Reality is safe. But Morvess escaped."
"She'll come back," Theron says with certainty. "She's spent centuries planning this. She won't give up just because you foiled one attempt."
"We know." We look out across the Celestial Realm, our new vision showing us things neither Calla nor Eraxis could see alone—the full scope of the Loom, every thread, every life, every connection. "That's why the Loom made us its Warden. We'll hunt her. Stop her. Protect reality."
Aldwin stands up shakily. "What about the village? Helena and the magistrate and everyone who hurt you? Do they just... get away with it?"
Through our merged consciousness, we consider this. Calla's hurt and anger is still there, but balanced now by Eraxis's understanding that small cruelties pale compared to cosmic threats.
"They'll face their own consequences eventually," we say. "Right now, we have bigger concerns."
A rift tears open nearby—not Morvess returning, but a delegation of Reapers led by a tall female with hair like starlight. She stares at our merged form with shock.
"Eraxis? Is that you?"
We recognize her through Eraxis's memories. "Kael. Hello."
"What happened? The Loom's distress signal reached every realm. We thought—" She stops, seeing the purified threads behind us. "You saved it. You actually saved reality."
"We did," we confirm. Then, because we need allies: "But Morvess orchestrated the corruption. She escaped. And she's planning something worse."
Kael's expression hardens. "Then we hunt her. The Reaper Court will—"
"The Reaper Court is compromised," we interrupt. "Morvess corrupted hundreds of Reapers. How many more are still under her control? How many are helping her without knowing it?"
Kael pales. "You're saying we can't trust anyone."
"We're saying we need to be careful." We gesture to Theron. "He was corrupted for two years and no one noticed. Morvess is a master manipulator. She could have agents everywhere."
"Then what do we do?"
We take a breath—our merged lungs filling with air that tastes different now, like we're breathing in pieces of reality itself.
"We build something new," we say with certainty. "A new order. Guardians and Reapers working together like they should have been all along. No more separation. No more suspicion. Balance."
"And if the Court refuses?"
We meet her eyes, and she flinches at the power in our gaze. "Then we make them understand. One way or another."
Behind us, the Loom pulses with approval. We are its Warden now. Its protector. And we will not fail.
But even as we plan our next moves, a message appears in the Loom's threads—written in Morvess's distinctive hand:
"Enjoy your victory, my dear students. You've bought reality a few more days. But I've already set my final plan in motion. The Loom will fall. And when it does, I'll be there to rebuild it in my image. You can't stop what's already begun. See you soon. —M"
The message dissolves, but its threat hangs in the air.
We have three days to find Morvess and stop whatever she's planning.
Three days to save reality.
Again.