When Kael stepped through the gate, reality thinned.
The space beyond was not a place. It was between places—a tapestry woven from light, memory, and discarded dreams. He floated, though he felt the weight of every decision he had made pressing down on him like iron snow. Time here was not linear. Each moment stretched into infinity, then snapped back like a broken string.
He found himself standing upon a bridge woven from sleep. Below flowed a river made not of water, but forgotten thoughts: songs never sung, prayers never answered, lovers never met. The current shimmered with grief, laced with golden strands of desire.
A figure awaited him at the center of the bridge.
She wore a crown of unraveling time and held a blade carved from the sigh of a dying star. Her skin shimmered with constellations; her eyes were closed, but her voice reached Kael before he could speak.
"You carry a thousand endings," she said. "But only one beginning."
"Who are you?" Kael asked.
"I am the Weaver of the Waking Dream. The Spiral's midwife. The one who watches the stories that might never be."
Kael's hand drifted to the sigil burned into his chest. "And you're here to stop me?"
"No," she replied. "I am here to test you."
The world trembled. The bridge extended into a hall of mirrors—each reflecting not Kael, but the ones he had left behind. Ayel, choking on prophecy. Nyra, singing her own voice into silence. Unwritten, penning herself into oblivion.
Kael turned away. "I've already made peace with who I am."
"But have they?"
The Weaver raised her blade.
From the mirrors stepped doubles—versions of Kael twisted by pain: a tyrant fueled by vengeance; a coward who ran from every choice; a hollow prophet who spoke with a Spiral-shaped tongue. Their voices overlapped, cacophonous.
"You let me die!" one cried. "You abandoned the flame!" hissed another. "You are not worthy," said the last.
Kael fought them not with flame, but with truth.
He named each regret.
He forgave each fear.
He faced each echo of his soul and accepted it—not as his destiny, but as his warning.
And in the end, he stood alone again—bloodied, breathless, but unbroken.
The Weaver approached, her form fading with every step.
"You have chosen to walk forward," she said, "not because you are sure, but because you hope."
She handed him her blade. "Take this. You'll need it for what waits beyond."
He accepted it.
The blade whispered.
Not words.
But options. Futures. The probability of kindness. The cost of cruelty.
Before the bridge collapsed, Kael turned one last time toward the river of forgotten dreams. In it, he saw a future: himself holding a child wrapped in flame, standing beside Nyra under a sunless sky.
And he saw another: himself crucified upon the Spiral, screaming flame into void.
He bowed to neither.
He walked forward.
The dream unraveled.
He fell.
And landed upon a staircase carved into the roots of the world.
Each step echoed with the lives of those he had touched—Ayel's defiance, Unwritten's sacrifice, Nyra's song.
And from deep below, something ancient stirred.
The Loom awaited.
The Spiral's thread began to tighten.
And Chapter 15 loomed, bright as a blade yet to be drawn.