The trees thinned with every step.
The oppressive shadows, the strange hum in the air, the echoes of false lives—they all began to fall away. For the first time in what felt like days, the sky opened above us. Faint stars glittered like distant lanterns, and the moons—both of them—shone pale and hollow above the ridgeline.
We had left the Forest of Mirrors.
But no one smiled.
Not Kael, who kept stealing glances at Riven like he was waiting for something to fall apart.
Not Riven, who wore an empty expression, occasionally rubbing the ring on his finger as though trying to remember why it mattered.
And not me—because my reflection still lingered in the back of my mind, whispering promises I was terrified to understand.
We reached a high bluff overlooking a vast, broken plain.
It was like the world had cracked.
Dark clouds churned low in the sky, lightning threading through them like veins. Below, the remnants of what had once been a city—glass towers shattered, Loom-fiber bridges collapsed—spread across the valley. And in the middle, something even more terrifying:
A rift.
Glowing, pulsing, tearing at the world like an open wound.
Kael dropped to one knee, pulling out the map again. The runes on it glowed with urgency.
"That's it," he said. "That's the Citadel's threshold. The last gate before we enter the Loom's core."
Riven knelt beside him. "And the Rift?"
Kael's mouth tightened. "Unstable. Guarded. Likely feeding from the Citadel's seal. Which means—"
"We're out of time," I said quietly.
I didn't need to be told what that meant.
If the Rift tore fully, the Loom wouldn't just unravel.
It would consume us all.
Suddenly, a sound echoed up from below.
A low, metallic clang.
Then another.
And another.
Kael stood fast, eyes narrowing.
"They're here."
"Who?" I asked.
Riven answered, voice grim. "The Guild of Ash."
We turned as dark figures began to emerge across the plain—clad in fractured armor, faces hidden behind masks of bone and steel.
The last servants of the Shattered Weave.
And they were coming for us.
---