The first sign was the sound.
Not thunder. Not a scream. Not even the sharp cry of steel against steel.
It was a crack — clean, cold, unmistakable. Like bone breaking in a silent room.
Elara felt it before she heard it.
Something in the world had snapped.
Cassian turned to her sharply as the light dimmed overhead. "You heard it too?"
She nodded. "That wasn't natural."
"No," Lyra said, emerging from the shadows like a knife with breath. "That was the sound of a pact breaking."
Kaelen stiffened. "Which one?"
No one answered.
Because the air was already shifting — heavy, pressing down like judgment.
And then the sky began to fall.
Not literally.
But the clouds fractured, splitting into jagged spirals. Celestial runes burned across the firmament, bleeding gold and black. A ripple of wrongness pulsed through the world. Birds froze in midair. The temple floor cracked beneath their feet, even though no one moved.
And from the west came the first rider.
Clad in ash.
Wreathed in silence.
The Ashen Coil had arrived.
Elara stood frozen, heart pounding. This wasn't a test. This wasn't a dream.
This was war.
They struck fast.
The Ashen warriors didn't ride horses — they rode shadows: beasts made of nothing but smoke and memory, bound to their bones by glyphs etched in flame. Swords shimmered, not with steel, but with intent — forged to unmake rather than to kill.
Lyra leapt forward, daggers drawn. Kaelen snarled a word and summoned a shield of living flame.
Cassian raised his hand — and the sky obeyed.
Stars shimmered, blinding white, and rained down like arrows.
But it wasn't enough.
They weren't here for battle.
They were here for Elara.
She felt it — the way their leader's gaze pinned her. Not hate. Not curiosity. But need.
Like she was a missing keystone.
The creature dismounted, cloak swirling like smoke around the edges of time. Its face was hidden behind a mask of cracked bone.
"Elara Thorne," it said, voice like dry parchment. "You carry what does not belong to you."
Elara lifted her chin. "You mean the glyph."
"I mean the choice."
Behind her, Cassian shifted, ready to strike. But the creature raised a hand.
And the world froze.
Cassian was locked in mid-movement, Lyra mid-step, Kaelen mid-spell. Only Elara moved.
Only she could.
"You walk paths that were not meant for you," the figure said. "You wear the Weaver's thread. But do you understand the tapestry?"
Elara clenched her fists. "I don't need to. I just need to keep moving."
The masked creature tilted its head.
"Then let me show you what lies at the end."
And suddenly—
She was elsewhere.
It wasn't a vision. It was reality.
A broken one.
A world scorched beneath a dying sun. Cities crumbled into ash. Oceans boiled. The moons shattered, bleeding into the sky. And there — at the heart of the ruin — was herself.
Older.
Harder.
Alone.
Hands bloodied. Eyes empty.
The glyph pulsed on her chest, bright and furious.
She was a queen of nothing.
A god of dust.
The voice echoed behind her: "This is one end. This is what your thread leads to."
Elara gasped, and the world vanished.
She was back in the temple.
Time resumed.
Cassian fell forward, catching himself. Lyra's daggers met flesh. Kaelen's fire roared.
The masked figure vanished in a curl of smoke.
But the memory remained.
And the fracture did too.
Later, after the battle's embers cooled, Elara sat alone in the ruins.
Cassian joined her, bruised but silent.
"They want to scare you," he said softly. "Break you."
"I know."
He hesitated. "Is it working?"
She didn't answer right away.
Then: "I saw the end. My end. One version. I don't know if it's a warning or a prophecy."
Cassian looked at her. "Does it change your path?"
Elara turned to him. "No. But it reminds me what's at stake."
She reached for his hand, and he didn't pull away.
"The pact is breaking," she whispered.
"Then we hold it together," he replied. "Even if we bleed."
High above, the moons trembled.
And far across the sky, in a tower no mortal had entered in a thousand years, the First Weaver stirred.
The final glyph was awakening.
And time itself was unraveling.