The forest had long since shifted from tranquil to uncanny. As Rafael and his companions ventured deeper into the ley-fractured woods west of the petrified sanctuary, the trees twisted into unnatural angles, their bark veined with flickers of glyphlight that pulsed in no discernible rhythm.
The air smelled of lightning and old blood, and every step seemed to ripple echoes across layers of unseen timelines.
Juno led the group now, her sword drawn, its edge laced with leyflux that glinted whenever a stray shimmer of magic flared through the underbrush.
Her brows were furrowed, her voice clipped. "We're walking through a past that never finished happening. Thread echoes. If we lose focus, we could step sideways into someone else's failure. Right, Rafael?"
"Comforting," Lira muttered, gripping her spellbook to her chest like a shield. Her runes shimmered nervously along the pages. "Does it get worse?"
"Yes," Juno said without hesitation.
Salien kept pace near the rear, her eyes dim and focused. Her steps were deliberate, calculated—not just watching for danger, but as though calculating the weight of her presence.
Since the Warden's fall, something had changed in her gait. Like she moved partially outside the current loop, partially tethered to another.
They came to a clearing where the trees grew in a perfect spiral. At its center stood a monolith—a shard of raw obsidian veined with living glyphs. It pulsed with slow rhythm, like a sleeping heart.
Rafael approached it slowly. "I've seen this before," he murmured. "Loop Nine. It wasn't awake then."
"It's awake now?" Kelan asked. No one dare to answer him.
Salien didn't approach. Her breath quickened, and the runes on her robes brightened, responding to the shard's presence. The glyphs on the monolith stirred, shifting as if reacting to her.
"Do you remember this?" Rafael asked her.
She hesitated. "No. But it remembers me, probably."
Juno placed her hand on the hilt of her blade. "We need to move. It felt like standing here is an act of yelling across timelines. The imagination of it enough to shivers me. I'm afraid that something will hear us."
But it was already too late. The air thickened. The sky overhead darkened—not from clouds, but from a ripple, as if the very concept of above had twisted sideways.
From the monolith, a figure stepped forth—tall, lean, faceless. Its form was stitched from broken time, fragments of moments dangling like tattered cloaks. Its presence screamed wrongness.
"Threadless," Rafael growled, stepping forward.
Lira began casting immediately, her book opening to reveal defensive glyphs. Bryn raised her axe, but its edge faltered—quivering, unstable. Kelan unsheathed his sword.
The thing turned its faceless head to Salien, and the runes on her robe ignited with pain.
Rafael acted first. With a slash of his palm, he summoned a cascade of symbols in the air, launching a barrier of hardened sigilglass that deflected the entity's initial advance.
The battle was chaos. Glyphlight clashed with warps of threadless energy. Juno's blade sang as it carved open echoes, slicing illusions that sought to swallow them.
Lira's and Mira's incantations rebounded against fractures in logic, each spell demanding a price from her mind.
Rafael's glyphwork flickered as he reshaped the ley-signatures around them, burning through entire seals to keep their footing stable.
Bryn screamed. Her axe met the Threadless's limb—and shattered. Not from force, but rejection. Her own glyphs turned on her, lashing pain through her body. She fell, convulsing.
"No!" Rafael dove toward her, skidding through glyphfire. He carved a circle around her in the dirt with bloodied fingers, stabilizing her thread by force. "Bryn! Stay with me!"
The Threadless reeled back, screeching in voiceless static. Juno lunged—her blade severing a limb that dissolved into floating concepts. Lira slammed the final ward into place, binding the creature just long enough for Rafael to inscribe a banishment glyph across its unraveling chest.
The thing ruptured with a soundless implosion. The air collapsed inward, and the monolith shattered.
Silence fell.
The clearing was scarred—ash, molten symbols, shattered bark. Bryn lay still but breathing. Juno sheathed her sword with trembling hands. Lira slumped beside a burned tree, glyphbook dimmed and smoldering.
But the quiet didn't last long. As Rafael stood surveying the aftermath, the very fabric of the clearing began to ripple again, as if the banishment had unlatched something else.
A slow groan echoed from beneath the earth. Fractures spread beneath their feet—not physical, but temporal, streaks of light where time itself had worn too thin.
"We're not done," Bryn said hoarsely, forcing herself upright.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rafael saw shadows moving. Not figures, but impressions of them, ghosts of possibilities unchosen. His breath caught. "They're echoing us. Versions that died. Or never made it this far."
Kelan coughed and sat up, his armor still smoking. "I think they're not just echoes. I feel like one of them stared me dead in the eyes."
They turned as one to face the remnants of the shattered monolith. In the dust where the glyphs had burned away, a symbol remained—etched deeper than the stone, glowing with slow menace.
"That's… not any language I know," Mira muttered, voice tight.
Rafael knelt beside it, eyes wide. "I do. Barely. It's a banishment glyph—but reversed. A calling. Someone brought the Threadless here."
"On purpose?" Lira asked, appalled.
Juno's mouth twisted. "Or as a test. To see what we'd do."
They stood in silence, the implications pressing in like a second gravity. Finally, Rafael stood. "Then we need to be ready. Whatever called it might send more."
The sky above shimmered once more, slowly restitching its fabric. But this time the thread lines formed not a warning, but a message.
Salien squinted at them, the runes in her eyes sparking. "It's a name."
"Whose?" Rafael asked.
She stared upward, expression hardening. "Mine."
***