They emerged in silence.
No crash of arrival. No scream of magic. Just… nothing. One blink they were falling through a collapsing city of broken time, and in the next—they stood on cracked, colorless earth.
The Hollow Lands.
Vyn dropped to her knees first, breath ragged.
Cael collapsed beside her, clutching his ribs. The wound was still there, flickering in and out of reality like a stuttering flame. He could feel the Thread refusing to heal it, as if even his powers feared where they had landed.
"Where… are we?" he asked hoarsely.
Vyn didn't answer at first. She stared at the grey, endless sky. No sun. No stars. No wind. Just absence.
"The place the Pattern can't reach," she finally whispered. "Here… there are no stories."
The Hollow Lands
They walked.
Days passed—or maybe minutes. Time didn't breathe here. Their shadows never moved. Their thoughts became echoes. Even Cael's Threads went quiet, like sleeping snakes.
He began to forget his name.
Only Vyn's voice brought him back.
"Don't let go. Not even a thought. The Hollow eats meaning."
"Why bring us here then?" he asked.
She stopped. Looked at him.
"Because this is where the First Thread was born."
Cael's breath caught.
"The First?"
"Before Time. Before Memory. Before Truth. The Origin Thread. The One That Watches."
She pointed to a massive ruin on the horizon—a tower, built of impossible angles, humming faintly beneath the silence.
"We're not supposed to be here," she whispered. "But it's the only way."
Inside the Tower
The tower's gate opened not with force—but recognition.
It knew Vyn. It feared her.
Inside, the world twisted. Hallways bent backward. Ceilings became floors. Voices whispered in dead languages. Cael gritted his teeth as his Thread began pulsing wildly in his chest.
"Something's here," he murmured.
Vyn nodded.
"Someone."
From the darkness, a figure stepped forward.
Not armored. Not monstrous. Just… old. A man with silver eyes and golden veins across his arms. He looked at them like a weary teacher seeing students long gone astray.
"You shouldn't have come," he said.
Cael stepped forward.
"You know who we are?"
The man nodded slowly.
"You carry what was never meant to wake. And you bring her."
He looked at Vyn, and for the first time… she stepped back.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"The Forgotten Weaver," he said. "The first to touch the Pattern. The first to break it."
A Forbidden Truth
They sat in a chamber of lightless threads. The air felt like ink and memory.
The Forgotten Weaver began to speak.
"The Pattern is not a law. It's a prison. Built by gods to cage possibility. Threads are locks. You were never chosen, Cael. You were... leaked."
"Leaked?" Cael asked.
"A flaw. A flaw that grew too aware."
He turned to Vyn.
"And you? You are the knife."
Cael stared at her. She wouldn't meet his eyes.
"She's not like the others," the Weaver said. "She was born with her Thread already broken. She doesn't carry the Pattern. She was made to end it."
Silence.
"You're lying," Cael said.
"No," Vyn whispered.
"You knew?"
She looked at him with something between sorrow and steel.
"I didn't ask to be a weapon."
"But you're going to use yourself anyway?"
She met his gaze.
"If I have to burn the Pattern to give people real choice... then yes."