The sky above the wastelands was wrong.
Cael had no other word for it.
After leaving the Cradle of Threads, he and Vyn traveled eastward beyond the Cracked Dominion—where roads ended, maps turned to myth, and time began to bleed. The parchment she had given him never remained the same shape for long. Lines curved when they shouldn't. Coordinates changed each dawn. The only constant was the symbol at its heart:
ᚦAn ancient rune. One that Vyn refused to translate.
They passed through lands untouched by memory. Fields where flowers grew from bones. Mountains that sang when the moon rose. And then, on the seventh day, they saw it.
Rising like a jagged blade into the bleeding sky—
The Spire of Stillborn Stars.
It looked like it had been carved from midnight and stormlight. Its surface shimmered with constellations that didn't exist in the known sky.
Cael exhaled slowly.
"So it's real."
Vyn didn't answer immediately. Her gaze was fixed on the horizon, but her soul felt far away.
"It shouldn't be."
They crossed the perimeter of the Spire's shadow and the world shifted.
No sound.
No breeze.
Even their footsteps made no echo.
Vyn's veil returned, drawn tightly now, as if to protect her from more than dust. She handed Cael a sliver of thread-glass, its edge humming with invisible energy.
"Keep this on you. It'll stabilize your Thread in the Spire's field."
Cael took it without question. "What happens if I don't?"
"You'll forget who you are," she said flatly. "And that's the best-case scenario."
Together, they stepped into the darkness beneath the Spire's base.
Inside, the walls pulsed. Not with light. Not with color. But with thought.
The Spire was thinking.
And it remembered him.
They passed pillars etched with symbols Cael couldn't recognize, yet somehow understood. Visions played between them—Walkers from ages past, arguing with fate, dueling each other, weeping into the void. Cael's mind itched.
He saw himself among them.
But… older. Eyes like dying stars. A wound at his side.
What is this place?Who have I become?
"Don't get lost in the phantoms," Vyn warned. "They're only echoes. Shadows left behind by those who came seeking truth."
"Did they find it?"
"No. They found the Mirror."
Cael turned to her. "Mirror?"
She nodded. "It shows what you might become… if you keep walking the Thread you've taken. The Mirror reflects your end."
His throat tightened. "And what if I don't want to see it?"
She paused at the next door, her hand resting on a slab of stone that shimmered with blood-red glyphs.
"Then you shouldn't have come here."
They descended into a chamber made of obsidian glass. In the center was a pool, still and silent—perfectly reflective. A mirror not of silver, but of frozen void. The moment Cael stepped inside, the door sealed behind him. Vyn remained outside.
He was alone.
The pool began to glow.
And then… he saw himself.
But not as he was.
This Cael was draped in black threadwoven armor. A crown of memory hovered above his brow. And behind him… corpses. Fields of them. Friends. Enemies. Entire worlds.
A Walker-King. A god of endings.
His eyes were empty.
No… not empty.
Hollow.
"Is that me?" Cael whispered.
The mirror version did not move. Did not blink. But somehow, it spoke.
"You should have stayed small, Cael. You should have walked away when you had the chance."
Cael took a step forward. "I'm not afraid of what I might become."
"Then you're already becoming it."
Suddenly, the image smiled—not a kind smile. A knowing one. A cruel one.
"Do you know what they'll call you in the end?"
Cael didn't speak.
The image leaned closer to the surface of the void.
"Threadbane."
And the image shattered.
Cael fell to his knees, gasping.
Vyn was already at his side when the door reopened. She helped him up without a word.
"Threadbane," he muttered. "What does it mean?"
"It means you'll break more than just your destiny," she said softly. "You'll break theirs, too."
Cael's hands trembled. "Is that who I'll become?"
She didn't answer.
He looked at her sharply. "Tell me."
Vyn met his gaze. "Not unless you want me to lie."
Silence stretched.
Cael looked back at the broken pool.
"I don't want to become a monster."
"Then don't," she said. "It's that simple."
They both knew it wasn't.
As they left the Spire, Cael felt something in his Thread shift again—like a knot had come undone.
The air outside was different. And so was the world.
Above them, the sky was no longer just a canvas of stars.
A new constellation had formed.
In the shape of a Thread.
And it was burning.