The wind had a voice now.
Not the kind Cael had grown used to—whispers of memory, the occasional echo of a place's sorrow—but a living, screaming voice. It howled across the Shattered Expanse as though the very fabric of the world had been torn and stitched too many times.
And he could hear it.
Clearly.
"Cael... Cael... CAEL..."
"Stop calling me," he muttered under his breath, clutching the sliver of thread-glass Vyn had given him. "I'm not yours."
The thread didn't care.The thread wanted him anyway.
They were four days east of the Spire, beyond anything even the Map of Lost Ways could track. This was not territory—this was sentience.
The land here watched them.
Every step felt observed. Judged. Condemned.
Vyn remained quiet most of the time, eyes scanning the horizon like a hawk. Her robes had darkened since they left the Spire, their colors bleeding into shadow with every mile. Even she looked older—heavier, as if something within her soul had cracked slightly but hadn't broken clean through.
"What happens now?" Cael finally asked.
Vyn stopped. She turned slowly, her gaze locking with his.
"We go to the Gate."
"The Gate?"
"The place where Threads are born... and broken. The final one still standing."
Cael swallowed. "You mean the Threadgate?"
She nodded once. "And behind it waits the Hollow Court."
They set up camp that night beside a lake of still silver. Not water—liquid memory. Cael stared into it, half-daring it to show him something.
It did.
Not the past. Not the future. But possibility.
A girl he had never met, screaming his name.A battlefield under two dying suns.Vyn bleeding, whispering secrets into his hands.A broken crown at his feet.
And finally—
Himself, standing before a throne made of threadbones, too heavy for one man to bear.
You will be judged, the lake whispered.
Sleep came reluctantly. But dreams didn't.
Instead, Cael found himself in a place that should not exist. Not even in nightmares.
It was a cavern. Infinite. Black. Walls covered in hundreds of weeping faces—his own. Each one a version of him that had made a different choice. Some bore scars. Some were blind. One had no mouth, only a jagged mark that read: I tried.
In the center stood a pedestal.
Upon it… a single thread.
Golden. Burning. Screaming.
He reached for it.
"Don't."
He turned.
The Hollow Prince stood behind him.
Cloaked in what looked like fragments of broken destinies, the Hollow Prince had no face—only a mirror where one should be. Cael saw himself reflected in it. But not just himself—he saw what the world thought of him. Monster. Savior. Betrayer. King.
"I've been waiting," the Hollow Prince said.
Cael gritted his teeth. "For what?"
"For you to stop pretending this is a journey."
The Prince lifted a hand.
"This is a trial."
Cael woke with blood dripping from his nose.
Vyn was already packed and waiting.
"You saw him."
He nodded.
"You heard him."
Cael stared at the horizon. "Trial."
Vyn stepped closer. Her voice was a whisper carried on sorrow.
"Everything up to now… has only been the beginning."
They resumed their journey.
By midday, the land began to change again. It no longer whispered. It screamed. A storm rose—not of rain or thunder, but Threadfire, coiling strands of fate igniting mid-air, falling like burning snakes across the sky.
Vyn handed Cael a band of black ribbon.
"Tie this around your eyes."
He hesitated.
"Now."
He obeyed.
Blind, he followed her steps, listening for every tap of her staff on the earth. Hours passed—or minutes. Time bent like the rest of the world.
Then he heard it.
The sound of something ancient opening.
Stone… grinding against time.
The wind died. The screaming thread went silent.
Vyn untied his blindfold.
Before them stood a gate larger than any fortress, carved from crystalized Thread and bone. Symbols shimmered on its surface in every language and none.
The air was thick with power.
And fear.
Threadgate.
Cael stepped forward. His breath caught in his throat.
The gate… opened for him.
Without a word. Without a test. Without demand.
It had been waiting.
Inside, the Hollow Court awaited its newest guest.
And perhaps its final one.