The fissure's glow still stained the night, a jagged wound of light bleeding upward into the stars. Clara sat slumped on a broken slab of stone, her marked hand hidden against her chest. The spiraled burn ached like a brand, but worse than the pain was the memory.
Yurin. Watching. Waiting. At the center of everything.
Damien crouched in front of her, his broad shoulders tense, his jaw tight. "Clara. Look at me."
She tried, but her gaze kept drifting back to the fissure's pulsing light, as if it were pulling on the threads inside her veins. When she finally met his eyes, she saw fear buried beneath the soldier's steel composure.
"What happened?" he pressed. "What did you see?"
Clara swallowed. The words wouldn't come easily. "It wasn't just the Architect's reflection. He was there. Yurin. Not a vision, not an echo. Him. Directly. He's tied into the loom."
Evelyn paced behind them, blade still drawn, eyes flicking to the fissure with every pulse. Her voice was sharp, almost venomous. "I knew it. From the start, I knew he wasn't just another pawn. He's been too calm, too precise. Now we know why."
Damien shot her a glare. "This isn't the time for your suspicion games—"
"It's not suspicion if it's true," Evelyn snapped back. "She saw him. At the center. Which means every fissure we've fought, every step we've taken, could've been placed there by him. We're not fighting fate. We're dancing on his strings."
Clara clenched her marked hand, heat burning in her palm. "Stop—both of you. This isn't about blame. It's about what we do with this."
Evelyn turned on her, expression hard. "And what do you suggest? If he's aligned with the Architect—or worse, trying to take its place—then our mission changes. We can't just 'rescue Yurin' anymore. We might have to end him."
The words struck like a blade. Clara flinched. Damien stood, fists tightening.
"Say that again," he growled.
"You heard me," Evelyn said coldly. "If he's not on our side, if he's building himself into the loom, then letting him live might be the end of us all. We can't afford to be sentimental."
"Sentimental?" Damien barked, stepping closer. "He's the reason any of us survived the descent this far. He's carried us through battles that should've killed us ten times over. You think that man—Yurin—would just throw us away?"
Evelyn didn't blink. "I think you don't know him as well as you want to believe."
Clara squeezed her temples, the argument a storm she couldn't quiet. But beneath their voices, beneath her own confusion, she felt something far worse: the hum. It hadn't left. Even now, it thrummed faintly in her blood, in perfect rhythm with the fissure's glow.
And if she focused—if she leaned into the ache—she could almost feel him. Yurin. Distant, but real. Watching.
"Stop," she whispered, cutting through Damien and Evelyn's clash. Her voice shook, but it silenced them all the same.
She stood unsteadily, veins glowing faintly again. "You don't understand. He's not just tied to the loom. He's bending it. Shaping it. I felt it. He's not resisting the Architect anymore—he's trying to replace it."
The silence that followed was heavier than the canyon around them.
Damien's expression faltered, disbelief warring with denial. "No. That doesn't make sense. Yurin's been fighting this from the start. He wouldn't—"
"Wouldn't he?" Evelyn cut in, softer now, but no less sharp. "The calm, the control, the way he never panics, never doubts—because he already knows where this is going. Because he's been leading us into it from the beginning."
Clara's hand trembled against her chest. "I don't know if it's by choice… or if the Architect has made him think it's the only choice. But I know this: he's not just Yurin anymore."
The fissure rumbled beneath them, dust sliding into its depths. The hum pulsed harder, syncing with Clara's heartbeat until she thought it might tear through her ribs. She gasped, doubling over.
Damien caught her before she fell. "Clara—what is it?"
Her voice cracked, half-choked by the resonance. "He's pulling again. Not me—us. He knows where we are."
Evelyn's grip tightened on her blade, eyes darting to the widening fissure. "Then we move. Now. Before his threads close around us completely."
Clara clung to Damien's arm, heart hammering in perfect sync with the Architect's song. And in the space between beats, she heard it: Yurin's voice. Calm. Patient. Certain.
"The loom cannot be fought. But with me… it can be rewritten."
Clara's knees buckled. Because deep down, part of her believed him.