The loom recoiled.
Aarifa stared as it pulled away from her touch, its wooden frame grinding against the marble courtyard floor. The glow it had radiated just moments ago dimmed, fading into a cold, sullen pulse. The threads on the frame twisted and knotted, as if resisting her presence, as if rejecting her hand.
"No," she whispered, reaching forward again. "Don't shut me out."
But the loom was no longer hers to command.
Azar's scream still echoed in the marrow of her bones. The place he had stood was empty now—no ash, no thread, not even silence. Just absence. And that, Aarifa realized, was worse than death. Worse than endings.
He had given her something before he vanished. Not just his trust. A message. A warning.
Choose the right thread.
But the loom did not want her to choose.
The pattern it had shown her: the throne, the hidden woman, the falcon-marked child now shimmered like breath on a mirror, fading too fast. Only one image remained clear. The falcon, pierced through by a golden needle.
Aarifa's hands clenched.
"Who is weaving this?" she said aloud. "Who else is in here?"
The Threads Between offered no answer. The air itself had changed. No longer a shimmering veil of possibility, it felt thick now, watching her with eyes she could not see.
She turned in a slow circle.
The courtyard still resembled Burhanpur, but the illusion frayed at the edges. The colors bled like wet dye. Shadows moved where there should have been light. And the threads suspended above the columns began to tremble, ever so slightly, like the breath of a hidden beast.
And then, footsteps.
Not loud. Just one. Then another.
She spun toward the sound.
The man in green silk had vanished along with Azar. But someone else was here now. She couldn't see them. Only feel them. Like a thread just beneath the surface of fabric. Waiting to be pulled.
"Mumtaz?" she asked softly.
No answer.
"Khurram?"
Silence.
But it wasn't either of them. She knew that now. Whoever had moved the loom was not from her past. This was something older. Something that had been waiting.
"You shouldn't have touched it," a voice said.
It came from nowhere. And everywhere.
Aarifa's breath hitched. She turned sharply, eyes scanning the courtyard. There was no one in sight.
But then the mirror walls began to ripple. One by one, they dissolved into new images; not reflections of her, but of others.
The Empress. Standing in her private chamber, head bowed over a scroll.
Khurram. Kneeling beside the tapestry Aarifa had left behind, his fingers trembling as he traced its edge.
A weaver. Someone ancient. A woman seated before a massive loom under moonlight, her eyes closed, her hands moving faster than sight.
And then, a child.
A little girl with ink-dark hair and a shawl draped across her shoulders, running through a field of marigolds.
Aarifa gasped.
It was her.
She remembered that day. It was the first time she had felt the thread tremble beneath her fingertips.
"I've always watched," the voice said again. It was quieter now, closer. Right behind her.
She turned.
No one.
"You weave futures, little one. But you forget... someone wove you first."
The courtyard vanished.
Just like that.
Aarifa stumbled, blinded by sudden darkness. The ground beneath her dissolved into fabric; shifting, unstable. She fell to her knees, her fingers sinking into an endless expanse of threads.
Thousands. Millions.
Each one humming with a life not yet lived.
Her chest tightened. She could barely breathe.
Then, above her, light bloomed.
Not soft. Blinding.
She looked up.
Suspended in the air was a vast loom. Unlike any she had ever seen. It spun by itself, faster and faster, the threads weaving patterns she couldn't read, shapes that flickered and vanished before her mind could grasp them.
A single voice echoed again.
"Mumtaz sent you here. But not out of kindness."
The spinning slowed.
A new image appeared.
A map.
The Mughal Empire. Woven in thread. But the edges were burning. A fire spreading from the south, creeping toward Delhi.
"She knew war was coming," the voice continued. "And she needed a weaver who could frame it… justify it… make it beautiful."
Aarifa's hands dug into the threads beneath her.
"No," she whispered.
"Yes," said the voice.
Another image formed. This time not on the loom, but in her mind.
A room filled with light. Mumtaz seated before a group of men. Military advisors. Scrolls. Maps. Silks stitched with battle strategies, disguising violence with artistry.
"She didn't want you to stop war," the voice said. "She wanted you to dress it in prophecy."
Aarifa shook her head. "No. She believed in peace."
"She believes in power."
The threads beneath her shivered.
"And Khurram?" the voice asked.
Aarifa's heart ached at the name.
A vision surfaced. Khurram, riding alone through the darkness. His face unshaven, eyes hollow. Searching. Not as a prince. But as a man.
"She made him choose between throne and love," the voice said. "He chose poorly. But you still love him."
Aarifa clutched her chest. "I don't know what I feel."
"Yes, you do."
The threads beneath her glowed faintly, and from the distance, she heard a soft hum. A loom beginning to turn again.
The vision above changed.
Khurram stood before a mirror. Mumtaz beside him.
"You must let her go," Mumtaz said.
"I can't," Khurram answered. "She is part of me."
"She is becoming more than you."
Khurram didn't speak.
Mumtaz continued. "If she returns, the court will fracture. The people follow her patterns more than your decrees. And if she weaves again, they will stop seeing you as ruler."
"They will see her as their Empress."
Khurram's eyes lifted. "Then they will see clearly."
And Mumtaz's gaze turned to steel.
The image vanished.
Aarifa sat frozen.
Mumtaz had known. She had always known.
Not just about Aarifa's gift. But about its power. Political. Emotional. Divine.
"She wants you to ascend," the voice whispered. "But only after she ensures you will serve her."
The massive loom above her ground to a halt.
The fabric it had woven drifted downward like a banner.
Aarifa caught it.
It was warm.
On it was a throne.
A woman seated.
Her.
A child with the falcon mark at her feet.
But the crown was not Mughal. It was older.
And around it swirled threads not of silk or gold but something darker. Threads that could not be unspun.
She looked up.
"Who are you?" she asked the voice.
This time, there was an answer.
From behind her, a figure stepped forward.
It wore no crown.
No silk.
Just a hood.
And in its hand… a blade made of thread.
"I am the first weaver," it said. "And you are my echo."
Then it lifted the blade and moved toward her.
The fabric she held pulsed like a heartbeat.
And just as the blade touched its edge, she screamed.