The Threadborn Behemoths did not roar.
They did not shriek or howl.
They remembered.
And in their remembering, reality buckled.
The first to crawl forth from the sundered edge of the Threadless Sky was a beast of molten chain and starlight sinew. It had no face only a thousand mirrored facets, each reflecting a version of Zeirion that might have been: a god of pure vengeance, a tyrant of steel, a king who conquered even his own soul.
Zeirion watched it emerge.
He did not flinch.
Aralya moved forward, but he raised a hand.
"No. This is mine to face."
Across the floating expanse of Ilnariis, the reflection the Sovereign That Was Never Loved stood still, unmoving, as though the unleashing of such terror required no effort.
"You turned away from purpose," the reflection said. "You chose love. You chose balance. And now, you will watch your dream collapse beneath the weight of what you refused to become."
Zeirion's cloak billowed in the reality splintered wind. He stepped forward, eyes burning with tempered fury. "I chose freedom. I chose to end the cycle, not feed it."
The mirrored beast surged.
A wave of forgotten timelines cascaded outward each one threatening to rewrite the world. In an instant, Ilnariis warped: towers twisted into thorns, skies rained with memories of things that had almost happened a realm where Zeirion had slain Aralya to ascend, a realm where he had become fate's executioner.
And yet, in the eye of the storm, the true Sovereign remained unbroken.
He drew no blade.
Instead, he opened his soul.
A radiance pulsed from his chest the Heart of Unmaking, now bound within him. It flared not with destruction, but with clarity. And in that moment, the echoes faltered.
The behemoth screamed not aloud, but in thoughts made visible.
Zeirion raised his hand.
"Return," he said.
And the beast an embodiment of unlived lives shuddered and crumbled into threads of light. Threads that curled back into the Spiral, no longer wild, but woven.
The reflection's smile cracked.
"You bind what should be free."
"I heal what was broken," Zeirion answered.
The sky rippled again.
More behemoths stirred.
Aralya stepped beside him, her glaive drawn, her eyes unwavering. "They're not stopping."
"They won't," Zeirion said, voice quiet. "Because he is not done."
The reflection stepped forward, every movement an affront to balance. "You think love makes you whole. But love limits. And I will show you"
He moved.
Faster than thought.
And Zeirion met him.
The two collided in a silence so total it drowned the world.
Mountains in far realms shattered. Rivers forgot their names. Suns blinked once, unsure of their place in the firmament.
And between them Sovereign and Shadow the war of selves began.
One seeking to reclaim what never was.
The other fighting to protect what should be.