The air of the Loom Chamber was heavy with the weight of silence. Threads stretched endlessly across the vaulted space, glowing faintly with an unsteady rhythm, as though breathing in the dark. Ahri stood at the center, her eyes fixed on the central weave where patterns of fate intersected like constellations drawn in string. Yet tonight, the Loom did not sing.
The threads trembled without harmony, their usual music choked by a muffled quiet. The absence unsettled her more than chaos would have. Even when frayed or unraveling, the Loom spoke. But silence—silence meant refusal.
"Why won't you answer me?" she whispered, her voice swallowed by the chamber.
Jin lingered at her side, his spirit-form shimmering faintly like pale light cast across water. "It isn't that the Loom refuses. It listens, but it waits."
"Waits for what?"
His gaze was distant. "For you to ask the question you fear most."
Ahri flinched. Her heart thudded, echoing the silence of the threads. Since the Severance, since the Hollowed Realm, since the Threadveil had been pierced, she had asked everything but the one question that lingered like a shadow in her thoughts.
"If the Loom is unraveling," she began, her words brittle, "does that mean fate itself can die?"
The silence deepened, and for a fleeting moment she thought she heard a low hum beneath the threads—a breath of acknowledgment, or warning.
The Elder's teachings came to her unbidden: The Loom does not weave for eternity. Threads begin, and so too may they end.
Jin's eyes met hers, sharp as mirrored glass. "Then the true vigil begins. Not for the Loom's silence, but for yours. What answer will you choose when the last thread asks you to cut it?"
Her throat tightened. She wanted to speak, to deny, to rage—but all she could do was stand vigil, staring at the faint glow of threads slowly dimming into a darker stillness.