They camped in what remained of a temple alcove, its roof half-collapsed, the night winds restless with ash. The others slept uneasily. Even Aya, usually wakeful, succumbed to exhaustion after the wailing spirits quieted. Only Ahri and Jin remained awake, lantern light casting their shadows against broken walls.
Ahri sat cross-legged, staring at her flame. "You keep pulling me away from them. The voices. The echoes. Why?"
Jin stood a short distance away, arms folded. His form looked sharper here, less fading spirit, more defined. The shadows clinging to him no longer felt like absence—they felt deliberate.
"Because I know what they are," he said at last. "I know because I was one of them."
Ahri's head lifted sharply. The lantern flickered, reflecting the tremor in her chest. "You mean…"
Jin turned, his outline catching the faint copper-red of the Hollowed sky. For the first time, she saw his shadow move independently—stretching along the wall, splitting, like it had a will of its own.
"I was not supposed to return," Jin said. "I was supposed to burn with the others when the First Thread fell. But something tethered me back. Something in you."
Her mouth went dry. The voice of the wailing spirits echoed in her memory: You carry what we lost.
Ahri whispered, "Your shadow…"
The shadow on the wall straightened, detaching from him like a figure rising from chains. It turned its head toward her, eyeless yet piercing. When it spoke, its voice was not Jin's—but it was his too, as though a memory had found its tongue.
"We remember you, Threadseer. You are the wound and the needle both."
Ahri's lantern sputtered. Her hands shook. Jin's shadow had learned to speak.