The lantern's twin flames did not rest. They pulled at one another, stretching light across the camp in jagged shapes. Ahri traced the shadows with her eyes, unsettled by how they overlapped and contradicted themselves. Two shadows for every object. Two futures for every step.
Aya tried to steady her hands as she held the lantern high. "It feels… heavier," she whispered. "Like something's pressing down."
"It's because the light isn't whole," Ahri replied. "It's tearing itself apart just to exist."
Jin's shadow twitched. He turned sharply, as if catching movement that wasn't there. "It isn't the lantern that's tearing," he muttered. His voice carried the steel of someone who knew more than he wanted to reveal. "It's us."
Ahri looked at him, searching. "Us?"
But Jin walked into the dark without answering. The black flame bent toward him as though drawn, while the gold stayed anchored to Aya.
The divide was no longer just in the lantern. It was in them.
That night, Ahri tried to weave a thread between her hands, a small practice she often used to ground herself. But as soon as she called on the Loom's residue, the strands appeared doubled: one bright and steady, the other thin and corroded.
When she tried to braid them together, they burned her palms raw.
She bit back a cry. Aya rushed forward, but Ahri shook her head. "Don't touch. Not this."
In the distance, Jin's silhouette stood rigid against the treeline, his sword driven into the soil. His shadow loomed behind him, taller than the trees, its edges frayed like unraveling cloth.
Ahri felt the fracture grow wider. Something was coming undone—and they were standing at the seam.