The camp did not sleep. Every hour, the lantern swelled and shifted, the flames circling each other in a slow, lethal dance.
Ahri sat with her knees drawn up, her marked palm glowing faintly as though echoing the twin fire. She traced invisible patterns in the air, thinking of the Loom's voice, of the thread she had once dared to pluck.
Aya broke the silence. "If both flames lie, if both flames tempt… then what's left for us to follow?"
Ahri didn't answer immediately. Instead, she studied Aya. The girl's shoulders were squared, though her arms trembled from holding the lantern so long. Her eyes carried exhaustion but also resolve.
"What if the point isn't to follow?" Ahri said finally. "What if the point is to refuse both?"
Aya frowned. "Refuse both? But then where would we walk?"
Jin cut in, his voice sharp. "Into nothing. That's your answer, Threadseer? To tear down every road?"
Ahri looked between them: Aya with her trembling hope, Jin with his shadowed defiance.
"No," she said quietly. "Not to tear down. To carve one that isn't written for us."
Her words hung in the air, heavier than she expected.
The lantern flared. The twin flames surged higher, almost touching, almost consuming one another. And in their union, even for a moment, Ahri swore she saw something beyond them: a third path, faint but real.
Not gold. Not black. Something unclaimed.
Something waiting.