The wind howled through the eastern watchtower, a cold, keening sound that gnawed through stone and bone alike. Corin stood at the edge of the overlook, the map in his hands trembling—not from the breeze, but from the Loom itself.
The map wasn't paper.
It was Thread.
Woven from memory, whisper, and faint glimmers of insight, the living map flickered as he studied it. Lines shifted, redrew themselves. Routes disappeared. Pathways emerged where none had existed moments ago. It refused permanence—just like the Spiral Wastes themselves.
Behind him, Ashlyn wrapped her coat tighter and muttered, "I've seen cursed things before, but that map looks like it's trying to forget itself."
"It is," Corin said. "Veyra warned me: the Wastes aren't just unstable terrain. They're fractured memory. What we step into isn't just broken land—it's living pattern. It doesn't want to be understood."
Fira adjusted the strap on her traveling case, glyphs shimmering faintly beneath her gloves. "We've gathered all the warding Threads I could convince the Loomguard to part with. Not nearly enough, but… we'll make do. I still think this is madness."
Ashlyn gave her a crooked grin. "I'd be more worried if you didn't."
They were standing in the last outpost before the Wastes began in earnest: Thistlewatch, a half-collapsed tower repurposed by rogue Threadcasters and cartographers who'd tried—and mostly failed—to map the eastern fractures. From its upper floors, one could see the horizon warp: Threads coiling skyward like fingers reaching from a drowned god, the land beneath them shimmering with impossible geometry.
No birds flew here. No animals stirred.
The Spiral Wastes were hungry.
Corin folded the map and tucked it into the lining of his coat. "We move in three hours. When the Loomlight peaks, the Threads stretch tightest. It's the only window stable enough to cross the first boundary."
Fira gave a terse nod and disappeared down the crumbling stairs, likely to adjust more protective wards.
Ashlyn lingered.
"You sure you're ready for this?" she asked. "You've changed since the Weft Below. You're still Corin… but also not."
He turned to her, surprised by her openness.
"I don't know if I'm ready," he said honestly. "But the world doesn't care. Kael is moving faster now, and the more I hesitate, the more ground he gains. We can't let him unweave the world before we understand what he's trying to make of it."
Ashlyn studied him. "You're sounding more like a Seer."
Corin shook his head. "No. Seers read the design and uphold it. I'm trying to understand why it was written this way to begin with."
She looked out toward the Wastes. "You know, once we cross the boundary, there's no turning back. Not safely."
"I know."
Ashlyn drew a breath. "Then I guess we go forward."
—
They set out at dawn.
The Loomlight above the horizon pulsed in deep violet hues, casting long shadows that shimmered unnaturally. At the edge of the known world, a thin ribbon of silver-threaded ground marked the beginning of the Spiral Wastes.
Corin stepped across it first.
The sensation was immediate.
It was like stepping through skin.
The air changed. Denser. Tighter. Threads around them no longer obeyed gravity—they drifted, curled, spiraled like curious worms in water. The terrain beneath their feet warped with every step. Stone turned to grass, then to glass, then to dust and back again.
Ashlyn flinched as a tendril of rogue Thread brushed her shoulder. "The pattern's wrong here. It doesn't just shift—it watches."
Fira muttered a low invocation, weaving a thin protective barrier of anchoring Threads around them. "Stay close. If we separate even a few feet, the Wastes will reroute us."
As they pressed deeper, the ground began to fold.
Literally.
Hills collapsed inward to become inverted valleys. Trees grew upside down from clouds of fog, their roots stretching toward the soil above. Loomlines in the sky knotted and reknotted with every blink.
Even Corin's internal sense of time began to bend.
But the Thread in his chest—the golden-black seam left by the Weft Below—anchored him. It pulsed like a metronome, guiding his steps. Reminding him of what was real.
After three hours, the land opened into a clearing.
They were surrounded by concentric rings of stone—twelve of them, each spiraling toward a central tower that appeared impossibly far and impossibly near all at once.
The Spiral Fold.
Fira whistled softly. "We made it."
Ashlyn didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on something above the tower.
Corin followed her gaze—and his breath caught.
High in the air, Threads were burning.
Not in flame, but in concept. Whole strands were being rewritten, overwritten. It was like watching pages of a book set ablaze, not with fire, but with thought. Entire lines of the Loom blinked out, replaced by jagged red-and-black constructs.
"Kael's already started," Ashlyn whispered.
Fira pointed to the base of the tower. "We've got movement. Loomshades. At least a dozen."
Corin squinted. The figures were blurred—flickering between real and unreal, their forms stitched from corrupted Threads. Former Seers, perhaps, or Threadbeasts reborn from failed patterns.
"They're guarding the Fold," he said. "Kael doesn't want anyone else touching the Spiral."
Ashlyn cracked her knuckles. "We'll need a distraction."
Fira nodded. "I'll rig a cascade anchor. Detonate it along the outer spiral. It should destabilize the field and give you a short window."
"You're not coming?" Corin asked.
Fira gave him a tight smile. "If I go with you, we'll both get shredded. My work is out here. Yours is in there."
Ashlyn turned to Corin. "You're not going in alone."
He met her eyes. "You don't have to."
She smirked. "Yes, I do."
Corin gripped her shoulder. "Thank you."
Fira moved off to set the anchor. Ashlyn and Corin crept to the edge of the closest stone ring, each step pulsing strangely beneath their boots.
At his core, the Thread flared.
The tower was close.
Too close.
—
Then, the ground shook.
A wave of heat and disruption burst across the rings as Fira's anchor detonated. Loomshades screamed—inhuman, rasping noises—and scattered from the outer rings.
"Now!" Ashlyn yelled.
They ran.
The spiral path was not physical, but conceptual—it shifted as they moved, sometimes requiring a leap of belief rather than muscle. They ran on memory, instinct, Thread.
Behind them, Loomshades gathered again. Too many.
The tower loomed ahead, impossibly tall. Its surface was made of woven light, constantly rewriting itself—doors vanishing, windows moving, architecture redrawing based on will.
Ashlyn threw a blade of woven Thread behind them, cutting down a pursuing shape.
Corin reached the base of the tower.
The air here was… thick.
No, not thick.
Intentional.
It was as if the Pattern itself paused to ask a question.
"Why are you here?"
He pressed a hand to the tower's gate.
"To understand," he whispered. "To stop him."
The gate opened.
Inside, the Loom didn't follow rules.
Time stretched.
Stairs rose in spirals, then bent into Mobius strips.
And at the top—
A man waited.
Tall. Composed. Threads coiled around his limbs like serpents.
Kael.
He looked at Corin and smiled.
"I was wondering when you'd catch up."
Ashlyn drew her bow.
Kael didn't flinch. "Easy, Ashlyn. If I wanted you dead, I'd have let the tower do it."
Corin stepped forward, breath steady. "You've begun rewriting. You're not hiding it anymore."
"No," Kael said. "Because it's too late to stop me."
Corin's Thread flared, golden-black.
Kael's eyes flicked toward it.
"You reached the Weft Below."
"I did."
Kael's expression tightened slightly. "Then you've seen what waits at the edge of the Pattern."
Corin nodded. "And I saw what we risk losing."
Kael gestured around him. "This Loom we're preserving? It was written by fear. Censorship. Panic. The First Pattern was never chaos—it was choice. I'm not destroying the world, Corin. I'm freeing it."
Corin stepped into the final circle.
"We'll see," he said.
And the Threads around them began to tremble.