The hum didn't let Arielle sleep.
Not that night, not the next morning. It vibrated through her chest like a tether string plucked again and again, each note drawing her thoughts back to Draven's words. Live. Keep the power. Stop burning yourself for people who would slit your throat.
Selene barely left her side, moving around the safehouse with a kind of precise calm that looked effortless but felt tense, as if every step was measured to avoid setting her off balance. They stitched wards into the walls, traced quiet silver runes over her palms, whispered reassurances that she wasn't slipping — not yet.
But they couldn't quiet the hum. They couldn't stop the visions, either.
The first came at dawn. Arielle blinked and saw herself reflected in the window: not as she was, but as something else. Veins of glowing black traced beneath her skin like rivers, her eyes pools of violet light, her fingertips trailing thin, shimmering threads that pulsed like veins of living energy.
In the reflection, she wasn't breaking. She wasn't hollowed out by the weight of others' bonds. She was… whole.
And for the first time since the tether had started its slow crawl into her bones, she felt something she hadn't in weeks.
Control.
That night, while Selene slept sitting upright against the far wall — exhaustion finally forcing them into stillness — Arielle slipped out.
The streets of Starlight City were quiet, save for the occasional flicker of stray threads drifting along the gutter. The Conclave had pulled its sentinels inward, likely preparing for her "transfer." No one stopped her as she followed the hum — not the one in her chest, but another, subtler thread, a pull she could almost taste.
It led her to the ruins of the old Concord Cathedral, a shattered spire on the edge of the city where the tether was strongest. The air there felt heavier, humming with energy, as if the tether's roots were closest to the surface.
Draven was waiting at the center of the nave, his coat trailing along the cracked mosaic floor. The violet glow of the tether spilled through the holes in the ceiling, painting him in shifting light.
"You came," he said, as though he'd known she would.
Arielle stopped several feet away, crossing her arms. "Don't get smug. I'm not here to kneel at your feet."
His mouth curved faintly. "Then why are you here?"
She hesitated, the hum pulsing louder in her chest, until she said, "I want to know what happens if I don't fight it. The tether. The hum. The changes. All of it. What you are."
Draven studied her, his eyes sharp and unreadable. Then, without a word, he raised a hand and traced a small circle in the air. Threads coiled outward, forming a rippling window of violet light.
Through it, Arielle saw them: a dozen figures, standing in a dimly lit hall of black stone. Anchors, each marked with faint glowing sigils similar to hers, their movements deliberate and fluid. None of them looked burned out, none flickered like Selene after too many stitches. They were… steady. Whole.
"These were Anchors once," Draven said. "The Conclave would have bled them dry or extracted their cores when their resonance grew too unstable. I gave them another option."
Arielle frowned. "You bound them to you."
"I tethered them," he corrected. "Their hum doesn't tear them apart anymore because it flows through me. They live. They thrive. More than they ever would have chained to the Conclave's rules."
She tore her eyes from the image, her voice low. "And in return? What do they give you?"
Draven's faint smile didn't change. "Their strength. Their threads. Their loyalty. Nothing is free, Arielle. But they exist. Isn't that better than burning to ash?"
The hum inside her throbbed, as if in agreement. For a fleeting moment, she imagined herself in that hall — no longer fraying, no longer fearing every surge, her body her own again.
But before she could speak, a sharp voice cut through the nave.
"Arielle!"
Selene stood at the shattered archway, their silver glow stark against the violet tetherlight. Their needle was in hand, thread crackling like lightning along its edge.
Draven didn't turn. His gaze stayed on Arielle, calm as ever. "Decide quickly. The Conclave's already moving. You can run back to your Keeper and let them deliver you to the Spire… or you can walk away now, with me. Live."
Selene stepped forward, their voice taut but steady. "Don't listen to him. He doesn't save Anchors. He consumes them. Every one of those people you saw? They're nothing but extensions of his weave now. No will. No choice."
Arielle's chest tightened, the hum rising like a tidal wave. Both voices pressed in — Selene's, cool and steady despite the strain; Draven's, dark and tempting, promising a way out of the suffocating hum.
Her breath caught, her hands trembling. For a moment, she wasn't sure if she could still tell the difference between the hum and her own heartbeat.
"I just… I don't want to burn," she whispered.
Selene's eyes softened, but their voice was fierce. "Then we'll find another way. Together. I swear it, Arielle. But if you tether yourself to him, there's no coming back. You'll lose yourself. You'll stop being you."
Draven extended a hand, calm and patient. "Or you'll stop pretending the Conclave's way was ever meant to let you survive."
The hum roared, drowning out the world, threads of silver and violet flickering at the edges of Arielle's vision. Both choices stood before her — one a promise of love and struggle, the other of power and survival.
For the first time, she realized neither path would let her walk away unchanged.