The hum grew unbearable.
Every pulse rattled through Arielle's bones, resonating so fiercely she couldn't tell if she was still breathing or if the tether's rhythm had replaced her heartbeat entirely. The threads around her vibrated in time, quivering like an orchestra waiting for a conductor's signal.
Selene's grip on her arm tightened. They were already fraying — Arielle could feel it, the subtle unraveling of their stitches, the slight dimming of their silver glow with every step. They were holding themselves together by sheer force of will, and it wouldn't last.
Outside, the Conclave's Wardens swept closer. She could sense their weave nets, each pulse sending tremors through her core. The Conclave wasn't here to negotiate anymore. They weren't here to contain. They were here to end her.
Draven stood in the shadows of the tram station, calm and deliberate, his coat trailing like a second shadow. His voice slid through the rising hum as though he spoke directly to the core of her.
"Choose, Arielle. The Conclave will carve your core out before dawn. Selene will die trying to hold you together. With me, you live. You become what you were meant to be."
Selene's silver gaze burned, their voice a steel edge despite the fatigue. "He won't save you, Arielle. He'll own you. Every Anchor he's 'saved' is just a piece of him now. You'd lose your will. You'd lose you."
Arielle's breath came ragged, her pulse a war drum beneath her ribs. She glanced between them — Selene, frayed but unyielding, and Draven, steady and certain.
But the tether… the tether whispered louder.
She could feel it now, not just as a hum but as a presence. Beneath the streets, across the city, a living weave older than the Conclave, older than Draven, older than anything she'd ever known. It didn't feel like a predator. It didn't feel like a savior.
It felt… empty. Waiting.
Another pulse detonated outside, shaking dust from the ceiling beams. Threads snapped in the distance like breaking glass, followed by the faint echo of Wardens shouting orders. The Conclave was closing in.
Selene drew their needle, thread crackling along its length like lightning. "We have to move. Now. Or they'll bring the whole district down to get to you."
Draven didn't move. He extended a hand, calm, patient, violet light tracing faint patterns along his palm. "Or you can stop running. Step into your power before they tear it out of you. Walk with me, and the tether won't burn you alive."
Arielle's fingers trembled at her sides. The hum throbbed so loudly it felt as if the world itself had fallen into its rhythm. Selene's words. Draven's promises. The Conclave's nets tightening like a noose.
And beneath it all, that other pull — deeper, quieter, but steady. The tether itself, calling her, like a void in need of a thread to fill it.
For the first time, she wondered if her survival, if the city's survival, would mean siding with either of them at all.
Maybe she wasn't meant to be Selene's Anchor. Or Draven's tethered heir.
Maybe she was meant to be something else entirely.
The station floor cracked beneath her feet as another Conclave pulse hit, this one so close the wards on the walls flared and died. The threads around Arielle surged, responding not to fear or panic but to the thought she hadn't dared voice aloud:
What if I stop choosing between them? What if I choose the tether itself?
The hum rose, crescendoing until it was almost a scream. The threads in the air whipped around her like wind-torn banners, some glowing silver, others violet, all drawn into orbit around the mark beneath her skin.
Selene stumbled back a step, eyes wide. "Arielle—"
Draven's faint smile sharpened, his gaze narrowing with recognition. "Ah. So you hear it too."
The station's walls groaned as the energy built, the tether's pulse synchronizing with Arielle's until the two were indistinguishable. Dust cascaded from the ceiling in soft streams. The distant voices of the Wardens rose, closer now, a chorus of shouted commands.
Arielle looked between Selene and Draven one last time.
And then, slowly, deliberately, she turned away from them both.
Her voice was low, steady, even as the hum roared around her. "I'm done choosing between leashes. If the Conclave wants to kill me, and you want to claim me…" Her eyes lifted to the ceiling, to the faint violet glow of the tether bleeding through the cracks above. "…then I'll bind myself to something bigger than either of you."
The threads around her shivered, tightening their orbit. The hum shifted, deeper, heavier, as if the tether itself had heard her.
Selene's breath caught. "Arielle, you don't know what you're touching—"
"I know it's the only way I don't burn," Arielle said, her voice rising as the hum swelled. "The only way I don't get carved open or chained like a dog. I'm not yours, Selene. I'm not his. I'll make my own weave."
Draven's smile faded, his calm finally cracking. "Be careful, Arielle. The tether doesn't serve. It consumes. Once you bind yourself to it, there's no undoing it."
Arielle closed her eyes, the hum swallowing every sound but its own. For a fleeting, impossible moment, she felt the entire city's threads stretching out like veins beneath her fingertips — fragile, tangled, breaking.
And for the first time, she didn't feel crushed by it.
She felt… ready.
Outside, the Wardens breached the station, their loopblades crackling as the first squad descended the stairs. Silver light flared from Selene's needle. Violet threads coiled along Draven's hands.
But Arielle was already moving, her feet leaving the cracked tiles as threads lifted her upward like unseen wings.
The tether answered her call.
And the city's weave began to shift.