The tether didn't just hum anymore.
It sang.
Arielle could feel its pulse deep beneath the streets, radiating through her bones like a second heartbeat. Every thread in the air vibrated to its rhythm, bending, waiting, listening for her next breath.
And that terrified her more than the Conclave's Wardens ever had.
They hadn't been gone ten minutes before the ground trembled. Not from the Conclave this time, but from something deeper — a resonance building below, rising through the city's veins like pressure in a sealed pipe.
Selene felt it too. Their hand tightened on her arm as they dragged her through a narrow alley, their stitches weaving a temporary cloak of silence around them. Even their usually calm voice carried an edge. "The tether's reacting to you. It's not just answering — it's amplifying. Every breath you take, it's pulling more of the weave into your orbit."
Draven followed a few paces behind, hands folded, calm but watching her with an intensity that felt like a knife edge. "And yet she's still standing. That alone should tell you she isn't breaking. She's evolving. The tether's never chosen an Anchor like this before."
Selene shot him a sharp glance but didn't waste the energy for an argument. "If this keeps building, it won't matter who it's 'choosing.' The city's weave will tear itself apart. Do you understand what happens when a living tether floods the lattice unchecked? Streets collapse. Wards rupture. Half the district will fall into itself."
Arielle tried to steady her breath, but the tether wasn't listening. Each inhale drew more threads toward her, silver and violet strands streaming from broken windows and fractured sigils, wrapping around her like ghostly ribbons. They weren't suffocating — not yet — but the weight of them was growing, and every pulse felt like it could crack her ribs.
And then the singing stopped.
The hum went silent.
The threads around her froze midair.
The next instant, the surge hit.
It was like the city exhaled all at once.
A shockwave burst outward from Arielle's chest, silent but visible, bending the air in a ripple that spread through the streets. Every light in Starlight City flickered. Wards sputtered and died. The ground itself groaned, fissures splitting the pavement as if the earth were trying to breathe.
Selene cursed, snapping their needle into both hands and driving a silver stitch into the cracked ground, anchoring them in place. Their glow flared painfully bright as they forced a stabilizing weave into the fissures.
Draven didn't flinch. His coat flared around him as he wove a dozen violet sigils midair, redirecting the wild threads spiraling outward so they wouldn't slice the nearest buildings in half. His voice was level, almost amused despite the chaos. "You feel that, Arielle? That's not destruction. That's capacity. The tether's feeding you more power than the Conclave would ever allow any living Anchor to hold."
Arielle's breath hitched as another pulse rolled through her, stronger than the last. Her fingers trembled, her vision flickering between the dim alley and a ghostly overlay of the entire weave — veins of energy coursing beneath the streets, converging on her like rivers to a reservoir.
"I… can't stop it," she managed, her voice strained.
"You don't stop it," Draven said, his tone soft but sharp. "You direct it. Take it in. Make it yours. Otherwise, the Conclave will swoop in and lock you inside a Spire core until you burn out, and this city will tear itself apart without anyone to hold it together."
Selene snarled without looking up from their stabilizing stitches. "Or she takes it, becomes your tethered pet, and ends up hollow. That's not survival. That's just a slower death."
Another surge rolled outward, this one cracking the nearest building's foundation. The threads Arielle hadn't consciously called began to lash outward like whips, slicing through Conclave banners and snapping streetlamps in half. Her heart raced, each beat another ripple through the tether that sent more cracks spiderwebbing beneath her feet.
And somewhere, faint but undeniable, she felt the tether itself whisper.
Not words, not exactly. Just a pull, deeper than instinct. A direction. A sense of something beneath the city — a core, a nexus, calling her closer as if it were the only thing that could quiet the storm building in her chest.
Selene reached her first, grabbing her by both shoulders, silver glow flaring so bright it stung Arielle's eyes. "Arielle, listen to me. You need to ground yourself. Focus on me. On your anchor line. Not the tether."
But Draven's voice sliced through, calm and commanding. "No. Let it guide you. Follow it to the nexus. That's where you'll stabilize — not by clinging to a Keeper who's bleeding out her own thread just to keep your core from tearing loose."
Arielle's gaze darted between them, her breath shallow, the hum now a pounding roar behind her ears. Selene's hands were warm, grounding, but their stitches were fraying fast — she could feel the unraveling, the risk that holding onto her might kill them both.
Draven, for all his dangerous calm, didn't feel like he'd break. He radiated the same steadiness as the tether itself, as if nothing in the storm could shake him.
Another pulse hit. The ground beneath them split wider, a jagged chasm yawning open to reveal a faint violet glow far below — the tether's veins, coursing like molten rivers beneath the city.
The pull toward that glow nearly buckled Arielle's knees.
And in that moment, she realized: she couldn't hold the surge back. Not here. Not like this.
The only way to stop Starlight City from collapsing… might be to follow the tether's call, all the way down.
The air cracked as a new squad of Wardens appeared on the far end of the street, their armor glowing brighter, their weapons laced with resonance dampeners. One of them raised a sigil staff, a flare of white-thread energy erupting from its tip.
Draven moved first, his hand slicing the air as a wave of violet constructs shattered the flare midair. "Decide, Arielle. Right now. Stay here, and the Conclave buries you under their Spire. Follow me, and you reach the nexus. Survive."
Selene's grip tightened, their silver glow dimming dangerously. "Or follow me, and we shut this down before it swallows the city whole. I can anchor you — if you trust me. If you want to stay yourself."
The hum pounded louder, drowning out the distant shouts of the Wardens, the groaning streets, even her own pulse.
And Arielle understood, with sudden clarity, that no matter whom she chose… she wouldn't walk away from the tether unchanged.
Not this time.