Arion walked ahead without speaking, his footsteps quiet on the smooth, translucent floor that stretched endlessly beneath them. The corridor was long and curved, lit by light veins running along the walls, pale blue lines that pulsed with a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat. Celene followed closely, watching the way his shoulders tensed, how he never looked back at her. He was lean, almost too still, like a creature trained to blend in, to stay unseen until it was too late. She kept her questions to herself. Every word in her mouth felt unformed, clumsy. She didn't trust her voice yet. She didn't trust anything.
After a long silence, Arion finally spoke. "You're walking fine."
It wasn't praise. It was observation.
She nodded. "I feel… steady now."
He said nothing else. The corridor widened into a larger hall, circular and tall, with high ceilings that faded into shifting shadows. This was not like the room she woke in. This space was older. More alive. Every inch of the walls was covered in vertical threads, hundreds, maybe thousands—each one glowing faintly. Some flickered, some pulsed, while some burned with such quiet intensity that the air around them warped.
Celene stopped near the center, staring up at the threads. They stretched all the way to the ceiling, anchored in both ends. Their colors varied, some silver, black, crimson, violet, gold and each gave off a subtle vibration.
"This is the Hall of Threads," Arion said, finally turning to face her. "It holds the life strands of every marked being in the Axis system. Some are still alive. Some are echoes. Some are incomplete."
She didn't understand. "Which one is mine?"
He pointed to a thread near the far wall, it was dull white, barely pulsing. "That one. Reignited six days ago."
Celene stepped closer. As she did, the thread reacted. It brightened faintly, and a wave of warmth passed through her chest. Her knees weakened. Arion caught her before she hit the floor, holding her steady.
"Don't get too close. It still doesn't fully recognize you."
She leaned against him for a second longer before stepping away. "Why does it feel… strange?"
"Because it's split," a new voice said from behind them.
Celene turned. A woman had entered the chamber. She was tall, cloaked in layered robes of dark plum, her hair braided with fine wire. Her eyes were covered by a thin band of glass, like a blindfold, yet she moved with perfect awareness.
"This is Keeper Thaleen," Arion said. "She maintains the thread registry."
Thaleen approached, her steps soundless. "You're a new presence, but you carry something old. I reviewed your strand. It's not whole. The core is functional, but the memory branches have been removed. Or locked."
"Can they be unlocked?" Celene asked.
"In time. Or when triggered."
Celene frowned. "Triggered by what?"
"Impact. Familiar presence. Conflict. Anything strong enough to shake the barriers."
Thaleen lifted a hand toward Celene's thread. The white line dimmed and shifted, forming in seconds, a weaker strand beside it, more shorter and thinner, it was not even connected to the top anchor.
"A shadow branch," Thaleen muttered. "You've been used."
"Used how?"
Thaleen didn't answer. Instead, she waved her hand again, and a second figure appeared beside her. This one was younger, barely older than Celene, and was wearing a dark uniform with bronze clasps and a single crest over her chest.
"This is Vexa," Thaleen said. "Thread-sensitive. She'll test your reaction in controlled spaces."
Celene's throat tightened. "Test how?"
"Emotional pressure. Environmental triggers. Light combat if required," Vexa said plainly. Her tone was neutral, but not cold. "We monitor the response and adjust."
Arion turned to Thaleen. "She's not stable yet."
"She's stable enough to observe," Thaleen replied. "The longer the memory pathways remain closed, the more distorted the thread becomes. We need to act while it's still responsive." Celene watched all of them in silence. She felt like a tool being examined from every angle. But she didn't resist. Somewhere inside, she felt that none of this was strange. None of it felt foreign, only forgotten.
Thaleen turned to her again. "You'll remain within the Inner Axis for now. No perimeter access. No link with external subjects."
"I don't know anyone," Celene said. "Why would that matter?"
"Because they may know you," Thaleen said. "And that's the real danger."
She left after that, along with Vexa. The space dimmed as their presence faded.
Arion stood by the wall, his arms folded. "She's difficult. But she's usually right."
Celene sat on the stone bench beneath her thread. "Do you know what I was before?"
"No." he replied.
"Do you care?" she asked again.
"I don't have to." he replied again, but this time, in a nonchalant manner.
She looked at him. "Then why are you here?"
He shrugged. "Orders."
"Do you hate it?"
His jaw twitched. "It doesn't matter."
They sat in silence again. She tried to count the glowing threads but It made her dizzy.
Finally, she spoke. "You said I wasn't supposed to return. Why?"
Arion looked at her then. "Because your thread was sealed. Not severed. Which means something forced you back into the system. That doesn't happen unless something breaks protocol."
"Do you think I broke it?"
"No. But whatever brought you back didn't do it cleanly. And someone or something wanted you forgotten."
Celene stared at the thread. "Then I want to remember."
He didn't reply.
A moment later, the lights in the chamber flickered once… then again. A low sound rumbled beneath their feet.
The threads shivered. Not just hers, all of them. Across the chamber, the silver threads darkened. The crimson ones glowed too bright. One black thread pulsed violently and snapped, vanishing in a sharp hiss. Alarms didn't ring nor did voices rise. But the room changed.
Arion pulled her to her feet. "That's not normal."
"What happened?" she asked, her heart pounding.
"It's a death or a breach. Possibly both."
A section of the wall shifted open behind them. Vexa returned, her eyes wide, holding a small orb that blinked rapidly.
"We have a veil disturbance," she said, breath tight. "Someone crossed into the Inner Axis from a forbidden gate, there was no clearance or thread registration."
Arion turned sharply. "Show me where."
Vexa nodded. "Third district, below the Archives. But they vanished before the barrier could be contained."
"Did anyone see them?"
"One of the central monitors caught a flicker. It looked like a mask and their presence… it rattled the threads."
Celene's hands clenched. Her thread behind her still flickered, weaker now. Arion met her gaze. "If it was drawn to you, we're out of time."