The storm erupted. Crimson threads unfurled like a tidal wave, blotting out the burning sky, shattering streets, twisting reality into a spiral of red. They weren't just weapons anymore—they were corridors, tunnels leading into places none of them wanted to tread.
Clara braced, wings flaring wide, fire blazing hotter than before. But her flame flickered as the threads touched her aura, dragging at her mind.
And then—she was gone.
Not physically. But the battlefield collapsed, replaced by silence.
She stood on a bridge of fire spanning a void. Beneath her feet, flames whispered her own name, over and over, like chanting monks. Across the bridge stood someone waiting.
Yurin.
Or was it?
His smile was softer, his eyes less sharp. He looked at her the way no one had ever looked at her before—not as a paradox, not as a danger, not as a weapon. As if she were the only thing in the world.
"Clara," he said. "You don't need to fight me. You don't need to fight this. You belong with me. In the threads. Always."
Her throat tightened. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. And yet… the warmth in his voice was almost enough to melt her fire.
"No," she whispered, clutching her flames like a shield. "You're not him. You're what he could become. What he hides."
The false Yurin stepped closer, the bridge vibrating under his calm stride. "And what if I told you that's exactly why you're drawn to him? Not his restraint. Not his quiet calm. But this. The storm. You crave it too."
Her fire flickered violently. And for a heartbeat—she wasn't sure he was wrong.
---
Meanwhile, Damien staggered under his own illusion.
He stood in a coliseum, flames roaring around him. Thousands cheered from the stands, their faces blurred, but their voices screaming his name. At the center of the arena, chained and beaten, knelt his sister. The one he could never save.
Above her, a crimson figure hovered, holding threads poised to strike.
The crowd screamed louder. "Burn him! Burn him! Burn him!"
Damien's fists ignited, his body shaking. He knew this wasn't real, but his sister's trembling breath, her eyes wide and begging—it was too much.
"Stop it!" he roared. "Stop showing me this!"
The crowd only screamed louder.
The crimson figure's threads plunged—straight into her chest.
Damien screamed until the fire consumed the coliseum, erasing it in a storm of molten rage.
---
Evelyn's trial was quieter.
She was in a ballroom, chandeliers glittering, violins humming. Men and women spun in elegant dances, but their faces were stitched shut with threads, their laughter muffled behind bleeding lips.
At the center, on the grand piano, sat a girl with silver hair and eyes too wide—herself. Or rather, the self she had buried. The Evelyn who had once been human, before the obsidian blade had carved her into something else.
The girl played a discordant tune, each key dripping blood. She didn't look up.
"Stop pretending," the child-Evelyn whispered. "Stop laughing. Stop hiding. You were never meant to be whole again."
For the first time in years, Evelyn's grin faltered.
Her fingers touched her lips. No smile came.
And in that crack of silence, the ballroom shattered.
---
And Yurin—
Yurin alone faced nothing.
The storm did not offer him illusions, no past to relive, no future to dread. Instead, he stood in perfect silence, staring at his own reflection stretched across the crimson sky.
The reflection spoke. "You've already accepted me."
Yurin did not reply. His calm was not shaken—but his threads trembled faintly in the air.
---
Clara stumbled from the bridge illusion, gasping, wings trembling. Her fire burned brighter, hotter, but it felt wrong—thicker, heavier, as though threads pulsed inside the flames. She looked at her hands and froze.
Her fire wasn't purely fire anymore. Within the blaze, crimson filaments flickered—threads.
Damien landed beside her, coughing blood, his flames guttering. Evelyn drifted down next, silent, her grin gone. They all looked to Yurin.
The storm raged higher, the memory version of Yurin raising his hand again, threads like a thousand spears pointed at them.
But Clara barely heard. Her gaze stayed fixed on her own hands. Her own fire. Her own crimson threads beginning to stir.
She whispered, trembling, "What's happening to me…?"
And for the first time, Yurin Crimson turned his head sharply toward her, his calm mask breaking.
"Clara," he said, voice edged with something dangerously close to fear. "Do not let it take root."