The drawing sat between them — still warm, as if glyphs could burn through paper alone.
Kael traced the edge of the cracked spiral with his fingertip, not touching the ink. He didn't need to. It hummed against his skin.
"She's predicting collapse," Aria said finally. "Without knowing it."
Kael didn't answer.
Senna had fallen asleep across the room, curled under her mother's coat like a blanket. Her fingers still twitched in her dreams, as if she were sketching even in sleep.
"I've seen pieces of this," Kael murmured. "Not the glyph. The moments."
Aria looked up. "Define 'moments.'"
He hesitated. "I dodge things I haven't seen. Say things I haven't thought yet. It's like… memory, but from the wrong direction."
Aria narrowed her eyes. "Future recall."
Kael nodded. "They're getting more frequent. Stronger. Like I'm being… pulled forward."
Aria reached into her comm-band and flicked a file toward his screen.
"Guildmaster's issued a quiet lockdown across four outer sectors," she said. "No public statement. No announcement. They're calling it 'Thread Containment.'"
Kael scrolled.
"Dominion doesn't know it's me?"
"Not yet," Aria said. "They've picked up a Divergence signal. But they haven't linked it to the Minotaur Gate—yet."
Kael looked at Senna, sleeping.
"They will."
"Yeah," Aria said quietly. "They will."
A quiet crack snapped through the room.
Kael spun.
A cup had rolled off the counter — shattered against the floor.
But he'd moved before it hit. Before it even tipped.
Aria froze.
Kael looked down at his hands. They weren't glowing. Not visibly. But something beneath his skin rippled.
Glyph residue.
"Jesus," Aria breathed. "You're syncing with unreleased threads."
Kael exhaled slowly. "She's drawing them before they happen."
"No," Aria corrected, stepping closer. "She's not just drawing them. She's tethering you to them. That's why your threads don't collapse when they should. She's stabilizing you."
Kael blinked.
Aria pointed at the spiral. "This isn't a prophecy. It's a leash."
He looked at Senna again. At the soft pulse of light under her closed eyes.
Aria whispered, "Kael, if she's syncing your path…"
She turned to him.
"…what happens when you fall?"
Kael stared at the shattered cup on the floor like it might explode.
"It's random," he muttered. "I don't control when it happens."
Aria knelt beside the wreckage, her fingers hovering over a shard. "Then we test it."
"I'm not risking her," Kael said immediately.
"I didn't say we test it on her," Aria snapped. "But you just predicted a spill. Let's see what else that brain of yours can intercept."
Kael flexed his fingers. The glyph pulses had faded — but something lingered. Like a signal waiting to reconnect.
Aria activated her raid kit, pulling up a low-grade drone emitter and a reflex delay timer.
"We set it on a randomized cycle," she explained. "You won't know the direction, speed, or time of attack. If you move before the trigger... we log it."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "You've done this before."
She didn't look at him. "Once. With someone who didn't come back."
He didn't ask who.
The emitter blinked active.
Aria stepped back. "Ready?"
Kael nodded.
Three seconds passed.
Four.
His muscles coiled, breath slow.
Then—
Nothing.
Just the low hum of city static through the cracked wall.
"Try again," he said.
Another cycle. Another pause.
Still nothing.
Kael closed his eyes.
Then it hit.
Not the drone.
A flicker.
Not memory. Not prediction.
A third path — like dreaming with your eyes open.
The emitter pulsed.
And Kael moved.
Not away.
Toward it.
His foot slammed the ground, shifting the emitter's axis before the delay fired. The drone launched sideways — crashing into the wall harmlessly.
Aria's eyes widened.
"You changed its output."
"I didn't mean to," Kael said, breathing fast. "I just… saw the route."
The system chimed softly:
❖ [Divergence Registered: Sync Layer Breached]
❖ [Observer Present – Threadwatcher Node Active]
Kael froze.
"What observer?"
A shimmer flared behind the emitter.
Not fully visible.
Just an outline.
A Reaper. Watching.
Then gone.
Not hostile.
Not passive.
Judging.
Kael turned to Aria. "It's not rollback anymore."
She stared at him.
"It's not even patching," he said, voice low.
"I think I'm syncing… to everything."
Kael sat on the roof of the crumbling safehouse, wrapped in cold silence.
The emitter test had ended over an hour ago, but the echo of the Reaper still lingered in the air — like frostbite on a memory. It hadn't spoken. It hadn't struck.
It had simply logged him.
That was worse.
He stared at the cityscape — flickering lights, guild patrols gliding overhead like carrion birds. No backup was coming. No answer would arrive.
He thought of Senna.
And the moment stretched.
Then broke.
It wasn't sleep.
It wasn't rollback.
Kael blinked.
And saw her.
Senna.
Across town.
In her room.
The crayons were scattered, light pooled through half-drawn glyphs. But the room was warm — grounded — safe.
She didn't look up from the wall she was sketching on. But her fingers stilled. Her crayon hovered.
Then she said:
"You're glowing again."
Kael's breath caught.
He wasn't hearing it through a device. He wasn't a ghost.
He was there.
Or more precisely — they both were somewhere else.
A merged thread.
Kael tried to speak, but he had no voice here.
Senna smiled gently. "You don't have to talk when it's safe. I like when it's quiet."
She finished the curve of the spiral. It shimmered faintly.
"Don't forget this one, okay?"
Then she touched it — and the light flared.
Kael gasped.
He was back on the rooftop.
Heart pounding. Palms burning.
And in his hand…
A folded page.
No.
A drawing.
The same glyph.
The one she hadn't finished yet.
❖ [Thread Anchor Detected: Dual-Sync Confirmed]
❖ [Rollback Containment: Breached]
❖ [Admin Trace Level: Escalating]
Above the skyline, a faint drone shimmered in cloaking mode.
It was Dominion tech.
And it was watching.