The ruin rose like a broken jaw out of the ashen plains.
Half-swallowed by the land, the stone structure tilted at an impossible angle, as if crushed by the weight of an unseen colossus. Walls bore runes in a forgotten tongue. The entrance was a fractured arch, carved with reliefs of creatures that should never have existed.
Kaelen stood before it, unmoving, eyes narrowed.
Behind him, Aelira adjusted the grip on her daggers. The soul-thread between them pulsed like a tether through the world's silence.
"You feel that?" she asked softly.
"Yes," Kaelen murmured. "The Weave here is twisted. Distorted. Like something tried to erase this place—and failed."
Aelira nodded once. "It doesn't want us here."
"Which means we need to go in," he replied.
They stepped past the archway into blackness.
The temperature dropped instantly. Not cold, exactly—absence. Even the heat of their bodies seemed reluctant to exist within the ruin. Dust floated like memory. Air carried no scent. Sound died too quickly.
Kaelen's footfalls didn't echo. That disturbed him more than anything.
"This place is outside of time," he muttered.
Aelira glanced at him. "How do you know?"
"Because I can't hear the Weave," he said. "It's here—but muffled. Like we're walking through a sealed layer of reality."
The further they descended, the more wrong everything felt.
The halls bent in ways they shouldn't. The floor sloped upward, though they were moving deeper. Runes flickered with light not sourced from anything. Aelira brushed her fingers along a pillar—only to jerk back with a gasp.
"What—" she began.
Her fingertips were bleeding.
Kaelen stared. The pillar had no edges. No thorns. Yet the wound was clean. Precise.
"A memory trap," he said grimly. "These ruins were designed to fight perception."
"For what purpose?"
"To keep something in," Kaelen said. "Or keep everything else out."
Eventually, they entered a massive chamber.
Ceiling gone. Walls caved in. But the center still stood—an altar of black stone, smooth and silent. Atop it was a figure.
A corpse.
Yet not a corpse.
It was perfectly preserved. A man—or once a man. Clad in robes that shimmered faintly, as if resisting decay. His chest had been carved open, yet no blood had spilled. His eyes were closed. His expression… serene.
Kaelen stopped several feet away. The air around the body hummed.
Aelira approached more slowly.
"Something's wrong with its Weave signature," she whispered.
Kaelen extended his senses. The body pulsed like a heart—slow, rhythmic. The threads of the Weave twisted toward it unnaturally, like vines drawn to a buried sun.
"This is a remnant," Kaelen said, voice hushed. "A fragment of a Weavebound being. It's still partially alive… metaphysically."
Aelira looked shaken. "Do we leave it?"
Kaelen didn't answer.
Instead, he placed a hand over the altar.
The Weave screamed.
Kaelen staggered back as a pulse of raw force exploded from the corpse. Threads of light and darkness twisted through the chamber, shattering the illusion of space. Walls inverted. Ceiling became ground. Sound reversed.
And then—
The corpse opened its eyes.
No irises. No pupils. Just blank, radiant light.
A voice echoed—not from the mouth, but from the air.
"Are you… the one who inherits?"
Kaelen froze.
"What are you?" he asked.
The voice did not hesitate.
"I am what remains of the Seer-King of the First World. My name is dust, but my purpose lingers. I waited for the Weaver."
Aelira drew her blades. "It's a trap."
Kaelen ignored her. "Why wait here? Buried in nothing?"
"Because death is no longer final, and life no longer linear. I died across time. I was buried in truth. This ruin was my sarcophagus—and my prison."
The corpse sat up.
Kaelen tensed, but it made no move toward him.
Its glowing gaze fixed on him. "You have touched the Spindle. Bled through the Veil. The Weave has acknowledged you. But it has not accepted you."
"And what does that mean?" Kaelen asked, voice hard.
"You are not yet real."
Kaelen blinked. "I bled. I burned. I killed."
"So do phantoms."
Aelira stepped beside him, tension thick in her limbs. "Kaelen…"
The corpse continued: "To exist fully, you must claim a memory not your own. Anchor yourself in a moment that predates your creation. Only then will the Weave let you rewrite its pattern."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. "And how do I do that?"
"By consuming me."
The silence afterward was profound.
Kaelen stared at the being.
"Explain," he said.
"I am a living echo. My knowledge, my anchor to the First World—all stored in this corpse. Take it. Absorb it. Burn it into your thread. It will hurt. But it will make you real."
Aelira grabbed his arm. "Kaelen, this is suicide."
He shook her off.
"I've been half-real for too long."
He placed his palm on the chest of the corpse.
And pulled.
Pain tore through him like molten wire.
Images flooded his mind—
—A tower made of screams.—A city that bled starlight.—A throne built from names forgotten.—Twelve Weavewalkers burning a god's corpse for fuel.—A child laughing as a timeline collapsed.—His own face, smiling as a world ended.
Kaelen dropped to his knees, screaming.
His skin glowed. Runes carved themselves across his chest, then faded. His mind buckled, split, then reforged.
And then—
Silence.
The corpse crumbled to dust.
Kaelen rose.
Eyes glowing faintly.
Changed.
Aelira stared at him. "You're… not the same."
Kaelen breathed slowly. The threads around him no longer resisted. They obeyed.
"I remember now," he said softly. "A city called Nyrex. A language of thought. A threadline hidden beneath the Riftwilds. I was supposed to die before remembering this."
Aelira touched his arm. "And now?"
Kaelen looked down at her.
"Now, I begin."
They left the ruin together, silence stretching between them like a third presence.
Above them, the Riftstorm had calmed.
But the Weave had shifted.
Kaelen could feel it.
He was no longer just an anomaly.
He was becoming something worse.
A catalyst.