The knock came again—three sharp, deliberate raps that echoed through the Spire like a death knell.
Julian was already moving, his coat flaring behind him as he descended the grand staircase. I scrambled after him, my bare feet whispering against the cold marble. The air tasted metallic, ozone and warning, the kind that coils before a storm.
The entrance hall opened like a cathedral swallowed in shadow, its vaulted ceiling lost to gloom. Ahead, the great double doors—etched with scenes of long-dead warriors locked in eternal battle—trembled beneath another knock. Dust loosened from the archway above, falling like ash.
Julian didn't open the door.
He tore it off its hinges.
The wood groaned, splintered, and then collapsed outward in a burst of noise and splinters.
They stood in a perfect row beyond the threshold, five Conclave enforcers, statues in porcelain. Their masks gleamed like bone in the flickering torchlight, smooth and inhuman. No eyes. No mouths. Just the Conclave's insignia seared into their foreheads: a crescent moon cradling a single drop of blood. Their black gloves flexed soundlessly at their sides, fingers curling as though they ached to act.
"Julian Vire," the lead enforcer said. Their voice was a ghost's echo; flat, sexless, void of warmth. "By order of the Blood Accord, you will surrender the Soulweaver."
My breath caught. That word—Soulweaver—tightened around my chest like a noose. It sounded ancient, sacred, and utterly foreign coming from their mouth.
Julian didn't move. "You have no jurisdiction here."
They didn't flinch. The air between us thickened, like it had been stirred by invisible hands. One of them tilted their head just slightly; mechanical, too fluid to be real.
"All districts answer to the Conclave."
Julian's smile was all edge. "Not this one."
He reached into his coat.
The enforcers reacted immediately—hands flashing toward the silver hilts at their belts, energy humming in the air—but Julian only pulled out a ring.
A dull, timeworn signet, barely catching the light. A spire wrapped in thorns was carved deep into the face of it, blackened with age.
I'd never seen it before.
The lead enforcer recoiled like they'd been struck. "Lord of the Forgotten District."
The title hit the room like a dropped sword. I turned to Julian, blinking. The sharp line of his jaw, the distant gleam of crimson in his eyes. They hadn't changed. But I saw him differently now.
Lord. Not a fugitive. Not a relic of the past. A ruler.
"This is my territory," he said, voice low and rough. "You step where I allow."
I couldn't stay silent. "Julian—"
His arm shot out, pressing me behind him without so much as a glance. His eyes never left the enforcers. "Quiet."
I shoved his arm aside. "If they want me, let them take me."
His fingers clamped around my wrist. Not enough to break it but enough to bruise. His grip was ice and fire.
"You're mine to protect," he said.
The words shouldn't have made my heart stutter. But they did.
Then came the laugh.
Soft. Rasping. Familiar in a way that made my skin crawl.
Sister Veradine stepped from the shadows like smoke slipping through cracks in the stone. Her blood-red robes whispered against the cobblestones. The pristine silk blindfold over her eyes somehow made her stare more piercing. Her lips were stained the color of spoiled wine. The enforcers shifted like deer scenting a wolf.
"Children, children," she murmured, voice all lullaby and razors. "Must we really shed blood over prophecies?"
The lead enforcer bowed low. "Sister. The Conclave demands—"
"The Conclave fears," Veradine corrected gently. Her skeletal hand rose, fingers splayed as she summoned a pendulum from her sleeve—a delicate silver chain, glinting with every sway. It spun lazily between her fingers, catching and scattering the light in maddening fragments.
"The Spire's guest is fate's thread," she said, smiling faintly. "You know the words. You know the cost."
The enforcers exchanged the subtlest of glances. The pendulum spun faster. Around and around, as if time itself answered to her.
"Seven days," she said. "That is all fate requires."
A heartbeat passed in silence.
Then the lead enforcer nodded. "Seven days. Then the Conclave will have its due."
Julian's grip tightened on my wrist, his voice sharp. "And in return?"
Veradine turned to him, smile twisting like smoke. "You will attend the Eclipse Gala. Prove your loyalty. Kneel, if you must."
Julian's teeth bared, his fangs flashing white in the dark. But he nodded once, slowly.
The enforcers turned without another word, vanishing into the mist-soaked night like ghosts returning to the crypt.
Silence rushed in behind them.
I stared at Julian. At the hand that still held me. At the door now lying in broken pieces.
Lord of the Forgotten District. Soulweaver. Fate's thread.
None of this made sense.
But whatever had started, it wouldn't stop now.
***
The silence that followed felt unnatural. Not peaceful, not still. It was the kind that lingered after a scream.
Julian didn't move. His eyes—those terrible, beautiful eyes—stared at the space where the enforcers had vanished, like he could burn their shadows into ash. The weight of his hand still circled my wrist. I didn't pull away this time.
I looked at the ruined doors, splinters splayed like ribs cracked open, and realized—there's no putting things back together after this.
"Julian," I said again, softer now. The dust made my throat raw. "What does she mean… fate's thread?"
His jaw twitched. Then he turned, walking away without a word.
I followed him. What else could I do?
The stairs groaned under our weight as we ascended. The Spire felt different now—less sanctuary, more cage. I noticed how tall the walls really were. How few windows. How even the light seemed to hesitate inside it.
At the landing, he paused. "You shouldn't have spoken to them."
"They came for me," I snapped. "I get a voice in that."
He turned slowly, like gravity fought him. "Not all things are solved by voices, Ari. Some are only solved by blood."
My breath hitched. "Is that what the Gala is for? Blood?"
He didn't answer, but his silence spoke volumes.
In the dim corridor, his silhouette looked taller, older. Worn at the edges. I didn't know who I'd met weeks ago in the market square, but it hadn't been this version of him.
"You're a Lord," I said, the word foreign on my tongue. "You've been lying to me."
Julian's shoulders rose, then sank. He leaned against the cold stone wall, and for a moment, I saw weariness in the set of his body, a kind of loneliness so ancient it hummed.
"I never lied," he said. "I just didn't tell you everything."
A bitter laugh escaped me. "That's not better."
His gaze drifted toward the window at the end of the hall. It was still dark outside, though a pale band of dawn threatened the edge of the horizon. "I was hoping to protect you from all this. Give you time before the world asked too much of you."
"But it already is," I whispered. "They called me Soulweaver. What does that mean?"
Julian was quiet for a long time.
Then he said, "Come with me."
He didn't wait for me to agree. I followed because some part of me wanted to believe the answer would come with the walk.
We entered a room I hadn't seen before. It was tucked behind a curtain of shadow, deep in the west wing of the Spire. Inside, the walls were painted black. The only source of light came from a strange lantern on a pedestal in the center, glowing not with flame, but memory.
Golden strands drifted inside it, like threads suspended in water.
Julian approached it with reverence. "This is a Loom."
He gestured, and the light grew brighter, the threads spinning faster.
"These strands," he said, voice low, "are pieces of fate. Threads not yet chosen. Only one born a Soulweaver can pull from them. Shape them. Make them real."
My skin went cold. "And that's me?"
He nodded.
"But I don't know how. I didn't even know what it was until tonight."
Julian looked at me then, really looked—past my fear, past my shaking hands and quickening breath.
"You don't need to know yet," he said. "But the Conclave believes you will. And they'll break the world to get what they want from you."
I stared at the glowing threads. Each one hummed. Sang. As if they remembered the lives they hadn't lived yet.
"I never asked for this," I murmured.
"No one ever does," Julian said gently. "Not the kings. Not the monsters. Not the weavers of fate."
He stepped back from the Loom. I felt its pull—quiet, magnetic—like it wanted me to touch it.
But I didn't.
Not yet.
"Seven days," I said, the words hollow. "What happens if I don't figure it out by then?"
Julian didn't answer right away. When he did, it was barely a whisper.
"Then the Conclave takes you. And tears the thread from you, piece by piece."