The battlefield had changed.
It was no longer just soil and stone. It was woven now, the Loom itself bleeding into the world—colors shifting underfoot, names crawling across the sky like storm clouds of ink.
Lira stood at the center, her hands trembling with power. Each thread she called into being brought someone—or something—closer to her.
Ashrel held the line to the east, blades humming with firelight. Kaelen stood at her side, bloodied but alive, face set with resolve.
Davin, meanwhile, had vanished.
"He's out there," Kaelen muttered. "I can feel him."
Lira didn't reply.
She was hearing too many voices.
The Severers moved with eerie precision, not fighting as individuals, but as one shared will. Every time they struck, they didn't just aim for flesh—they aimed to unwrite the target.
Ashrel had already lost part of his left gauntlet—its history severed. It clung to his arm like a forgotten dream.
"They're not killing us," he growled. "They're editing us."
Kaelen snarled. "Then it's time we became un-editable."
Lira reached deep into the Loom.
This time, she didn't pull a name—she pulled a story.
A forgotten legend of a warrior queen who once held the last mountain against ten thousand hollowed men. Her name was Serana Firewake.
"Come," Lira whispered. "Return."
The Loom cracked.
A streak of golden light tore across the field.
A figure landed beside her, wielding a glaive of sunstone.
"Who calls Serana?" the woman boomed.
Lira dropped to one knee. "I remembered you."
The queen smiled with battle in her eyes.
"Then let us remind them who I was."
Ashrel backed toward them, barely holding off two Severers.
Kaelen dragged one to the ground and drove a knife into its memory—watching its entire form collapse into ink and threads.
"They're getting faster," he gasped.
Lira stood, eyes glowing.
"Then we need to remember faster."
Far above, Myelren watched.
For the first time, it hesitated.
Its voice echoed across the field like thunder through a cathedral:
"You bring back too much. You bend time. You summon death and mistake it for hope."
Lira looked up at it.
"We're not summoning death."
"We're summoning choice."
Elsewhere, in the forest at the edge of the Loom's reach, Davin knelt beside something ancient.
It wasn't a Severer.
It wasn't alive.
It was… himself—younger, broken, whispering.
"Don't remember me," the shade said. "Don't make me real again."
Davin's hand hovered over the flickering form.
"I have to."
The shade grinned with bleeding teeth.
"Then you'll never forget what I did."
The battlefield paused.
A strange silence fell.
One of the Severers dropped its blade and… wept.
Kaelen stepped back. "That one—"
Lira nodded slowly.
"That one's learning."
Ashrel narrowed his eyes. "And that means?"
"We're not just remembering the past anymore," she whispered.
"We're rewriting it."
The Loom shimmered. A warning.
Every change had a price.
Every name restored took a part of Lira.
And now it demanded more.
She clutched her side—her heartbeat skipping, her own name starting to blur.
Kaelen caught her as she staggered.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm running out of… me."
Far to the south, Eren Tel'Vareen crested the final dune.
He felt the surge. The breach. The rewriting.
He muttered a curse under his breath.
"You foolish child. You're going to tear the whole world in half."
He drew his blade.
"Then I'll hold the other half together."