Cursed Causality

The ash of the Blackened Quill clung to Kael's boots as he walked, each step a whisper of what he'd done. The sigils on his arms throbbed, their jagged lines glowing faintly in the dusk like embers beneath his skin. He'd wrapped his arms in stolen linen, but the bandages did little to muffle the ache. They pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a reminder that the power he'd unleashed wasn't free. Nothing ever is.

Lethis sprawled around him, a carcass picked clean by war. Crumbling towers leaned like drunkards over streets choked with refugees and mercenaries. The air reeked of charred wood and rotting meat, a far cry from the city's past as the Jewel of the North. Kael kept to the shadows, his crimson eyes scanning for Ordos Tempus scouts. The woman from the Infernal Cartography—Veyra, she'd called herself—had warned him the celestials would already be hunting. He didn't doubt it.

He found her in the underbelly of the city, where the sewers bled into a labyrinth of black markets and forgotten crypts. A rusted gate marked her hideout, its bars twisted into the shape of screaming faces. Kael smirked. Subtlety wasn't the Cartography's strength.

Veyra waited inside, perched on a throne of stacked grimoires. The room stank of sulfur and dried blood, lit by candles that burned without flickering. Her void-like eyes tracked him as he entered.

"You're late," she said.

"I took the scenic route." Kael tossed the parchment with Elyra Voss's name onto the table between them. "This envoy. Why her?"

Veyra's needle-teeth glinted. "Elyra Voss is no mere diplomat. She's a weaver, like you. The Ordos uses her to stabilize fraying timelines—to erase mistakes." She leaned forward. "Your little tavern stunt? She'll undo it. Rewind the threads until your name is scrubbed from history. Poof."

Kael's jaw tightened. The sigils flared, searing his bandages. "So I kill her. Then what?"

"Then the Cartography owns causality in this sector. And you?" She shrugged. "You live. Maybe even claw back some of that humanity you're so fond of pretending you don't miss."

He ignored the jab. "Where is she?"

"The Argent Spire. A celestial outpost three days north. You'll need this." She slid a dagger across the table. Its blade was obsidian, etched with infernal runes. "Cuts through fate itself. Use it on her, and her weaves unravel."

Kael gripped the hilt. The runes writhed under his touch. "Any other surprises?"

Veyra's smile widened. "Don't miss."

---

The Spire rose from the wastes like a shard of frozen lightning, its crystalline walls refracting the pale northern sun into fractured rainbows. Kael crouched in the skeletal remains of a watchtower, miles from the outpost's gates. His breath fogged in the air, and the sigils on his arms burned hotter with every heartbeat.

He'd seen the threads here.

They hung over the tundra like a tapestry, gold and silver filaments knotting around the Spire's apex. Elyra's work. She was stitching order into the region, smoothing chaos into obedient lines. A shame to ruin it.

He'd just begun to plot his approach when the raven landed beside him.

It was the same bird from Lethis—storm-cloud eyes, feathers gleaming with unnatural oiliness. Kael glared. "Tell your masters I'm busy."

The raven cocked its head. Then it shifted.

Wings became a cloak, talons became boots, and where the bird had stood now loomed a woman. Tall, her armor the color of tarnished silver, her face hidden behind a helm shaped like a clockwork owl. A glaive glowed in her hands, its edge humming with temporal energy.

Ordos Tempus.

"Kael Vritra," she said, her voice metallic, filtered through the helm. "You are charged with causal fracturing, temporal sabotage, and the murder of Ordos Agent Tellen."

Kael rose, dagger loose in his grip. "You missed jaywalking."

She didn't laugh. "Surrender. Or I unmake you where you stand."

He lunged first.

---

Seraphine (for that was her name) moved like mercury. Her glaive parried his strikes, each clash sending sparks skittering across the stones. Kael pressed, testing her defenses, but she was relentless. A slash grazed his thigh; another nearly took his head.

"You're quick," he growled, ducking a swing that shattered the tower's last intact wall.

"And you're predictable." Her glaive hummed. "All demons are."

He grinned. "Let's test that."

He reached for the threads.

They erupted around him, crimson and snarled. Seraphine's own threads glowed gold, a lattice of order around her. Kael seized a cluster of hers and pulled.

The world stuttered.

Seraphine's next strike veered wildly, gouging the ground instead of his chest. Kael pivoted, driving the obsidian dagger toward her ribs—

She vanished.

No, not vanished. Rewound.

She stood three paces back, glaive raised, as if the last minute had never happened. Her helm tilted. "You see the threads. But you don't understand them."

Kael's sigils blazed. "Enlighten me."

She attacked again, faster. "The Ordos doesn't manipulate causality. We serve it. You break the loom. We mend it."

"Semantics." He dodged, but her glaive nicked his shoulder. Blood welled, black and smoking. Poison?

"You're a stain," she hissed. "A mistake the Weave will expunge."

Kael laughed, even as the poison burned through his veins. "Funny. I was just thinking the same about your envoy."

Her strike faltered.

He struck.

The dagger bit into her side, not deep, but enough. The runes flared, and Seraphine's threads screamed. Gold filaments snapped, recoiling like severed nerves. She staggered, her temporal glaive flickering.

"That's for the poison," Kael spat, gripping his bleeding shoulder.

She hissed, clutching her side. "You'll regret this, demonkin."

"Already do." He turned toward the Spire. "Tell Elyra I'll make it quick."

The raven's wings beat the air as she fled.

---

The Spire's gates were unguarded.

Too easy, Kael thought.

The interior was a maze of mirrored halls, each reflection showing a different time—a past battlefield littered with bone-white banners, a future garden blooming with flowers made of light, a present where the walls wept blood. Kael ignored them, following the thickest thread. It led him upward, through a vaulted chamber where the air tasted like static.

Elyra's voice echoed ahead, soft but sharp: "You're late."

He froze. The words weren't spoken—they were woven, threading into his mind like a needle.

"You knew I'd come?" he called, climbing the stairs.

"I saw the threads. All but one."

He reached the dais. Elyra Voss stood with her back to a stained-glass window depicting a winged figure cradling the sun. She was younger than he'd expected, her face sharp, her hair a cascade of white. Her hands moved ceaselessly, weaving threads only she could see.

"The one where you hesitate."

He raised the dagger. "Don't bet on that one."

She smiled sadly. "You don't have to do this. The Cartography will discard you. They always do."

"And the Ordos?" He stepped closer. "You'd spare me?"

"No." Her voice hardened. "But I'd make your end swift. Unlike what they've planned."

He laughed. "You're bad at this."

The threads surged.

---

Elyra moved first, her hands pulling golden filaments from the air. The floor beneath Kael liquefied, but he leaped, slicing through the threads. Reality rippled, the room fracturing into a hundred shards of time.

He pushed forward, dagger slashing. Every severed thread screamed, the sound vibrating in his teeth. Elyra retreated, her weaves unraveling.

"You're killing yourself," she warned. The sigils on his arms were cracking, leaking black smoke. "The demon's price is your soul."

"Already sold." He lunged.

The dagger pierced her chest.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the Spire shuddered.

Golden threads snapped, whipping through the air. The stained-glass window exploded, and Elyra's body dissolved into stardust. Kael stumbled back, the obsidian blade now glowing like a star.

The threads around him frayed, the future splintering. Somewhere, a city burned. Somewhere else, a child laughed.

The sigils on his arms burst, blood streaming down his fingers. He collapsed, gasping.

Veyra's voice echoed in his skull. "You'll live."

He hoped she was lying.

---

The Spire's collapse was not a roar but a scream—a high, keening wail as timelines unraveled. Kael staggered through the buckling corridors, the dagger's glow the only light in the chaos. His blood left smoldering trails on the floor, each drop hissing like a dying ember.

The walls bled reflections:

A burning Lethis, its towers toppling as winged shadows circled overhead.

A child's laughter echoing from a sunlit garden that dissolved into ash.

Himself, years younger, standing in the rain outside the Blackened Quill—eyes still human, hands still clean.

He burst into the tundra, the wind biting his wounds. Behind him, the Spire shattered into a storm of glass and starlight. Temporal rifts split the sky, vomiting fragments of otherwhens:

A cavalry charge from a forgotten war, horses screaming as they vanished.

A flock of crystalline birds dissolving into smoke.

A wave of liquid fire frozen mid-crash.

A small figure darted from the rubble—a girl, no older than ten, her dress singed, her eyes wide with terror. A silver thread glimmered between her and Kael, taut and humming.

"You're hurt," she whispered, clutching a threadbare doll.

Kael recoiled. The thread brightened, its light searing his demonic senses. "Get away from me."

She flinched but held her ground. "The lady in the glass said you'd come."

He froze. Elyra's voice, her final words— "You don't have to do this."

The ground trembled. A rift yawned open, swallowing the ruins. Kael grabbed the girl's wrist.

The ash of the Blackened Quill clung to Kael's boots as he walked, each step a whisper of what he'd done. The sigils on his arms throbbed, their jagged lines glowing faintly in the dusk like embers beneath his skin. He'd wrapped his arms in stolen linen, but the bandages did little to muffle the ache. They pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a reminder that the power he'd unleashed wasn't free. Nothing ever is.

Kael dragged the girl across the tundra, the ground splitting beneath them. Temporal rifts spat shards of glass and echoes—a soldier's dying scream, a crow's laughter, a drop of rain suspended in midair. The sigils on his arms wept black blood, each step sending jagged pain up his spine.

"Slow down!" the girl cried, stumbling over frost-rimed stones.

He didn't. The raven circled overhead, its shadow darting across the snow. Behind them, Seraphine's temporal glaive split the air, its hum vibrating in Kael's teeth. She descended from a crackling rift, armor scorched but relentless.

"Last chance, demonkin," she shouted. "Let the girl go!"

Kael shoved Lysandra behind him. "You're obsessed."

"She's a weaver. The Ordos will protect her."

"Like you protected Elyra?"

Seraphine attacked. Kael parried, but his strength was fading. The sigils had spread to his collarbone, their heat leaching into his lungs. Lysandra screamed as a rift opened at her feet—

He grabbed her, pulling her back as the ground vanished. Seraphine's glaive grazed his ribs, freezing the blood in his veins.

"Run!" he barked.

Lysandra didn't. Instead, she "pulled" a thread.

The world stuttered.

Seraphine's glaive struck empty air. Lysandra's nose bled, her small hands trembling. "I… I don't know how I did that."

Kael stared. *Latent. Untrained. Powerful.

"Interesting," Seraphine murmured. "The girl dies too, then."

A temporal rift exploded between them, swallowing Seraphine's snarl. Kael seized Lysandra and ran.

---

They found shelter at dawn in a crumbling chapel, its walls crawling with infernal maps. Lysandra hugged her doll, the silver thread between them fraying.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Doesn't matter."

"Mine's Lysandra."

"Congratulations."

A raven landed on the altar, one wing mangled, its storm-cloud eyes bleeding gold. Lysandra pointed. "It's hurt."

Kael drew his dagger. "It's a spy."

The bird shifted into smoke and teeth. "Little frayer," it hissed. "You've made a mess."

Kael lunged, but the creature dissolved. A scrap of parchment fluttered down: "The girl dies, or you do."

Lysandra picked it up. "What does it mean?"

"Nothing." He crumpled the note. "They're liars."

"The lady in the glass said you'd lie too."

He froze. "What lady?"

"The one with stars in her eyes. She told me to stay close to you."

"Elyra". The name hung unspoken. Kael turned away. "Get some sleep."

---

Night fell. The sigils throbbed, their heat melting frost. Lysandra slept fitfully, the thread coiled around her wrist.

"Cut it," the demon's voice slithered into his skull. *"Cut it, and the Cartography forgets your failures."

Kael pressed the dagger to the thread. It hummed, resonating with her steady breath.

"Do it, little frayer. Or must I remind you of the tavern? Of the way their bones cracked?"

He hesitated. Lysandra murmured in her sleep, the thread brightening. A vision flickered:

Lysandra, older, weaving threads of pure gold. A city rebuilt. A spire unbroken.

"Lies,"* the demon hissed. "She'll betray you. They always do."*

Kael lowered the blade. "Not yet."

---

They fled at first light. Lysandra's thread led them to a cliff's edge, the sea roaring below. Seraphine's rift tore open behind them, her glaive crackling.

"Enough games," she said.

Kael eyed the dagger. The demon's voice clawed at his mind, but beneath it, quieter, he heard Elyra's final words: "You don't have to do this."

He sheathed the blade. "Jump."

Lysandra gripped his hand. "Will it hurt?"

"Probably."

They leaped.

The raven watched them fall, its beak parting to release Elyra's voice into the wind: "The Loom is fractured, but threads remain. Find the Tapestry, Kael Vritra. Mend what you broke."

A single feather—gold, edged in celestial fire—fluttered after them into the storm.