Cursed Causality

The Weaver's chamber hummed with the weight of millennia, its vaulted ceiling lost to shadows thick as tar. The air reeked of burnt silk and iron, every breath coating Kael's tongue with the taste of rusted nails. Lysandra huddled behind him, her silver thread coiled tight around his wrist like a shackle. Before them, the Weaver sat hunched over a loom strung with threads that glimmered like trapped lightning. Its face shifted with every flicker of the chamber's bioluminescent fungi:

A child's cherubic cheeks.

A corpse's sunken eye sockets.

A soldier's scarred grimace.

"To sever the demon's claim," the Weaver intoned, its voice a chorus of whispers scraping against stone, "I require a thread of equal value."

Kael stepped forward, boots crunching on brittle bones littering the floor. "Name it."

The Weaver's hand—skeletal, translucent, dripping liquid shadow—pointed at Lysandra. "Hers."

The girl stumbled back, her thread fraying into jagged sparks. "No—"

Kael seized her arm, dagger pressed to her pulse. "You'd rather burn alive when the sigils consume me? Or let the Ordos peel you apart?"

---

The chamber trembled as the looms shuddered to life, their threads weaving visions of ruin and resurrection:

A tapestry unraveled, showing Lethis in flames, its people dissolving into ash mid-scream.

Another wove itself into a spire of glass and gold, untouched by war or time.

A third pulsed with Kael's crimson threads, knotted around Lysandra's silver like a strangling vine.

Lysandra's breath hitched. "There's another way. The raven said—"

Kael backhanded her. Blood smeared the dagger's edge. "The raven's dead. Just like you'll be if you don't shut up."

The Weaver's laugh echoed through the chamber, dislodging stalactites that shattered like glass. "You reek of desperation, demonkin. Even now, your patron whispers."

Kael's sigils flared in response, black veins crawling toward his throat. He pressed the blade deeper into Lysandra's skin. "Do it. *Now.*"

---

Seraphine found them first.

Her temporal glaive shattered the chamber's entrance, the blast hurling shards of petrified wood and bone. Chronohounds poured through the breach, their forms warped by the Ordos' haste:

A hound with six eyes stacked vertically, each pupil an hourglass draining into nothing.

Another with jaws unhinged like a serpent's, fangs dripping liquid time that corroded the stone floor.

A third that flickered in and out of existence, its growls echoing from the past and future.

Seraphine's helm was cracked, revealing one bloodied eye. Her glaive hummed with lethal intent. "You've nowhere left to run."

Kael shoved Lysandra toward the Weaver. "Finish it!"

The Weaver's fingers closed around the girl's thread. Lysandra screamed, the sound fracturing into a thousand echoes. The looms screamed with her, threads snapping as reality buckled:

The chamber's walls peeled back, revealing a desert of ash beneath a sun bleeding crimson light.

A city of mirrors rose in the distance, each reflection a different Kael—human, demon, corpse.

The raven circled above, its feathers molten gold, shrieking Elyra's final words into the void.

---

Seraphine lunged, glaive aimed at Kael's heart. He pivoted, using Lysandra as a shield. The blade grazed her shoulder, and her blood splattered the sand:

Black, then silver, then black again.

Smoking where it struck the ground.

Coiling into threads that lashed at Seraphine's armor.

"Pathetic," Seraphine hissed, retreating a step. "You'd hide behind a child?"

Kael grinned. "Watch me."

He drove the dagger toward Lysandra's chest—

And slashed sideways, severing the Weaver's hand instead.

---

The chamber exploded.

The Weaver's shriek shattered the remaining looms, threads whipping through the air like barbed wire:

A tapestry ensnared a Chronohound, aging it to dust mid-leap.

Another thread coiled around Seraphine's glaive, rusting it to brittle ruin.

A third lashed Kael's arm, the sigils hissing as they absorbed its power.

Lysandra scrambled back, clutching her bleeding shoulder. "Stop! You're tearing everything apart!"

The Weaver's form swelled, its shifting faces merging into a grotesque mask of Elyra, Seraphine, and Veyra. "Fool. You traded a noose for a guillotine."

The desert fractured, rifts vomiting forth new horrors:

The Ordos fleet descended in ships of frozen time, their hulls screeching against the sand.

Cartography agents materialized in billowing gray shrouds, their hands bristling with infernal keys.

A maelstrom of teeth and wings erupted—Kael's demonic patron, summoned by the Weaver's betrayal.

---

Kael grabbed Lysandra's collar, hauling her to her feet. "Run. Or I leave you for them."

They fled toward the mirror-city, the sand burning their feet. Behind them, the Weaver's laughter merged with the roar of collapsing timelines:

A Chronohound dissolved mid-stride, its essence sucked into a rift.

An Ordos ship imploded, sailors aging centuries in a heartbeat.

The demonic maelstrom devoured a Cartography agent, his screams cut short.

Lysandra stumbled, her blood leaving silver trails. "Why… why did you save me?"

He dragged her behind a mirror showing his human self—younger, unmarked, eyes wide with naive fury. "I didn't. You're still useful."

---

The raven found them at dusk, its golden feathers dulled by ash. It dropped a scroll at Kael's feet, the vellum crumbling at the edges.

*The Shattered Spire*, it read. *Where the Tapestry began. Where it must end.*

Lysandra traced the words, her touch leaving faint silver trails. "We have to go."

Kael burned the scroll, watching Elyra's handwriting curl into smoke. "We're not here to save the world."

"Then why are we here?"

He smiled, the demon's shadow flickering in his eyes. "To watch it burn"

---

The mirror-city loomed ahead, its spires reflecting a thousand fractured Kaels:

A version of him as a child, eyes untainted by crimson, hands clean of blood.

Another as a full demon, horns curling from his skull, sigils devouring his flesh.

A third as a corpse, rot blooming in his chest, ravens feasting on his tongue.

Lysandra pressed a hand to her wounded shoulder, the scar now pulsing silver. "They're… they're *you*."

"Shut up," Kael said, shattering the nearest mirror with his dagger. The glass screamed, the sound echoing through the labyrinth of reflections.

---

They navigated the city's heart, the ground littered with shards that showed glimpses of other timelines:

A Kael who'd refused the demon's bargain, dying nameless in a Lethis alley.

A Lysandra crowned in starlight, weaving order into the unraveling Weave.

A Seraphine kneeling before Elyra's grave, her glaive broken, helm discarded.

Lysandra paused before a shard showing her own reflection—older, fiercer, threads of gold and crimson swirling around her. "Is that… me?"

Kael kicked the shard. "It's *nothing*."

---

Seraphine found them at dawn.

She emerged from a rift, her armor scorched, glaive reforged with jagged shards of temporal steel. Behind her, the remnants of the Ordos fleet hovered, their ships' hulls weeping rust:

Sailors leaned over railings, their faces frozen in eternal screams.

Cannons glowed with unstable energy, barrels cracked and smoking.

A banner bearing the hourglass eye flapped limply, half-consumed by green flame.

"This ends here, demonkin," Seraphine said, her voice raw.

Kael shoved Lysandra forward. "Kill her."

Lysandra's thread flared. "No!"

"Do it," he hissed, "or I'll peel that scar off your shoulder and feed it to the rifts."

---

The fight was swift and brutal.

Seraphine's glaive clashed with Kael's dagger, sparks raining onto the glass-strewn ground:

Each strike warped the air, bending reflections into grotesque parodies.

A Chronohound's ghostly form lunged from a rift, only to disintegrate mid-leap.

Lysandra's silver threads lashed wildly, slicing through Ordos sailors like scythes.

Kael feinted left, driving his blade toward Seraphine's exposed eye—

And froze.

Lysandra's threads coiled around his wrist, yanking him back. "*Stop.*"

He backhanded her. "You dare—?"

She stood her ground, blood dripping from her nose, eyes blazing silver. "I'm not your weapon."

---

The demonic maelstrom chose that moment to strike.

It descended in a whirlwind of teeth and wings, its voice shredding the air:

*Little frayer. You reek of betrayal.*

The maelstrom's tendrils wrapped around Kael's throat, sigils burning as it reclaimed its due.

Lysandra screamed, her threads tangling with the demon's essence, *pulling*—

And the maelstrom *howled*.

Reality buckled:

The mirror-city shattered, shards embedding in Seraphine's armor.

The Ordos fleet listed sideways, crashing into dunes of ash.

The demonic storm recoiled, a third of its mass severed, dissolving into Lysandra's threads.

Kael gasped, free of its grip. "What the hells are you?"

Lysandra stared at her hands, now veined with silver light. "I don't… know."

---

The Cartography arrived in a wave of gray robes and infernal keys.

Veyra stepped forward, her severed hand replaced with a claw of molten brass. "Impressive, girl. The Cartography offers you a seat at our table."

Lysandra spat at her feet.

Veyra smiled. "Or we could peel that power from your corpse."

Kael grabbed Lysandra's arm, dagger pressed to her silver veins. "Try it, and I'll destroy her myself."

A standoff thrummed in the air—Ordos regrouping, Cartography circling, the demonic maelstrom gathering strength—

Shattered by the raven's shriek.

It plunged from the bleeding sky, a scroll clutched in its talons:

*The Shattered Spire*, it read. *Beneath its shadow, the Tapestry bleeds.*

A map followed, etched in Elyra's handwriting, leading to a coastline devoured by rifts.

Kael burned the scroll. "We're leaving."

---

They fled the city as timelines collapsed behind them:

A Chronohound ate its own tail, vanishing in a loop of gnashing teeth.

A Cartography agent tripped into a rift, aging to dust before she hit the ground.

Seraphine's glaive shattered mid-swing, the shards embedding in her chest.

Lysandra ran, her silver threads knitting a fragile path through the chaos. "Why are you taking me?"

Kael didn't look back. "Because you're the only thing left that burns brighter than me."

---

The Shattered Spire rose from the coast, a jagged stump of blackened crystal. The air here was thick with the stench of burnt ozone and salt. Lysandra's scar pulsed in time with the Spire's dim glow.

At its base, a door awaited, etched with a single word:

*Vritra.*

Kael's name.

Lysandra turned to him. "What is this place?"

He pressed a hand to the door, sigils flaring in recognition. "Where I sold my soul."

The door opened. Inside, the walls breathed.