The greenhouse doors groaned shut behind them with a sound that felt too heavy for wood. The vines that had glowed faintly through the meeting now dimmed fully, returning the room behind them to a bluish half-light. Arin glanced over his shoulder once—just once—catching Bram's silhouette bending over the scroll again, shoulders bowed, as if the weight of ancient knowledge had finally settled onto him physically.
Then the vines slid over the windows, obscuring the view.
A reminder that the world outside the greenhouse was no safer than the truths they had discovered inside it.
Kael walked with them for a while. His boots made sharp, purposeful sounds on the stone pathway, contrasting Arin's quiet steps and Lira's controlled, steady stride.
"You know," Kael muttered after a stretch of silence, "I still think Bram is hiding something."
Lira shot him a flat look. "He gave us everything he had—and more than he wanted to, honestly. What else do you expect him to say?"
Kael shrugged. "Something. Anything. The man had a whole ancient scroll tucked under a crate of glowshards like it was laundry."
Arin didn't comment. His mind was too full, too stretched. The Weave still brushed at him from time to time—soft pulses, like distant flickers at the edges of his vision. He felt them more clearly now, as if Chapter 9's resonance shift had peeled back a thin membrane between him and something enormous.
Kael walked a few steps ahead of them. "I'll escort you both until the main lift. After that, I'm heading to my side of the city. Unless one of you needs something?"
"We're fine," Lira said. "You've done enough today."
Kael snorted. "You mean I've been a pain."
Arin blinked. "You weren't."
Kael smirked but didn't answer. He stopped when they reached the junction where two long walkways diverged. The structure groaned softly from wind pressure—Caelum was floating lower tonight, slightly off-balance from the destabilization earlier.
Kael gave Arin a long, firm look. "Tomorrow, you train. Today…" He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "Just stay alive, all right?"
Arin nodded. "I'll try."
"That's not encouraging," Kael muttered, but he reached out briefly, clapping Arin's shoulder. "Get some sleep. Both of you."
He pivoted away, disappearing down the right path until the glowpanels swallowed his figure completely.
Lira adjusted her cloak. "Our turn."
Arin followed.
They walked in silence for a while, and the world opened around them.
The city of Caelum at night was not like any city Arin remembered. It did not glitter. It did not hum. It did not radiate the false certainty of civilization.
Tonight, it felt like a great beast shifting in its sleep.
Buildings leaned slightly as if bracing against unseen winds. Tower-spires with latticework scaffolds creaked under their own weight. Walkways that normally thrummed with steady conduits now pulsed unevenly—like arteries with an irregular heartbeat.
Arin slowed to observe the lights running through the translucent flooring beneath them. The energy strands, usually synchronized, glimmered in uneven pulses. Some flowed too fast, others nearly stalled. Colors that should have been soft amber had tinges of violet, or an unexpected blue.
The destabilization had left fingerprints on every surface.
The night sky above mirrored the change. Caelum's underside glow—faint, diffuse light cast by the floating engines—wavered in the mist. Normally, the sky was a clean expanse of indigo, occasionally fractured by the visual distortion of the Weave fields.
Tonight it looked bruised.
Clouds drifted low, tinged with faint streaks of shimmering distortion. Where the Weave currents met the atmosphere, thin ripples appeared—like the air itself was struggling to stay cohesive. Every few minutes, faint flickers of light passed overhead, not lightning, but some unstable discharge of energy.
Arin's eyes—still faintly altered—caught details in ways he hadn't before.
Lines of energy. Layers of resonance. Motion behind motion.
He paused again, slowing until Lira noticed.
"Something wrong?" she asked, stopping beside him.
"No. I just…" He frowned up at the sky. "Everything looks different. Not drastically. But… sharper."
Lira studied him carefully. "Part of the shift Bram mentioned. You'll perceive more subtle changes now."
"It's… unsettling."
"It should be," she said. "You're interacting with something the human mind wasn't built to endure."
Her tone wasn't harsh. Just factual.
They resumed walking, crossing another suspended bridge where the metal railing hummed faintly under Lira's touch. She glanced down.
"The lower district's lights are running at half intensity."
Arin followed her gaze. The lower levels—usually swarming with neon signs and ambient glowpanels—looked dim, patchwork, like a half-finished painting.
"Is that because of the fissure?" he asked.
"Partly. But I think the regulators are deliberately restricting the flow." She exhaled. "If they're tightening control already, they must know the destabilization is worse than they reported."
Arin swallowed. The Weave pulsed faintly against his senses again, like a whisper wanting to be heard.
Lira glanced at him. "You felt something?"
"…Yes. It comes and goes."
"That won't stop," she said. "But it shouldn't intensify yet. Bram was clear—you need training before deeper contact."
Arin nodded, silently relieved.
They walked for several more minutes until the pathways narrowed and the air grew warmer. This district was quieter than most—residential, not industrial. Houses built from pale stone and curved glass lined either side of the path, their rooftops dotted with solar filaments that flickered like fireflies.
Arin and Lira lived on the outer ring of the district, where the structures grew smaller, closer together, more modest.
When they finally reached their building, Arin let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
Their home wasn't large, but it had character—a two-story structure built from faded sandstone composite, with creeping vines winding along the exterior walls. A narrow balcony stretched along the upper floor, shaded by a canopy of woven metal strips. Night-flowers bloomed across the railing, bioluminescent petals glowing in soft emerald tones.
Lira pushed open the gate. It squeaked in the same familiar way it always had—a sound that comforted Arin more than anything he'd heard all day.
Inside, the courtyard was small but well-tended. A single lumipool sat at the center, casting rippling patterns across the walls. Arin paused to watch the reflected lights shimmer—wavering, unstable, mirroring the city itself.
Lira unlocked the door.
Warmth greeted them the moment they stepped inside.
The house's interior was compact but inviting—a narrow hallway leading into a small sitting area with cushioned benches, soft amber lights, and shelves filled with old books and folded maps. The kitchen was tucked into a corner, marked by a metal counter and a low stove that emitted a faint aromatic scent of dried herbs.
Arin sat down at the small table while Lira removed her cloak and set it aside.
"We should eat," she said. "It's late."
He nodded. "I'll help."
"No. Sit. You look like you're about to collapse."
He didn't argue.
Lira prepared a simple meal—flatbread warmed over the stove, a stew of root vegetables simmered in spiced broth, and slices of preserved fruit. When she set the bowls down, Arin inhaled deeply.
"It smells good," he murmured.
"It's basic," she said. "But it should help settle your mind."
They ate in silence for a few minutes.
Then Lira spoke. "What did you think of the Self-Ward lesson?"
Arin stirred his stew. "It's… frightening. But also grounding. Like… it gives me something to hold onto."
"Good." She continued eating. "You'll need that. Anchors lose themselves when they forget who they were before the Weave."
Arin hesitated. "Do you think I'm going to lose myself?"
"Not if we can help it."
After they finished eating, they washed the bowls together. Lira worked efficiently, her movements precise and controlled. Arin dried the dishes, placing each one carefully on the shelf.
When they were done, Lira stretched slightly. "You should sleep."
"Yeah." Arin rubbed his eyes. "Tomorrow is… going to be heavy."
"You'll manage." She nodded toward the hallway. "Goodnight, Arin."
"Goodnight."
They separated—Lira turning left into her room, Arin right into his.
*******
Arin lay awake for a long time.
The room was dim, lit only by the faint glow seeping through his window from the nightflowers outside. The shadows shifted occasionally, swayed by the uneven wind currents moving across Caelum's upper levels.
He closed his eyes.
But sleep refused to come.
His mind replayed everything—Bram's warnings, the Beckoned's presence, the pattern on the scroll, the shifting colors he saw across the city, his hands glowing faintly, the Weave brushing at the edges of his senses.
He wondered what it meant—being an Anchor. Being chosen. Not by people, not by politics, not by fate, but by something ancient and intelligent and broken.
After what felt like hours, his thoughts finally began to blur.
And he drifted.
Slowly.
Unsteadily.
Into sleep.
*******
The dream began in silence.
Arin stood in a place that wasn't a place, surrounded by a vast expanse of shimmering threads. They stretched in every direction—up, down, sideways, inward. They pulsed faintly, each thread vibrating with a different note, forming a soundless harmony that he felt in his bones.
The Weave.
Or something like it.
Something deeper.
Something closer to its core.
A flicker appeared in the distance. Then another. Then dozens. Shapes formed—vague at first, then clearer. They drifted toward him like shadows underwater. Their features were indistinct but humanoid, tall and slender, with faint glimmers inside their silhouettes.
The Beckoned.
One approached him.
Its presence pressed against his thoughts—not aggressively, but insistently. As if it was trying to speak without understanding how.
A voice—felt, not heard—echoed inside his mind.
Anchor.
Arin stepped back.
"No. I'm not ready."
Listen.
Danger.
Break.
Remember.
The words were fragmented, like static.
"Remember what?" he demanded. "What are you trying to show me?"
A surge of images hit him—fractured, overlapping.
A fissure cracking open.
A tower collapsing.
A lattice of light unraveling.
A hand reaching toward him.
A city falling.
A thread snapping—
—snapping—
—snapping—
Arin gasped.
The connection tightened suddenly, like a hook sinking into his thoughts.
Too deep.
Too fast.
"Stop—wait—stop—"
But the Beckoned pressed harder.
The threads around him vibrated violently. The entire space warped, pulling, bending. His senses blurred, merging. Colors bled into sound. Touch turned into light. His thoughts smeared like wet paint.
The Beckoned's silhouette reached toward him—
Arin screamed.
And the dream shattered.
*******
Lira woke instantly.
Her eyes snapped open. Something had pulled her from sleep—a jolt, a spike of instinct sharpened by years of training. She sat up, immediately alert.
The room was dark, the air still.
She grabbed her pocket chronometer from the small table beside her bed.
03:17.
Early.
Too early.
Her body rarely made mistakes. If she woke before dawn, something was wrong.
She exhaled slowly, forcing her pulse to steady.
The events of the previous day ran through her thoughts. Bram. The fissures. The Weave destabilizing. Arin's resonance shift. Her role as a Warden Officer—expected to monitor, report, and control.
Control what, exactly?
A system that was breaking?
A city barely stable?
An ancient network no one fully understood?
She rubbed her forehead.
The higher-ups would already be drafting response protocols. She could predict them: lockdowns, surveillance increases, and suppression directives. They would want the public calm, ignorant, contained.
They always did.
And if Arin's existence became known—
Lira's jaw tightened. Like Bram said, they would track him, study him, and claim him. Anchors were infrastructure. Assets. Not people.
Not on her watch.
She inhaled—
—and froze.
A ripple brushed her senses.
Soft. Faint.
But unmistakable.
A disturbance in the Weave.
She stood abruptly.
The sensation grew stronger—sharper, like a thin needle of resonance pricking the air.
And it was coming from Arin's room.
Lira moved instantly without hesitation.
Her bare feet hit the floor. She crossed the hallway in three strides and threw open his door—
Just as Arin jolted upright in bed with a choked gasp, threads of faint light still flickering around him like afterimages of something vast and terrible.
His eyes were wide.
His breath shook.
The room hummed with residual resonance.
Lira stepped inside.
"Arin—" she began.
But he could only whisper one trembling word—
"…I almost let it in completely."