Chapter 32: Threadbonded

The descent into the amphitheater was no longer cautious.

Rafael moved like a man pulled by a gravity too strong to resist, each step heavier with the thrum of awakening. The threadlight wove currents through the air, vibrant veins of gold and violet twitching in anticipation. The very bones of the canyon seemed to lean in toward him.

Dasha followed close behind, her salvaged blade ready in one hand, the other brushing the hilt of a grenade she'd kept hidden. The Maw no longer slumbered—it breathed, watching.

Halfway down the winding rib-stairs, Clara intercepted them. Her silhouette framed by the pulsing glow of the spires, she looked changed—older, sharper, but unmistakably her. Rafael stopped, breath caught halfway to disbelief. Her stride was measured, yet her fingers trembled at her sides.

"You're real," she whispered. "I wasn't sure I'd ever..."

Rafael reached for her hand. Their fingertips brushed—an electric thing, and she flinched.

"You're alive," he said, voice dry. "I thought I'd buried you some loop ago."

"You did," Clara said. "Part of me, at least. The rest ended up here. In the Maw. In the Cradle."

There had been no closure. Just the fractured image of Clara bleeding out on a shattered bridge while the enemy's signal screams drowned their comms. Rafael had mourned her as a sister, maybe something more, but war didn't leave time to unpack emotion.

The Maw had.

A low hum echoed as the man with the threadsteel gauntlet approached. He radiated control and quiet menace, his armor stitched with scavenged emblems, eyes like burnt copper.

"Clara," Rafael said slowly, "who is this?"

She straightened. "Kasien. He leads the Threadbonded—survivors the Maw didn't kill, but rewrote."

Kasien inclined his head. "I lead the Third Fragment. We remember the Loom, and serve its last echo."

Dasha snorted. "Does everyone here speak in riddles?"

"When the truth is jagged," Kasien replied, "so too must be the tongue."

Threadlight pulsed. The ground beneath the amphitheater shuddered, a ripple of pressure moving outward. The Core at its center beat louder, and louder still.

Clara turned to Rafael. "The Weaver Core isn't just old tech. It's an anchor. A cage. It keeps the Uncore from expanding—keeps it tethered."

Rafael remembered the synthetic womb in Marianas Prime, a failed AI suspended in threads of copper and blood. His mother's voice again, distant but sharp: 'Never trust what breathes without lungs.'

"What happens if it fails?" he asked.

"Then everything above collapses," Clara said. "The Maw cracks. The Uncore escapes. And what's left of the world ends."

Kasien studied Rafael's face. "And yet the Loom sings when you're near. You are not untouched."

Rafael's fists clenched. "I'm not your savior. I'm a man trying not to drown in a place that keeps changing the rules. This damned place and loop!"

Dasha's voice cut through the tension. "If we're going to fight the Uncore, we need allies. Not cults. Not riddles. Fighters."

Kasien's gaze held steady. Then he nodded once. "Then you must be Threadbonded. If the Loom accepts you, you may bear the burden and speak the truth."

Rafael hesitated. Then nodded. "Do it."

They walked into the circle of Pilgrims surrounding the Cradle. Each placed a hand against the veinlines of threadlight in the floor, heads bowed in reverence.

Clara and Kasien stood across from Rafael and Dasha, eyes closed as the Core above them pulsed in bright, rhythmic waves. Threads of gold, red, and violet spiraled downward like a living web.

Clara's voice echoed. "Speak your name. Speak your grief."

Rafael stepped forward. "Rafael. Once a soldier, once a brother, perhaps a lovers. I lost my home, my family, my team, even my memory, and the only truth I trusted. I don't want to fight, but I won't run."

Dasha's voice followed. "Dasha. Mercenary. Sister to ghosts. I've seen too much rot to pretend anymore. Let this place burn before it spreads."

The threadlight surged.

It wrapped their wrists, wove into their skin. Pain unlike anything Rafael had felt tore through him—cold and fire and memory stitched together in threads.

Visions came:

—A ruined corridor on Earth, blood pooling near a console.

—Dasha kneeling over a younger girl, whispering lullabies as distant gunfire echoed.

—Clara standing at a canyon's edge, one eye gone, her blade drawn.

And then the threads withdrew.

The pain faded, replaced by a steady thrum of recognition.

The Maw knew them now.

Kasien spoke, his voice grave. "You are Threadbonded. The Loom remembers you. And the Maw will demand your strength."

Above them, the sky howled.

The Maw opened its eye.

Clara smiled—a small, fierce thing. "You wanted truth, Rafael?"

He looked to her, breath shallow.

"Then let's walk into it. Together."

The Core began to glow brighter, threads extending toward the stars.

And the next phase began.

---

Later, alone in a quiet moment beneath the flickering spires, Rafael found Clara again. She was sketching something into the dirt with a threadsteel dagger—a map? A memory?

"Why did you flinch?" he asked her softly.

Clara didn't look up. "Because the last time I touched your hand, you were bleeding out over me. And I couldn't stop it. At least that's what I can remember."

Rafael knelt beside her. "We were different people then. I remember the bunker outside Orinova Ridge. You stole my rations, and I let you."

Clara smiled. "Because you thought I was cute."

"Because you were starving," he said. Then paused. "And maybe a little cute."

"Rafael... I didn't die like you remembered. Not right away. I was taken. Put through something that turned people into Threadborn husks. I fought. I broke. But I remembered you. That's how I clawed my way back."

Rafael exhaled, shaking. He touched her shoulder, lightly this time.

"Then let's not lose each other again."

In the shadows, the Core pulsed with slow, sleeping light.

And far above, something ancient stirred.

***