The Labyrinth of Nine Threads

A weapon can be reforged.

A mind can be re-taught.

But a soul fractured in silence?

Only the Labyrinth can decide what remains.

---

They didn't call it a punishment.

They called it a test.

Lyle stood with Muka and Kael beneath the oldest spire of Blackstone Academy—a spiraled tower carved from rootstone and warded with layered temporal seals. The glyph on the door pulsed like a heartbeat.

Nine Threads.

An ancient rite from the pre-system era. Designed not to test strength. But identity.

Instructor Vareen stood before them, flanked by three council members. Her eyes were cold. Not unkind—but distant.

"You've triggered too many unknowns," she said. "The systems are watching. So are those beyond them."

She turned to Lyle.

"You carry fused lineage. Your Codex isn't a Codex anymore. And what's growing inside you... we don't understand it. That makes you a threat."

"I never asked to be," he muttered.

"No," she agreed. "But you are. So prove it shouldn't be erased."

---

Each of them was given a soul marker—a curved stone shard placed against the chest.

> [Marker Accepted – Identity Thread Initiated]

[System Access: Temporarily Sealed]

[Shadowbound, Bone Claw, and Vampire Lineages Suspended]

[Codex Offline – You are now inside the Labyrinth]

The moment the stone lit, the world split.

---

Lyle found himself alone.

Not just in space.

In time.

The walls of the tower faded into fog, then glass, then void. Only threads of color stretched before him, each one humming with a different emotion—rage, hope, sorrow, ambition, guilt, fear, hunger, love, and silence.

Nine.

He chose silence first.

And stepped forward.

---

Inside, the world bloomed in silver.

He stood in his childhood room.

The one he hadn't seen since the night his parents vanished.

Everything was exact.

His bed. His books. His old wand collection. The cracked window where rain used to leak in—

And on the table…

The black iron ring.

Not fused.

Not glowing.

Just waiting.

He stepped closer, and the air grew cold.

Behind him, a voice whispered:

> "Would you still take it, knowing what it cost?"

He turned—

And faced himself.

Not older. Not younger.

Just… clean.

A version of him that hadn't touched the Codex. Hadn't fought in secret halls. Hadn't met Quinn. Hadn't fused with anything.

Normal.

Unbroken.

Happy.

"You're not real," Lyle said.

"Neither are you," the other Lyle answered.

Then lunged.

---

They didn't fight with fists.

They fought with thoughts.

Every regret Lyle had—every moment he wished he'd stayed quiet, walked away, not awakened—came flooding out as blade, hammer, flame.

The dream-Lyle wanted him to give in. To return to what he was. To step back.

But Lyle didn't.

He screamed through the memory. Through the grief.

And held onto who he was becoming—not who he could've been.

> [Thread One: Completed]

The thread snapped.

The dream shattered.

And he stood in darkness again, panting.

Eight left.

---

He moved through four more threads.

Rage showed him what he would've become if the Bone Claw had full control.

Hope showed him what the world could be—if he won.

Guilt played the face of every enemy he'd killed, every ally he'd disappointed.

Love… made him dream of Muka, of her sleeping beside him in peace.

Not lust. Not desire.

But peace.

And when he awoke from that thread, he wept.

Because he wasn't sure he'd ever let himself have that.

---

Then came the sixth thread:

Ambition.

It led him to a throne room.

His throne room.

The Bloodsteel sword rested across his knees. The Bone Claw curled around his shadow like a crown. Vampires knelt before him. Humans whispered his name like a prayer.

He'd become what Quinn refused to be.

Not a savior.

A king.

And it terrified him.

Because part of him… liked it.

He turned away.

He chose not to sit.

And the throne vanished.

> [Thread Six: Completed]

---

He collapsed at the edge of the seventh thread.

Exhausted.

Drenched in cold sweat.

But the Labyrinth wasn't finished.

Two more.

Fear.

And the last…

Hunger.

He reached for the Fear thread.

And for the first time—

It reached back.

---

He screamed as the world wrapped around him again.

But it wasn't a memory.

Or a dream.

It was real.

He stood at the center of Blackstone. The real Blackstone.

It was burning.

The sky was cracked.

Students lay dead around him.

The Collector stood over Muka's body.

And she smiled.

"You failed them all," she said. "Because you wanted too much."

Lyle sank to his knees.

But something growled beside him.

The Bone Claw.

> "This isn't a vision," it hissed. "It's a warning."

And then—

Lyle refused.

He stood.

Not because he was fearless.

But because the fear was real.

And he accepted it.

> [Thread Eight: Completed]

---

And now only one remained.

Hunger.

It was not a place.

It was a void.

A long fall.

He was inside it before he realized—and at its core…

He saw the ring.

The first one.

Black iron.

Still waiting.

Still empty.

Still hungry.

"Feed it," a voice whispered.

"Fill it."

"With what?" he asked.

"With yourself."

He reached out.

Felt it crack—

Then flood with every version of himself he'd seen.

The tyrant.

The child.

The hero.

The coward.

And it screamed as it drank.

Until only one Lyle remained.

This one.

---

He awoke.

In the real world.

On the floor of the spire chamber.

Kael and Muka lay nearby, both unconscious but breathing.

Above him, Instructor Vareen knelt with eyes wide.

"You finished it," she said. "All Nine. No one's done that in a hundred years."

Lyle didn't speak.

He only looked at the stone that had marked him.

It was no longer glowing.

It was gone.