The path the forest revealed wasn't made of stone or dirt.
It was thread.
Woven into the ground itself—tangled in moss, rooted in bark, spiraling gently beneath their feet. Every step pulled a faint shimmer, like walking across music written in invisible ink.
"This wasn't here before," the rogue muttered, crouching to inspect the strands. "Or if it was, it didn't want to be seen."
The boy with no name grinned. "That's what stories are like. You only notice them when they're ready to notice you."
The stranger walked quietly at the back, hands clasped behind their back, eyes half-lidded. "Or when you've earned the right to step into them."
The healer stayed near the ink-fingered girl, her fingers brushing the threads beneath them like checking for a pulse. "It's alive," she whispered. "Not like a beast. Like a memory."
They walked.
Not quickly.
The path made no promises about where it led.
The trees above thickened, arching to form something between a cathedral and a cocoon. Shadows stretched sideways. Faint threads floated like pollen in the air, each one carrying a whisper too quiet to catch.
The rogue tilted her head. "Anyone else hear… talking?"
The ink-fingered girl slowed. "Not talking. Echoes."
They passed an old archway—half-collapsed, made from root and ash. Symbols carved into it glowed faintly. One of them pulsed as they crossed beneath it, sending a ripple down the path like a pebble dropped in still water.
Suddenly, the world shifted.
The forest flickered.
And they were no longer alone.
The path behind them folded inward, vanishing. Ahead stood five figures—ghostly, golden, translucent like sunlit fog.
They looked… familiar.
The new Circle paused.
The figures mirrored them.
Not just in shape.
In stance.
In feeling.
The stranger narrowed their eyes. "This is us."
"But it's not a mirror," said the healer.
"No," said the ink-fingered girl, her voice trembling. "It's a remnant."
The boy stepped forward. "A possibility. A thread we could have become."
The rogue didn't move. "Then why does it feel like it's watching us?"
The first ghost stepped forward—an echo of the ink-fingered girl, but older, eyes ringed with firelight. She carried no page. Only a knife made of ink and bone.
She spoke.
Her voice echoed from all sides.
"You chose to trust."
Another figure—echo of the rogue—joined her, armor threaded with crimson lines.
"We chose to cut."
The healer's double stepped forward, holding a withered blossom that bled quietly from its roots.
"We tried to bind too tightly."
The boy's reflection twirled a coin that sang as it spun.
"We traded stories like weapons."
The stranger's echo shimmered, barely visible.
"We became unreadable."
The forest trembled.
Branches twisted. Leaves flared gold and then ash.
"This is one path," the echoes said in unison. "It failed."
The new Circle stood still.
Not out of fear.
But reverence.
"What happened?" asked the healer.
The blossom-bearing echo whispered, "We tried to lead together. But none of us knew how to follow."
The boy's echo flipped his coin. It shattered midair.
"We built a pattern around mistrust," he said. "Every knot we tied pulled tighter until we choked."
The rogue's double raised a blade. "We protected too hard. We stopped listening."
The stranger's echo, nearly invisible now, said simply, "We left before the page turned."
The ink-fingered girl felt the blank page in her pack begin to glow again.
Alive.
Responsive.
Scared.
"We're not you," she said to her older echo.
The echo smiled. "Not yet. But all threads loop."
The stranger stepped forward.
"No," they said. "Only if we tie them back to themselves."
And with that, they reached into the shimmer of their own echo.
Their hand passed through—and pulled out a single strand of thread.
Golden. Frayed. But intact.
They held it aloft.
And offered it to the girl.
"A warning," they said. "Not a prophecy."
The rogue stepped beside them. "And a choice."
Slowly, the echoes began to fade, unraveling like fog touched by wind.
As they vanished, the forest path brightened.
The trees stood taller.
And ahead—at the edge of vision—stood a tower.
No. A spire.
But not made of stone.
Made of story.
Written in thread and silence.
Waiting.
The Circle stood in silence for several heartbeats.
Then the boy laughed softly. "Well. That was lighthearted."
The healer elbowed him, smiling despite herself. "Was that… the version of us that failed?"
The ink-fingered girl unrolled the page from her pack. A second word had appeared beneath the first.
Listen.
She traced both words with her finger.
"I think the Loom doesn't want us to avoid failure," she said quietly. "I think it wants us to notice it."
"And walk anyway," said the rogue.
The stranger looked toward the spire. "The question is—do we go there next?"
The thread they'd pulled from the echo shimmered faintly, pointing ahead.
Not toward the spire.
But around it.
"There's more than one way to reach the heart of a pattern," said the girl.
The boy shrugged. "Spire or spiral, we're still walking."
And so they did.
The thread-path split.
Five trails.
But all still woven together.
They did not separate.
They chose five sides of the same movement.
Like a wheel turning through forest light.
At the edge of the spire, unseen, another figure watched.
Not masked.
Not woven.
But real.
A survivor.
Not from the last Circle.
But from the one before that.
Their fingers twitched with half-forgotten thread.
Their eyes carried three timelines too many.
They smiled.
"Five again," they whispered.
And behind them, the spire sighed.
As if remembering something it had hoped not to.