The Grand Hall of the Council
Three days after Esmé entered the Veil
The Council chamber had never been louder.
It wasn't shouting—not yet—but voices snapped like banners in wind, one after another rising with force, urgency, and division. The obsidian ring at the center of the hall glowed faintly, reacting to the surge of magic in the room.
They had all gathered.
The Matron, still cloaked in moon-thread robes. Livia of the southern sigil houses. Anselmo, silver-haired and furious. Several lesser Wards from across the continent. Even two ghostwalkers, silent at the edge, their faces veiled in iron.
And at the center of it all stood Esmé, flanked by Luca, as the council debated not her potential—but her use.
"She's not a weapon," Luca said flatly. "And you will not treat her like one."
"She is the Threadwalker," Livia snapped. "And prophecy does not ask permission."
"That's not prophecy," the Matron interrupted, her voice steady but cold. "It's fear disguised as tradition."
Anselmo turned toward Esmé.
"Have you felt anything new since you returned from the Veil?"
Esmé nodded slowly. "Dreams. Fractured images. Symbols I can't place yet."
"Then she's awakening," Livia said. "And we don't have time to wait for her to fully unravel. Thorne has the second Codex fragment. If he finds the third—"
"He won't," Esmé cut in. "I won't let him."
The silence that followed her words was different.
Heavier.
Not doubt.
Expectation.
————
After the council dismissed for the midday recess, Esmé remained with the inner circle in the war chamber.
The table there was carved from a single rootstone slab—older than the Pact itself, pulled from the ruins of the first Veil breach. Upon its surface now glimmered a shimmering illusion: a rough map of Kalessa, a ruined city buried deep beneath the desert beyond Florence.
"He's been there before," said the Matron. "We believe he left a siphoning anchor beneath the old Sanctum. Something tied to the Veil directly."
"A tether?" Luca asked.
"More," Anselmo answered grimly. "A gateway."
Esmé stepped forward.
"You think he's planning to enter the Veil again?"
Livia nodded. "No. We believe he plans to collapse it—merge it into the waking world. One layer at a time."
Esmé's breath caught.
"If that happens—"
"Reality fractures," Luca finished. "And no one can tell what's memory, magic, or truth anymore."
The plan was made quickly, but not lightly.
They would strike at dusk, one week from now.
A surgical team—Esmé, Luca, two ward-mages, and one bound echo—would infiltrate the lower levels of Kalessa and destroy the Veil anchor before Thorne could fully rewrite it into the world.
But no one in the room could ignore what Esmé was now.
She was no longer just a warrior or a warded girl with a talent for sigils.
She was a Threadwalker.
A living bridge between the Veil and the waking world.
And that made her their greatest hope—and greatest liability.
——————
That night, as the Council members dispersed to their private quarters, the Matron lingered with Luca beneath the arc of the eastern hall.
"She doesn't know how deep this goes," she said quietly.
"She doesn't have to," Luca replied. "Not yet."
The Matron studied him, her eyes like worn marble.
"You love her."
He didn't answer.
"That makes you loyal," she added. "But it also makes you blind."
"I'd rather be blind and human than see clearly and stand by while you use her as a blade."
The Matron smiled faintly.
"She's not a blade."
"She's not a pawn either."
"No," the Matron said. "She's the thread. The one that unravels—and rewrites."
She turned to leave, then paused.
"Watch her dreams," she said. "That's where it will begin."
——————
Esmé didn't sleep that night.
She sat alone in the library, the fractured Codex fragment from the scriptorium before her. It still hummed, still whispered on occasion—but it no longer obeyed spells.
It was listening.
Waiting.
Luca found her there hours later.
He sat beside her without a word, took her hand, and traced the still-faint sigil etched into the inside of her wrist—the blooming rose split by flame.
"We're going to Kalessa," she said.
"I know."
"I'm not afraid of dying," she added quietly. "I'm afraid of what I might become if I survive."
Luca looked at her.
"You don't become anything. You reveal what's already there."
She met his gaze.
Then, finally: "Will you stay with me?"
He answered without hesitation.
"Always."
Beyond the Palazzo walls, the desert winds shifted.
And deep beneath the sands of Kalessa, a set of runes flared to life.
The Codex was waiting.
And this time, it would not be alone.