The silence after the boneways was never clean. It crawled behind them—thicker now, damp with the memory of bone and blood, full of the unseen eyes that had watched them from the memory-nodes.
Ivar moved first, his steps labored, limbs still half-rigid from the claustrophobic tunnels and the echo of his own voice accusing him from the walls. His hands trembled not just from fatigue, but from the realization that the Threadlings were speaking in his voice—before he had, just like the memories had bled into his awareness down there.
"Where are we even going?" Rill muttered, keeping low. She winced every time her boots scraped stone. "This whole side of the quarter's dead."
Lysa didn't answer. She simply walked, her gaze fixed ahead, her movements sharper, more purposeful than before. He could almost feel the chill radiating off her, a distance that hadn't been there before the boneways. Even her silence had changed shape—once observational, now cold.
Fennel followed her without question, his face ash-smeared, eyes distant. Like he was still hearing echoes no one else could—the whispers of the marrow, the groaning of the bones.
"You saw it too, didn't you?" Ivar asked him, his voice barely a whisper. "When they spoke in my voice."
Fennel nodded, his eyes wide with a fear that mirrored Ivar's own. "They weren't copying. It was... before you. Like the dreams."
Rill looked between them, then laughed hollowly, but the sound lacked its usual bite. "Great. Now the monsters are psychic. Wonderful city we've inherited. Can we just get out of here?"
"We're not safe here," Lysa said finally, her voice low, almost devoid of emotion. "But if we wait long enough, we might learn what follows us. And perhaps... why it was waiting for us."
They came upon the Cull site an hour before nightfall. The path to it had vanished from most maps. Only those who remembered the smell of blood rituals, who knew the angles of rusted pylons by name, could navigate to it. Lysa knew.
The Cull site lay quiet in the belly of the district, half-eaten by rust and silence. Bone dust clogged the gutters. Iron pylons stood like ribs, arched and jagged, their shadows bleeding out over the shattered prayer tiles beneath. Ivar's boots cracked through ash and old marrow, kicking up a smell like burnt silk and copper.
He stopped mid-step.
The sound echoed. Then again.
His foot lifted—and again. Same crunch. Same rhythm. Same moment.
The world stuttered.
Time refused to progress.
He blinked, and the air didn't change. His breath came out once—then came again, the same sound, a loop. Not an echo. Not memory. Repetition.
The ash beneath his palms felt oddly warm—dry and brittle like old skin. It clung to his fingers. There was something slick beneath it too—an oil or resin left from old rituals, cloying and iron-sweet.
Rill was crouched in the ash, dragging a splinter of black glass through the dust.
"It's happening again," Ivar said, throat tight.
But Rill didn't respond. She was busy—drawing. The glass whispered as it curved. A shape took form. A spiral.
No center.
Just a line that folded into itself, twisting tighter, smaller, never stopping. It ended nowhere. It started nowhere. It only turned.
Fennel crouched next to her, his bruised eyes reflecting the symbol. He didn't blink.
"That's you," he muttered, pointing. "That's what's inside you. That spiral."
Ivar's vision blurred. The lines of the spiral crawled through the seams of the ground, etched deeper than they should. He took a breath. It came back. Again. Then again.
"No," he muttered. "I'm fine."
But the Cull site disagreed. The ritual bones hummed. The pylons leaned.
Threadlings had gathered, their filthy limbs twitching, their many eyes reflecting what little light filtered through the broken dome. They surrounded Lysa—but not to threaten. They mirrored her.
One blinked when she did.
Another turned its wrist, just a half-second before her own hand moved.
She stood utterly still.
Ivar took a step toward her. A Threadling moved ahead of him, copying the angle of his footfall, the weight shift.
He froze.
Another whispered something.
"Glass. You're glass."
He hadn't said it. But he had thought it. A second before.
His stomach knotted. Ash filled his throat. He staggered back, voice cracking: "They're in my head."
Lysa didn't look at him. She watched the Threadlings with half-lidded eyes, like one watching smoke to understand fire.
"They're not in your head," she said. "They're just listening better than you."
Another Threadling cocked its head and spoke in his voice:
"Tell me it's not real."
His knees gave. He fell to the bone-strewn floor, hands sinking into the cold ash. The blood runes beneath were slick, almost tacky. His heartbeat was wrong. Rhythmic. Too clean. Like clockwork trying to mimic a pulse.
"Make it stop," he muttered. "Lysa—make it stop."
She knelt. Not close. Not warm.
She tapped the ground. "Beasts," she said, "are nerves. They flare. They scream. They shut down."
She pointed to the scar across his chest. "But you—you're made of glass. You don't pulse. You don't burn. You break."
His breath caught. No loop this time. Just a single held gasp.
She stood again.
"Ivar, clarity isn't peace," she said with quiet finality. "It's an edge."
Behind her, Rill gave a small yelp. She held up something—curled, brown, half-melted.
A note. Blood had stained the fold.
Lysa took it. Unfurled it.
Just a number, repeated:
18. 18. 18. 18. 18.
"Who—?"
Before Ivar could finish, a Threadling whispered: "Eighteen."
He staggered back. That word had been on his tongue. It hadn't reached his teeth. The Threadling said it first.
The glass spiral crawled again in the dust, now drawn by a second set of hands.
"They're unmaking me," Ivar gasped. "I'm not even speaking for myself anymore."
"No," Lysa said softly. "You're hearing yourself in too many directions."
He turned, stumbling across the cracked flooring, until he saw it.
A mirror.
Half-buried under ash and memory. Black-stained edges. Ritual scratches. A relic from when the Cull was divine.
He crawled to it.
Looked.
His chest—scarred, pulsing—aligned perfectly with the fracture running through the glass. The break ran straight through his heart.
He lifted his hand. In the reflection, it rose first.
He paused. The image paused.
Then smiled. Just slightly.
He hadn't.
"Lysa," he whispered.
No answer.
He stared.
Then—
A hiss. Not from the Threadlings. From above.
The iron pylons groaned. A sputter. Then the overhead wire lattice flared to life. Static burst from the old nodes bolted into the walls.
A voice. Mechanical. Pre-recorded. Joyous.
"By order of the Spine, and the Throne of Unknowing, the Reaping Festival shall commence!"
Marching drums. Celebration horns. Repetition of clapping, laughter.
Ivar flinched.
The voice continued:
"In celebration of our survival, all citizens are invited to partake in the Festival of Light, Memory, and Cleansing."
A pause.
Then:
"To ensure our city's purity, cleansing measures will commence at dawn. Exemptions have expired. Compliance is survival."
The voice repeated.
Compliance is survival.
The Threadlings stood still.
The spiral in the dirt kept turning.
Ivar sat down before the mirror. Chest aligned with the fracture.
This time, the reflection stayed still.
And he moved.
End of Chapter 14.