Chapter 20
AUGUST
Long shadows crept through the trees as we moved in formation. The forest was thick, but it wasn’t silent. The distant crack of a branch. The hurried rustling of underbrush. Signs of movement—signs of prey.
A stretch of boggy earth sucked at my boots, slick and treacherous. I skidded, momentum faltering as mud splashed up my coat. Garrick vaulted past with a muttered curse. I wrenched free, lungs burning—no time for footing, only the hunt.
We had been tracking the Weavers for over an hour.
Garrick kept pace beside me, scanning the trees with sharp eyes. “They’re running. Feels like they knew we were coming.”
“They always run.” I didn’t slow my steps. “They know what happens when they’re caught.”
A flicker of movement up ahead.
I signaled to the men, and we broke apart. Garrick veered right, two others to the left. I stayed in the center, waiting, watching. The moment stretched, thick with anticipation.
Then, like a snap of a thread—chaos.
The forest erupted with movement.
Weavers darted through the trees, their cloaks flaring behind them as they tried to escape. I surged forward, my heart steady, boots crunching over fallen leaves. One by one, they slipped out of sight, vanishing into the underbrush like wisps of smoke.
Almost all of them.
A strangled cry sounded just ahead.
I turned sharply, my eyes locking onto the scene. One of my men had tackled a figure to the ground, pinning them down with a knee pressed hard against their back.
A Weaver.
But not just any Weaver—something about the tilt of their shoulders was familiar. Recognition punched the air from my lungs.
She had sharp features and eyes that still burned with defiance. Eyes I remembered.
I’d seen this face before. Years ago.
Lorien Wynn.
The name surfaced from somewhere I'd buried long ago.
We had been in school together—before the Spire, before the unravelings, before everything turned to blood and judgment.
She had been quiet, sharp-minded, always scribbling in the margins of her notebooks with ink-stained fingers.
I remembered the way she used to hum when she read.
The way she never looked away from a fight, even when she was outmatched.
And now she stood before me, bound. A criminal in my father’s eyes. A Weaver.
The hunter dragged her up roughly, binding her wrists. She didn’t cry out. Didn’t plead.
Her gaze lifted and landed on me.
And for a heartbeat—just one—her expression shifted.
Recognition passed between us.
Something human. Something real.
“Take her to the clearing,” I ordered.
She said nothing. But as she passed me, her eyes lingered—full of hatred. I ignored it. This was the cost of what they were.
We moved through the trees, the others falling in line. The rest of their kind had escaped, but we had one. One was enough.
Elias would be waiting.
The wind shifted. A prickle of unease ran down my spine before I heard it—hoofbeats.
I turned just as the clearing came into view.
Elias was already there.
He sat atop his black stallion, his posture straight, his expression unreadable as his eyes swept over the scene before him. His presence commanded silence, and even the men who had been whispering among themselves stiffened.
He dismounted and strode forward.
“We caught one,” I said. “The others scattered.”
He eyed the prisoner coldly. “One will suffice.”
The Weaver stared him down, jaw set. “You won’t find what you seek in me.”
“We shall see,” Elias replied.
And I knew what came next.
Unraveling.
I’d watched it happen before—way the light left their eyes thread by thread. It was precise. Clean. Irrevocable.
Justice.
But as my father stepped closer, unease wrapped around my spine like a noose.
Lily’s voice echoed in my mind—I don’t belong here. She hadn’t been lying. She was different.
If she really had come from another time, then unraveling her wouldn’t be justice. It was erasure.
I stood taller, schooling my face into careful neutrality as Elias moved past me.
I didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak.
But something inside me shifted—a thread pulled taut. And for the first time, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to stop.
“Let’s start the Unraveling,” Elias said, folding his gloves with surgical precision. “One less Weaver is a step closer to a cleansed world.”
The clearing was silent, save for the rustling of wind through the trees. The kind of silence that settled before something inevitable. Something final.
The Weaver knelt in the dirt, her hands bound behind her, shoulders squared beneath the weight. She wasn’t trembling, wasn’t begging. She wasn’t even looking at Elias anymore. Instead, her gaze flickered toward the treetops, as if searching for something beyond this moment.
I should have been used to this by now.
I’d seen Weavers brought to their knees, stripped of everything that made them whole—reduced to frayed threads in the weave of existence.
Elias had perfected it, the methodical unraveling of their kind, and we had all been raised to believe it was necessary.
I had never questioned it.
Until now.
Elias stood over the prisoner, his cloak shifting slightly in the wind, the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves heavy in the air. His green eyes gleamed with the cold certainty of a man who had never doubted his purpose.
The Weaver exhaled slowly, lifting their chin, though her expression remained unreadable. “You don’t understand what you destroy,” she said with force.
Elias crouched before her, tilting his head slightly. “It is not destruction,” he corrected. “It is correction.”
The words should have settled like truth in my chest. Instead, they twisted, lodging beneath my ribs like something I couldn’t dislodge.
“August,” Elias said, rising.
I straightened, schooling my expression into something unreadable. “Yes, Father.”
“Hold her.”
A simple command. Good—a flawless arrest will prove Lily isn’t clouding my judgment.
I had done worse before. Had held blades to throats, had given orders that led men to their graves. This should be no different. But this one had looked at me like she already knew how it ended. Like she’d seen my future and mourned it.
And yet, my hands clenched at my sides.
I stepped forward, ignoring the tightening in my chest as I reached for the Weaver’s shoulder. The fabric of their cloak was rough beneath my fingers, damp from the earth. Her skin was warm beneath it. Alive.
She turned her head slightly, eyes locking onto mine.
I expected hatred. Rage.
Instead, I saw something worse.
Pity.
A slow, creeping chill slid down my spine.
Elias stepped closer, his presence looming beside me. I didn’t move as he extended a hand, fingers splayed. The air between us shifted, like something unseen had been plucked from the space between worlds. The Weaver inhaled sharply, her body stiffening.
The unraveling had begun.
Her breath came quicker, but still, she didn’t struggle. Didn’t scream.
I had never seen one of them go so quietly.
The air vibrated—warped by something ancient and wrong. Her edges blurred, reality fraying around her like thread pulled from a worn cloth.
My fingers flexed, phantom-burning where they gripped her cloak before I realized what I was doing.
“August,” Elias said, his tone edged with warning.
I let go. Stepped back.
For the first time, I turned away before it was over. I told myself it didn’t matter. But the truth was, it did.
I kept walking. Step after step, away from the clearing, away from the unraveling, away from the sharp, knowing gaze of a Weaver who was no longer whole.
I didn’t stop until the trees swallowed the sounds behind me.
Only then did I let myself breathe.
The air was sharp in my lungs, cold despite the warmth of the afternoon sun filtering through the leaves. I clenched and unclenched my hands, feeling the phantom weight of the Weaver’s shoulder beneath my grip. The warmth of them. The life.
And now, she was gone.
I had told myself it was necessary. That the world was better—safer—without them. But the words rang hollow—an echo of a belief I no longer trusted.
You don’t understand what you destroy.
The Weaver’s words rang in my ears. Calm. Certain. Like they had known something I didn’t.
I exhaled sharply, shoving the thought away. The Weavers had brought this upon themselves. They had tampered with forces beyond their control, rewriting the fabric of fate for their own desires.
I turned back toward the others just as my father emerged from the clearing, adjusting the cuffs of his coat with slow, measured precision. The men around him stood at attention, waiting for his next order, but his gaze found mine first.
It was sharp. Assessing.
“You walked away.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A judgment.
“It was finished. I saw no need to linger.”
Elias’s expression didn’t shift, but something in the air around him did. Subtle. Dangerous.
“The work of an unraveling is not just in its act,” he said, firmly. “It is a lesson.”
A flicker of something cold slithered through me. My father never raised his voice. He never had to. His disappointment was a weapon sharper than any blade.
I met his gaze, refusing to waver. “The others witnessed the lesson well enough.”
Silence stretched between us. The other hunters stood still, awaiting either punishment or dismissal. My father studied me, long enough that my pulse ticked just slightly faster.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
“There will be more,” he said. “This was only the beginning.”
He mounted his horse, and the other men followed suit. I hesitated a second longer, staring at the empty clearing.
It didn’t matter.
I told myself that again and again, until I almost believed it.
Then I turned my horse and followed.
At the Spire I swung down from my horse, handing the reins to a stable hand with a curt nod before making my way toward the barracks. My father had already disappeared inside the Spire, no doubt preparing for whatever came next.
The others dispersed, but I sensed eyes on me before I heard the footsteps.
“Your going soft on me, Hawthorne?”
Garrick was teasing, but there was an edge beneath it.
I exhaled, running a hand down my face before turning to him. He leaned casually against a gate, arms crossed over his chest, watching me with the same sharpness he always did when something didn’t sit right.
“You walked away,” he said.
I gave him a flat look. “And?”
His smirk deepened. “And that’s not like you.”
I kept my gaze on the ground. I just started walking, heading for the training yard, but Garrick pushed off the wall and fell into step beside me, unbothered by my silence.
“Come on,” he pressed, bumping my shoulder with his. “Tell me. What’s got your head all twisted?”
“Nothing,” I said, sharper than I meant to.
Garrick hummed, unconvinced. “Right. Nothing. Just the usual clarity that comes from watching someone vanish before your eyes.”
I stopped walking. “Garrick.”
He raised his hands in mock surrender, but his smirk didn’t fade. “Fine, fine. Keep your secrets. But I know you, August. You never flinch. You never hesitate. And today. . .” He tilted his head, studying me. “Today, you did.”
I clenched my jaw, staring past him, past the Spire, past everything. “I did what I was meant to do.”
“You did what your father ordered you to do,” Garrick corrected. “Not the same thing.”
Something in my chest tightened, but I shoved it down.
“I don’t have time for this,” I muttered, moving again.
Garrick followed, of course.
“What was it?” he asked, as if I hadn’t just tried to shut him out. “The Weaver? The way they didn’t fight? Or is this about your little redhead?”
I opened my mouth to deny it—but her voice echoed in my head, threaded with confusion instead of malice. Instead, I shot him a warning look, but he just grinned.
“Ah. So, it is about her.”
“This has nothing to do with her.”
“Doesn’t it?” Garrick pressed. “Because I think she’s under your skin.”
“She’s a prisoner.”
“She’s something,” he agreed, shrugging. “I just don’t think you know what yet.”
I exhaled sharply, rolling my shoulders. “What do you want, Garrick?”
His grin faded just slightly, and for once, he looked serious. “I want to know what’s going on in the head of my friend before someone else starts asking the same questions. Someone with a lot less patience than me.”
I knew what he meant.
Elias.
I rubbed at my temple, feeling the weight of it all pressing in. “I did my duty.”
Garrick studied me for a long moment before sighing. “Yeah. You did.”
But something inside me kept pulling loose. Quiet. Constant. Impossible to ignore.