CHAPTER 1589: STORY 1589: THREADS OF RUIN

The storm screamed louder than stone breaking, louder than the towers’ collapse. Its half-born body reknit from light and ruin, wings spreading wide, dripping shards of shattered sky. The boy’s glow pulsed at its heart, threads of brilliance binding him to the forming giant like veins.

Kael braced himself, every scar across his body burning in unison. He spat dust and raised his shard-blade. “It’s sewing itself into him. We cut the threads, or we lose him.”

Elara clung to the boy’s waist, even as the radiance seared her arms raw. Her voice cracked with both terror and command: “Hear me! You are not its flesh—you are my son! Tear free!”

The widow staggered upright, her palms dripping blood onto the fissures. The land drank her wounds, answering with trembling light. She mouthed silently, Bind us instead. Take us, not him. The fissures flared, as if her vow tethered her spirit into the broken earth itself.

The scarred woman dragged herself through the storm, teeth bared, spear broken down to a jagged haft. She jammed it into one of the glowing threads binding the boy to the giant. The wood hissed, split, and dissolved—but the thread flickered, weakened for a breath. She snarled triumphantly, even as the backlash scorched her arm black. “They can be cut!”

The farmer, shaking, lifted his drum again. His hands bled from split skin, but he struck anyway, desperate. Each beat was uneven, discordant—but the storm winced. Its body staggered, threads vibrating wildly, some loosening. He gasped ragged laughter, voice breaking. “Mistakes. It can’t hold against mistakes!”

Kael lunged, swinging his shard through another thread. The impact shattered the blade into sparks of molten light, yet the thread snapped, recoiling with a hiss. His hands blistered, but he roared through the pain, “One by one—we tear it loose!”

The storm bellowed, the giant’s face warping between void and the boy’s features. Its voice split into countless overlapping tones:

“You unravel me, but you unravel him. His glow is my marrow. Break me, and you break your own.”

Elara pulled her son close, her lips pressed to his temple, tears falling into the light. “No. You are not marrow to ruin. You are blood, bone, breath—mine.” Her words, fierce and trembling, seemed to steady the boy’s glow. The threads tightened, then faltered, as though his small body resisted the pull.

The widow collapsed to her knees, palms pressed to the fissures, her silent mouth shaping words only the land could hear. The cracks blazed brighter, and for the first time the giant staggered backward, dragged by the weight of her vow.

The scarred woman, half-burned and grinning, shouted hoarsely, “Now! Tear them all!”

Kael, the farmer, and Elara pulled in unison—their strength, their rhythm, their love—ripping at the glowing threads. The boy screamed, his voice not fractured but wholly his own. Light exploded outward.

The giant’s body split apart, scattering into torrents of molten fragments. The rift in the sky shuddered, shrinking violently.

For a heartbeat, silence. The boy lay trembling in Elara’s arms, still glowing but dimmer, his own.

Kael dropped to one knee, breath ragged, staring into the dust storm where the giant had been. His scars flickered weakly. “It’s not done. That was only its first breath.”

And from the fractured heavens came a low, guttural laugh—vast, unfinished, but alive.