The world dissolved into endless blackness dotted with twinkling stars.

A dark, flickering figure formed — fire wrapped in shadow, eyes like shifting oil slicks.

A voice, smooth as silk but cold as a winter blade, echoed through the void.

"So you survived."

Auren's voice trembled. "Who... who are you?"

The figure tilted its head, curious like an animal.

"You may call me... nothing. Names are mortal bindings."

Auren shivered despite the eerie heat.

"You have potential with Aether unlike any mortal I've met. The thread of possibility itself sings in your veins. One day, you might sever the paths of fate entirely... or weave new ones. That choice is yours."

"Why me?"

"Fate likes you... or perhaps it simply needs someone stubborn enough to try."

The shadow began to unravel like smoke.

"Seek power wisely, young mortal. For every thread you sever... another tightens around your neck."

Auren's breath hitched as the vision faded.

Auren's breath hitched as the shadow began to unravel like smoke, its edges dissolving into the void until only silence remained. The stars blinked out one by one, and the emptiness pressed in like a cold, heavy blanket.

He floated there for a long moment, alone with his racing thoughts and the faint echo of the mysterious voice still whispering in his mind.

Slowly, the dream realm slipped away.

Light seeped back into his senses—the rough grain of the wooden ceiling above, the faint creak of the old inn settling with the night's chill, and the distant hoot of an owl somewhere beyond the village.

His chest rose and fell unevenly, the pain dull but persistent like a slow-burning ember. Sweat coated his brow, cool in the stillness of the room. The shadows cast by the flickering candle on the wobbly table danced across the walls, twisting like silent specters in the dim light.

Auren's fingers clenched the thin blanket covering him, knuckles pale in the half-darkness. The weight of the words — the thread of possibility, severing paths of fate — settled deep inside him like a stone sinking in a river.

The room felt too small now. Too confined. Yet the unknown stretching beyond it was even more daunting.

He swallowed hard and forced his eyes closed once more, willing sleep to return and bring some respite — but the strange fire-shadow's parting warning echoed louder than any lullaby:

"For every thread you sever... another tightens around your neck."

Outside, the village lay quiet, oblivious to the silent reckoning unfolding in this small, cramped room. Somewhere, a dog barked faintly, a cartwheel rattled on loose stones, and the world carried on, unaware of the fragile thread holding Auren's fate — and perhaps many others' — poised on the edge of something far greater than pain or exhaustion.

Seeing kaele sleep so comfortably, he went back aswell.