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My chest tightened.

“She passed that wretched power to you. You’ve seen it, sensed it, haven’t you?” he said quietly. “The threads. The magic.”

He tilted his head slightly, gaze cutting through me.

“You’re the first male Weaver born in over a century. A threadbreaker. Stronger. Wilder. Untethered.”

“No.” The word came out strangled. “That's not—I'm not⁠—”

But even as I denied it, the truth resonated in my bones. Every moment the threads stirred. Every time I'd touched Lily and something sparked between us. The way the Weave had recognized me at the stream.

The words struck deep.

I staggered—not physically, but in the soul-deep way that changes everything.

A threadbreaker.

Not an Unraveler like him. Not a destroyer of lives.

But something more dangerous. Freer.

“If you knew. . . why did you not end me?”

His jaw twitched.

“I tried,” he admitted. “But you're my greatest weakness.”

He stepped closer, studying me like I was his greatest creation. “You were not born to serve the Weave. You were born to rewrite it.”

“You raised me to be a weapon.”

He smiled, cruel and gleaming. “And I was right.”

“No,” I said. “I'm not your weapon.”

The words came final as a blade sliding into place.

“I'm the thing fate never saw coming. I'm not here to destroy the world you built, Father.”

“I'm here to break it open.”

And then the Weave answered. Not with silence. Not with light. With force.

It roared to life in my chest, wild and furious, ripping through every thread he thought he controlled. Power coursed through me like molten gold, like lightning, like everything I'd ever been denied suddenly rushing back into my veins.

The ground cracked beneath my feet. The chains around my wrists didn't just break—they dissolved, reduced to rust and memory. I took a step toward him, the Weave whispering at the edge of my senses—vibrating, trembling, waiting.

And as I stood there, wreathed in golden thread-light, Elias took a single step back.

The first he'd ever taken away from me.

But then his smile returned. Wider. More terrible.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

The pendant at my throat—my mother's, the one piece of her I'd carried all these years—blazed with heat. Not the gentle warmth from before, but searing, burning pain that drove me to my knees.

The one thing I'd thought was mine. The one connection to a mother who'd loved me.