*LORD OF DESTINY: Chapter 15: The North
Kael didn’t sleep that night.
Mira was curled against his chest, breathing steady. The new gold line in her thread glowed faint and warm.
Through the rope on his wrist, he felt it again. That tug. Far north, past the Ash Plains, past the Frozen Coast.
Not pulling big like the King. Pulling _wrong_. Like someone was trying to tie a knot that wasn’t supposed to exist.
He woke Lyra before dawn. “We move.”
She looked at the twelve kids, still asleep in a circle around the knot. “All of us?”
“All of us,” Kael said. “If someone’s hurting a Child, we don’t send messengers. We go.”
The oldest girl woke up the moment Kael stood. “North,” she said, like she’d heard him in her sleep. “I feel her too.”
By sunrise they were gone.
They didn’t pull the road this time. Too far. Too many people would feel it. Instead, Kael taught them how to pull the wind.
Small pulls.
Wind at their backs.
Clouds parting so the sun warmed them.
Rain falling behind them, not on them.
Three days. The Spire became a speck. The Ash Plains became snow.
On the fourth day they reached the Frozen Coast.
A village made of ice and wood. One dock. One longhouse. And in the center, a tower that shouldn’t have been there. Built from black stone. No windows.
And from the top of it, a thread.
Not black. Not red.
White.
It went up into the sky and then down, buried in the ice.
Tied to the bottom of it was a child. Maybe 5 years old. A boy. Hanging. The white thread was wrapped around his throat.
A woman stood below him. Older. Eyes like Coren’s used to be. White. Empty.
She had a spindle in her hands. And she was weaving.
“Stop,” Kael said. His voice carried over the ice.
The woman didn’t look up. “You’re late, Lord Veyr. I’ve been waiting for someone who knows how to braid.”
The boy kicked. Gasped. The white thread tightened.
The eleven kids behind Kael hissed. Their threads lifted.
Lyra drew her sword. “Let him go.”
The woman finally looked at Kael. She smiled. “The Weaver is dead. But fate needs a hand. I’m just helping it along. This boy? He was going to burn three villages. I’m stopping him. Before he chooses.”
Kael’s scar went cold. “That’s not your choice to make.”
“No?” The woman tugged the spindle. The boy choked. “Then whose? Yours? You who cut the world loose?”
She looked at the twelve kids. “Oh. You brought them. Good. I need twelve threads to finish the Loom.”
Kael felt it. She wasn’t pulling fate. She was trying to _rebuild_ the Weaver. Using a Child as the center pin.
Mira stirred in his arms and whispered, “She hurts.”
Kael set Mira down gently. The oldest girl took her hand.
Kael stepped forward. The rope of twelve threads rose off his wrist.
“Lesson three,” he said quietly.
“Never pull alone. And never let someone else decide who deserves to breathe.”
The woman raised the spindle.
The boy’s feet left the ice.