*LORD OF DESTINY: Chapter 20 : Seven Against Three
The boy in the cage mouthed _Run_ again.
Kael didn’t.
“Seven,” he said quietly. “With me.”
The seven threads behind him lifted. Mira, Toven, and the others. Their faces were set. No fear. Just focus.
The three people below the tower had white eyes. Spindles in their hands. And they were smiling like they’d been waiting for this.
“Lord Veyr,” the woman in front said. “We’re the Menders. We’re fixing what you broke.”
She gestured to the cage. “This one was going to start a war. We’re going to stop him. Before he gets the chance.”
In the cage, the boy shook his head. “I wasn’t,” he whispered. “I was just gonna steal bread.”
Kael’s jaw tightened. “That’s not your choice.”
“No,” the second Mender said. “It’s ours. Just like it was the Weaver’s.”
They raised their spindles. White threads shot up toward the boy.
“Now,” Kael said.
Seven threads answered.
They didn’t go for the Menders. They went for the cage.
Small pulls. Precise.
One thread hit the lock. It forgot how to be locked.
One hit the bars. They bent.
One hit the boy’s wrist. His thread, black and scared, lit up.
The boy dropped out of the cage. Toven caught him.
The Menders screamed.
The woman yanked her spindle. Her white thread came down — not at the boy. At Kael.
He raised his hand. His rope met it mid-air.
Black vs White.
Consequence hit immediately. The scar on his chest burned like ice. The black crawled up his neck.
But the seven kids were already pulling.
Not to hurt. To _unmake_.
They remembered Lesson Three: Braid, don’t cut.
Their threads slid around the Menders’ white threads. Not fighting them. Tangling them. Confusing them.
One Mender dropped his spindle, staring at his hands like he didn’t recognize them.
The second fell to her knees, crying. “I can see... I can see my own choices again.”
The woman leader fought the longest. She pulled harder. The white thread cut into Kael’s rope.
Kael pulled back.
He didn’t pull with strength. He pulled with a memory.
Mira’s gold scar. Nira coming back to life. Toven laughing.
“Fate isn’t yours to fix,” Kael said. “It’s ours to live.”
The white thread snapped.
Not broke. _Chose_ to let go.
The woman collapsed. The white left her eyes. She looked old. Human. Scared.
The fortress was silent.
Kael walked to the boy. He was maybe 10. Shaking. Name was Jorin.
“Teacher?” Jorin whispered.
“Yeah,” Kael said. He picked him up. “We’re late.”
The seven kids gathered around. Their threads hovered over Jorin, checking. He was okay. Scared, but whole.
Through the rope on Kael’s wrist, Kael felt it.
Lyra’s group.
Trouble.
Lots of footsteps.
He looked north-east, then south.
“Time to go home,” he said.