Cassian Thorn had never stitched anything.
Not fabric. Not flesh. Not fate.
But the loom disagreed.
It pulsed with memory — not of what he had done, but what he would do.
And already had.
The Paradox Thread
Cassian held the burning thread.
It did not burn.
It folded.
Not into cloth.
Into time.
The stitched child whispered, "You stitched me."
Cassian shook his head. "I wasn't born yet."
The loom pulsed.
> "You were memory before you were matter."
The First Stitch
The vault shimmered.
A moment unfolded — not a vision, but a recursion.
Cassian stood before the loom.
Younger. Older. Neither.
He held a coin.
He flipped it.
It landed on its edge.
The loom responded.
A thread floated toward him.
He stitched it into the air.
And a stitched one was born.
The Loop
Cassian staggered back.
"I created them?"
The stitched child nodded. "You created us to remember."
Cassian's voice cracked. "But I don't."
The loom pulsed again.
> "You forgot to protect the forgetting."
Cassian whispered, "Then who stitched me?"
The stitched child smiled.
> "You did."
The Spiral Collapses
The vault began to fold.
Not collapse.
Rewind.
Cassian saw it all:
- Aurex Vell watching from the shadows.
- Lyra marked by the archive.
- Juno holding the truth like a blade.
- The stitched ones kneeling before a child not yet born.
Cassian turned to the loom.
It was empty.
Except for one thread.
His own.
The Final Stitch
Cassian stepped forward.
He held the thread.
He stitched it into the loom.
The tower screamed.
The stitched ones wept.
And Cassian Thorn became what he had always been:
> The stitcher who was.
> The stitcher who will be.
> The stitcher who forgot.