Page 8 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)

THE THREAD THAT BURNS

Kali’s Emotional State: Guarded. Off-balance. Still bleeding power from the dream, from the Thread, from him.

T he morning after the vault encounter should have been silent, but Kali woke to the scent of scorched ozone and the sound of Astraeus growling in her mind.

"You let him in," he snarled. "He marked you."

“I didn’t let anything happen.” Her voice was hoarse, her mind still fractured by visions she didn’t understand. “It just happened.”

The Thread Vault’s ceiling still shimmered faintly from the night before, energy rippling through the walls like broken light through water. And on Kali’s palm, a symbol pulsed beneath her skin. Not carved and not burned. Woven.

Her shadows recoiled from it. Astraeus did not.

She sat up slowly in the velvet-draped bed, her sheets soaked with sweat and threaded magic. Her skin still tingled like it had been stitched from lightning.

Lev stood in the doorway now, arms crossed, wearing yesterday’s blood and exhaustion like it was tailored. “You want to tell me what that is?” he asked, nodding toward her hand .

Kali didn’t lie. “A sigil. Threadborn. From the vault.”

He took a step closer, his gaze hardening. “You look like hell.”

“I feel worse.”

“You let someone mark you in the Vault?”

“I didn’t let anyone do anything.” Her voice was low. “He found me. In the Threadspace. I didn’t even know someone could do that.”

Lev didn’t move, but his jaw flexed. “And you didn’t call me?”

A flicker of guilt passed through her. Her fingers flexed slightly, brushing over the woven sigil, as if expecting it to vanish. “I didn’t even know I was gone until it was over.”

That silenced him.

Astraeus stirred again. "He’s coming back. The Threadweaver. And next time, he won’t just leave a sigil. He’ll take more."

Lev stepped forward. “Tell me you haven’t bonded him.”

Kali hesitated. Her stomach flipped. The word echoed like a curse. “No. But something… sparked.”

Lev’s eyes darkened. Not jealousy. Something worse. Recognition. Hurt twisted beneath the surface of his glare.

“Then he’s a mate.”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t have to. But her insides twisted. The idea made her feel like she was standing too close to the edge of a cliff, unsure whether she wanted to jump or be shoved. What did it mean for her control? Her mission? Her choices ?

Could she survive this kind of magic again? Did she want to?

The door behind Lev creaked.

The air shimmered.

Reality split.

And Thorne Draeven stepped out of the ripple in space like he’d always belonged there. Tall. Pale. Threadborn magic woven into every strand of his shadow-dark coat. His silver eyes glinted like starlight dragged through sorrow.

Vaerkyn, curled near the foot of the bed, lifted his massive head and snarled low. The room tensed like a held breath.

Lev reached for a blade.

Kali didn’t stop him.

Thorne raised one hand. “I didn’t come to fight. I came to show her.”

The air bent. The shadows shifted.

And suddenly, Kali stood in the middle of a memory that hadn’t happened yet.

Her own future.

Blood on marble. A scream she couldn’t voice. A sigil—this one carved into her back. Lev broken. Astraeus howling. Vaerkyn lunging into darkness .

She gasped and jerked free of the vision, sweat chilling across her spine. Her breath stuttered in her chest.

“Why would you show me that?” she hissed.

Thorne’s voice was quiet. “Because you needed to know what’s coming. And that I’m already part of it.”

He turned to leave.

But before he vanished, his gaze softened. “You always had the strongest thread.”

Kali exhaled like the air had betrayed her lungs. The sigil glowed hotter. The shadows blinked. Then the ripple sealed shut, and she was alone.

Then he was gone.

Lev’s breath came slowly and hard. “What the fuck was that?”

Kali looked down at her hand.

The sigil was still glowing.

Still hers.

And the war she was trying to outrun?

It had just found a face.

Thorne's POV — Threadborn Silence

The moment he stepped through the veil, Thorne felt her magic lash across his bones like a thousand whispering blades.

She’d changed.

No—awakened.

The thread hadn’t just sparked between them.

It caught fire. And when he left the sigil woven beneath her skin, he’d felt her memories curl around it like silk around steel—memories layered with blood, loyalty, and impossible pressure.

It was the weight of someone who had never been allowed to want anything for herself.

In the void between spaces, Thorne hovered now, cloak of shadows wrapped tight, silver eyes burning through the dark. He could still see her—Kali—etched in the corner of his mind. That fury. That fear. That tether.

She didn’t know what she was yet. Not really.

But the Spiral did.

And if she stepped too close to the edge without understanding her thread's full weight, the Spiral Mouth would consume her.

He clenched his fist.

She thought the vision he showed her was a warning. It wasn’t.

It was a choice .

He remembered the way her magic wrapped around her shoulders like a crown made of shadows. And the way her eyes, even in fear, refused to yield.

“Soon, little sovereign,” he murmured. “You’ll have to pick which part of yourself to burn to keep the rest of us alive.”

And then, he vanished into the Threadspace, already unraveling the next path that would lead her back to him.