The Weaver's Temptation

The air shimmered, not with heat, but with something colder, something that prickled the back of my neck. One moment, I was staring at the chipped paint on my bedroom wall, the next, the wall was gone, replaced by a swirling vortex of colors I’d never seen before. It wasn’t a dream. The cold was real, the dizzying sensation was real, and the voice, when it spoke, vibrated through my very bones.

“Such potential,” it purred, a silken thread weaving through the chaos. “Such a wasted vessel.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force the impossible image away. But it clung, like a spiderweb spun from starlight. When I dared to open them again, the vortex had coalesced into a figure. Androgynous, cloaked in shadows that seemed to drink the light, it stood just a few feet away. It was the Weaver. The one Silas had warned me about, the one who twisted time like a knot.