Scene 15: Stitching Soren Back Together

"Stitch Spiral"

Chapter 15: Stitching Soren Back Together POV: Thesa Raven Location: Prayer yard edge, outside the Spiral field Tension: Soren’s body is bleeding. His mind is steady. His sister’s not.

She made it outside just in time to see him collapse to one knee.

Soren— arm torn, blood running, he must have lost quite a bit, and still he was holding himself together like that could actually work.

She ran to him. Fell to her knees.

He pushed her back. “I’m fine,” he said. And then he stood. On his own.

But she’d seen him fall. From the Spiral. From the height.

She had felt the current bend. Felt the Spiral recoil when it pulled him down.

She had no idea how he was still standing.

Her glyph flickered. Not from danger—just from resonance. The way it always did when she was feeling something she didn’t say.

But that was her brother. He’d always been two things: Muscle when you needed muscle. A hug when you didn’t think you needed one.

Now— he was bleeding. And all she wanted to do was hold him.

She stepped closer. Lowered her voice. “Let me see.”

He didn’t protest. Didn’t flinch.

The gash in his arm was real. Deep. Clean. Wrong.

“He got you,” she said. “VOKH.”

Soren didn’t nod. Didn’t shake his head.

“I thought I could stop it.” That’s all he said. Not loud. Not proud. Just honest.

She blinked too fast. Looked down. Started wrapping his arm without asking.

“You tried.”

He laughed once— short, sharp. “That’s what I do.”

She tied the cloth tighter than she meant to. He didn’t flinch.

She didn’t look up. “You smile too much when you’re in pain.”

“You worry too much when you’re not.”

That shut her up. Which, maybe, was what he wanted.

So she didn’t speak. Just pressed the last knot flat, and stayed still.

“You came for me,” she said.

He looked at her then. “You would’ve come for me.”

She nodded. Just once. Held it.

And didn’t say what she was thinking: “Why didn’t I feel it sooner?” “Why didn’t I stop it?”

Because none of it mattered. Not right now.

He was standing. She was here.

And tonight— that was enough.

But the Spiral had recorded her pause—like ink drying over memory. It didn’t punish. It remembered. And that part of her— the one still trembling under the glyph— knew it wouldn’t forget.

And though neither of them spoke again, they stayed close enough to hear the other’s breath steady.