The Temple of Fabric was not located in the Empire.
It was beneath it.
Sloane stood before the entrance, a fissure of black silk parting from the marble floor of the forbidden Spindle Plaza. Two masked sentries flanked the tear — neither moved, neither blinked. Their armor shimmered with the shifting runes of all known Houses, and a few unknown.
Cassien reached to steady her shoulder.
"You can still walk away."
"No," she said. "I walked away from my truth once. I won't do it again."
He nodded, jaw tight.
She stepped into the silk fissure.
The world inverted.
---
She woke in a room made of stitching.
Every wall, every edge was composed of woven fabric suspended in invisible frames. The air itself hummed with tension — like a thread held taut before a final tug.
A robed woman appeared, face hidden behind a veil that displayed a moving pattern — flame, water, vines, shattered glass.
"Name?"
"Sloane Calyx."
"Line?"
"Unaligned."
The woman paused.
"Impossible."
Sloane met her gaze. "I activated a forgotten signature. House Era."
The veil flickered. Then stabilized.
"Follow."
---
The Loom Trial began without preamble.
Sloane stood on a platform suspended over a void of discarded designs — glowing remnants of fashionlines that had failed the Temple's standards.
Above her, seven judges in identical thread-veils observed silently.
A voice, everywhere and nowhere, spoke.
"You stand on the cusp of power that predates the Fashion Empire. You wield a thread erased by history. Why should we let it return?"
Sloane's voice was steady. "Because history didn't erase it. Someone did."
A ripple moved through the veils.
"And what do you intend to do with it?"
She looked up.
"Redesign the system."
---
They tested her.
First came the Thread Maze, where she had to weave her way through a labyrinth of hostile illusions — outdated silhouettes, broken stitching patterns, warping aesthetics. Her instincts led her, not her training.
She passed.
Then the Garment Gauntlet, a duel against three acolytes who wielded live couture — animated gowns that attacked with serrated hems, cloaks that strangled.
Sloane used a fusion cloak, half Silhouette, half Era. She moved like wind with memory. Every strike was a reflection — not of her attacker, but of herself.
She won.
Finally, the Mirror Stitch — where she faced a version of herself shaped entirely by Empire expectations: silent, pretty, obedient, designed.
Sloane let her rage guide her.
She burned that illusion with a flame-thread ripped from the memory of her mother's last design.
---
When she emerged, the veiled judges conferred.
"She is not aligned, yet not rogue."
"She commands a forgotten line, but remains anchored in the new."
"She is fashion forward in the purest sense."
And then — silence.
Until the central veil shimmered into gold.
"You are permitted to continue. House Era may stitch once more."
A sigil burned across Sloane's palm.
The Heirloom Spark.
Recognition. Power. A license to design outside all House codes.
And a warning: she was now visible to the Empire's most dangerous watchers.
---
Cassien met her as she emerged from the temple.
His eyes widened at the mark on her hand.
"You passed."
She nodded.
"What now?" he asked.
Sloane looked toward the skyline, where the Vogue Obelisk was already repairing itself — slowly reasserting dominance over the fashion grid.
"We gather the others."
"And then?"
"We overthrow the fashion Houses."
---
But not everyone was celebrating.
Far across the Empire, in a hidden atelier wrapped in obsidian thread, Venna watched the same mark shimmer on a stolen copy of Sloane's garment.
"She doesn't even know what she's begun," she whispered.
A figure moved behind her — draped in chrome-gilded muslin, face obscured.
"Shall we stop her?"
Venna turned, smile sharp.
"No. We let her grow. Let her climb."
"And then?"
She grinned wider.
"We cut the thread."
---
Meanwhile, Dax sat alone in the old freight elevators beneath the city.
He rewatched the footage of Sloane at the Loom Trial — specifically the moment her cloak split into Era filigree.
He traced the design.
He'd seen it before.
Not in a design archive.
In a memory.
A forgotten photo. His mother — an underground designer who had vanished after a couture protest riot — wore that same pattern on her funeral gown.
And she'd whispered something strange before disappearing:
> "The true signature isn't made by hands… but by sacrifice."
Dax stared at the screen.
Then deleted the footage.
---
Back at the atelier, Sloane's team gathered around the war table — a loom-table projecting their next moves.
Ari pointed at the map of upcoming fashion tournaments.
"These are exhibition galas hosted by Houses to flex dominance. If we crash just one, we can redirect public aesthetic interest — destabilize their control."
Cassien nodded. "House Glint is hosting one next week. Brutalist couture. Audience of five million."
Dax walked in, flipping a hood off his eyes. "We're not just crashing it."
Everyone looked at him.
"We're stealing the crown piece."
Ari blinked. "The Eidolon Dress?"
"It's never been worn. Only viewed. Made from ghost-thread. Said to hold the emotion of everyone who ever wanted power and failed."
Cassien whistled. "Bold."
Dax looked at Sloane. "Are you bold enough?"
Sloane didn't hesitate.
"Let's make fashion history."