There were no lights in the Sanctum.
Only threads.
Hundreds—maybe thousands—of threads that floated midair like gossamer veins, shifting color in rhythm with some silent, unseen pulse. They stretched between crumbling pillars, arched over vaulted ceilings, and disappeared into the dark beyond.
Eliara stood beneath them, breath shallow, eyes wide.
This was the Loom.
The true one.
Not a human construct, not a Weavers' Council simulation. This was the nexus where all threads passed through, knotted and tangled and spun anew. A place no one was meant to find.
But it had found her.
"It's listening," she whispered.
Rowen stepped beside her, his thread-gloves flickering faintly. "To you?"
"No. To us."
He exhaled slowly, then crouched by a shallow bowl in the center of the floor. It was filled with something like water, except it shimmered like silver and shifted with memory. Faces passed beneath the surface—some familiar, others long gone.
"Memory pool," he said. "Deep. Pure. Ancient."
Eliara's voice was hushed. "The Council said this was a myth."
"Everything they called a myth is breathing down our necks now."
She looked around again. The threads weren't inert—they pulsed with something alive. And at the far end of the Loom, past a curtain of golden weave, stood a shape.
A loom, yes. But a throne, too.
And seated upon it—
No. Not seated.
Woven into it.
A body—or what remained of one—merged with the threadwork. Neither male nor female. A weaver who had long since become more thread than flesh. The shape's head tilted, as though sensing their arrival.
"Rowen," Eliara said carefully. "We're not alone."
The threads stirred. Some began to curl downward toward them. Others pulsed crimson.
Then the voice came.
Not through air. Through thread.
"You are not the first to come seeking answers."
Rowen instinctively raised a barrier thread. "Who are you?"
The figure on the throne did not move, but its voice echoed again.
"I was a Weavemaster once. Keeper of the Loom. When the world tore itself from balance, I stayed."
Eliara's pendant burned warm against her chest.
"You… chose to become this?"
The throne-thread shifted faintly. "I was chosen. The Loom demanded a guardian. A soul to remain between the knots."
Rowen frowned. "Then tell us—what is The Wake? Why is it growing?"
The figure stirred.
"Because something is feeding it. Memory, pain, grief—threads cut too soon."
A shudder passed through the room. One of the golden strands snapped in midair and curled away like a severed nerve.
Eliara stepped forward. "We've seen them. Children used as conduits. Forgotten places resurrected. There's something—someone—on the other side of the Veil stitching shadows into the Weave."
"Yes," the voice replied. "He was once one of us. A patternborn. A Forger."
Eliara's breath caught. "You're talking about the man in the Wake. The one who called himself Purpose."
"He was Nayir. A prodigy. He believed the Weave was flawed. That by rewriting it, he could fix everything. But he began to pull from the other side. From the—"
The threads around them trembled. A terrible note hummed through the air. The Loom shuddered.
"He's here."
The memory pool boiled.
Eliara turned—too late.
A shadow tore through the golden curtain, threads snapping in its wake. It was Nayir—or what was left of him. His body shimmered like a cloak of broken thread, face hidden by strands that wept like ink.
"You've wandered too far," he hissed.
Rowen raised his hand. "We're not running."
"You will."
Nayir's voice was like a thousand whispers colliding. He flung a strand of black weave toward them. Eliara intercepted, her pendant blazing. Her cleansing thread met his in midair—silver against black—and exploded.
The room shook.
The ancient weaver on the throne cried out—not in pain, but warning.
"If you sever the Loom—reality will split."
Eliara didn't listen.
She surged forward, silver weaving from her palms like wildfire. Nayir snarled, deflecting, retreating into the shadowed webs above. But not before whispering something:
"She's almost ready."
And then he was gone.
Silence returned to the Loom.
The guardian slumped, threads fraying from its frame.
Eliara knelt before it. "What did he mean? Who is 'she'?"
The voice was fainter now. "The Patternborn girl. The thread-child. She is his final stitch."
Rowen's eyes widened. "Kera."
The weaver nodded weakly. "He means to unmake the Veil… by replacing its heart."
Eliara's breath caught. "Kera is the heart?"
"No," the voice said. "But she can become it. If she's anchored to the Loom, he can reverse the tether. Rebuild the world beneath his design."
Rowen stepped back, horror dawning on his face. "He's not just corrupting memory. He's trying to rewrite existence."
The guardian whispered: "Find the Fracture. That's where the final pattern begins."
And then it faded.
The body unraveled, threads slipping free and dissolving into the Loom until nothing was left but silence.
Back in their safehouse in Prague, Eliara didn't sleep.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, her pendant in one hand, Rowen's coat draped around her shoulders. On the table, a map of the Weave's weakest points glowed under spectral light.
They had a target now: The Fracture.
A place where the Weave had never healed after the Fall.
A place no one returned from.
Rowen finally spoke from the couch. "This is going to break us."
Eliara looked up. "Then we become something that doesn't break."
He studied her a long moment, then nodded.
"We leave at dawn."