Haraza dreamed of fire again.
But this time, it wasn't Earth burning.
It was Eltherra.
Cities torn apart by invisible winds. Mountains crumbling into the sea. A storm of colors he couldn't name swallowing everything.
In the center of it all—a gate.
Not of wood or stone.
But woven from threads of light, memory, and something deeper.
The Loom itself.
Haraza stood before it.
And behind him, someone whispered:
("You will break the gate, Haraza Genso. Or you will become it.")
Dawn came slow to Tarn's Hollow.
Not because the sun had changed—but because the people had. The Hollow, once noisy with farmers and traders, now stirred with a kind of hushed reverence. Smoke rose from scattered chimneys, not from celebration or comfort, but necessity. The smell of burnt cloth and old wood still lingered like a ghost. The Ironthread was gone, but its scars remained—in the soil, in the minds of the villagers, and in Haraza himself.
He stood on the northern ridge, above the riverbank where the battle had reached its worst. His boots pressed into scorched earth, the grass beneath brittle and gray. The glaive on his back pulsed faintly—a heartbeat not his own. Since the Rift opened in him, the weapon had changed. More than steel now. More than tool. It breathed, remembered, responded.
Below, the people moved like sleepwalkers. They cleared rubble. Rebuilt shattered walls. Stacked stone without speaking. No one wept. No one shouted. As if mourning out loud would call the dead back in the wrong shape.
Behind him, footsteps approached. He didn't turn. He knew the stride.
("Morning,") Lyssira said.
He nodded, eyes on the hollow.
("I've compiled the names,") she continued, holding a scroll wrapped in red twine. ("From the healers and the elders. Eighteen dead. Six wounded. Five missing.")
His fingers twitched. ("Including children?")
She didn't answer. Just handed him the scroll.
The parchment was rough. Ink smudged in places where the quill had trembled. Each name marked with a symbol—age, clan tie, village role. There were farmers. Hunters. A weaver. A child who had sung on the riverbank the day before.
Haraza's grip tightened.
("Some of these… they weren't even near the front.")
Lyssira's voice stayed calm. ("The Ironthread had reach. And those cultists—")
("Masked cowards,") he muttered.("They fought like they wanted to be forgotten.")
("They fought like they feared what you are.")
He turned toward her. ("And what am I?")
She didn't flinch. ("A symbol. Symbols start wars.")
He didn't respond. Only looked back down at the hollow as the first real light of morning began to touch the broken rooftops. Something inside him twisted—like a knot drawing tighter.
Later that day, while helping dig through the rubble of the eastern field, Haraza felt a pulse in his chest. Subtle, like the echo of a heartbeat that didn't belong. The wrench-core, now embedded in the haft of his glaive, responded to something nearby.
He paused. The others kept digging. He crouched beside the half-buried support beam of a collapsed granary and brushed aside ash and soil. There—buried like a secret—gleamed a jagged shard of dark metal, curved like a fang, etched with strange, branching symbols. It hummed with Rift-energy.
One of the villagers gasped behind him. ("That... that came from the masked one. The one that screamed like thunder.")
Haraza said nothing. He lifted the shard, careful, reverent. As his fingers closed around it, a flicker of memory—not his own—flashed in his mind. A name:( Vaethis). A ritual of light and chain. A face painted in silver.
He slid the shard into a pouch on his belt, where the Vault Map pulsed faintly in response.
That night, the villagers gathered for the Stitching. It wasn't a funeral, not in name. But grief hung thick in the air. Each family came forward with a square of red cloth, stitched with the symbol of their dead—an arrow for a hunter, a drop of water for a child who loved the river, a broken tree for an elder who had guided many seasons. They pinned them to a great tapestry hung outside the Loom-hall.
Haraza stood at the edge of the gathering, silent. The glaive rested at his side, its core pulsing slowly, rhythmically—like it, too, mourned.
Arim, one of the oldest among them, approached. His beard was singed at the ends. His eyes rimmed in red.
("My grandson,") he said, voice cracked by sorrow. ("He thought you were a storm-reborn.")
("I'm not,") Haraza answered.
("He said you glowed when you fought. Said the metal sang your name.")
("He died?")
Arim nodded slowly. ("Crushed when the Ironthread fell. He was hiding. Safe, we thought. But the world has teeth.")
He held out a square of red cloth. It bore the image of a rook in flight.
("I stitched this for him,") Arim said. ("Would you… carry it?")
Haraza took it without speaking. Tied it to the hilt of his glaive.
Arim bowed and returned to the crowd.
After the gathering, Lyssira found him near the grain stores, where soldiers had gathered supplies for the road. The stars above burned bright and cruel, the sky deeper than he remembered from Earth.
("We leave at first light,") she said. ("The trail into Breachwood is shifting. If we wait, it might not be there tomorrow.")
He nodded, still looking up.
("You're quiet.")
("I'm remembering.")
("Earth?")
He shook his head. ("No. What I saw during the fight. When the glaive awakened. There was… something. A gate. Floating in the Rift. Not like the Vaults.")
Lyssira stiffened. ("You saw a Loomgate?")
("That what it's called?")
("They say it's the root of the Rift. The place where all threads begin. If you saw it…")
He turned to her. ("It spoke.")
She stepped closer. ("What did it say?")
("It said I'd either break it… or become it.")
A long silence.
Her voice was a whisper now. ("Then we really don't have time to waste.")
Before the sun rose, Haraza visited the forge. Korr, the village smith, had reforged part of his glaive using salvaged iron from the cultist's armor. The weapon gleamed now—sleeker, lighter. The haft was wrapped in treated hide. The blade curved with purpose.
("It remembers the battle,") Korr said, handing it over. ("Like you do.")
Haraza tested its balance. The blade sang.
("I don't know what I'm becoming.")
("You're not becoming,") Korr replied. ("You're choosing. That's harder.")
He nodded. Gripped her hand. ("Thank you.")
She met his gaze. ("Keep choosing, Haraza Genso. That's how you stay human.")
As the first light broke over the horizon, he strapped the glaive to his back, the rook-cloth fluttering faintly from its hilt. Lyssira was already waiting at the edge of the Hollow, her eyes fixed on the trees beyond.
Together, they turned toward the Breachwood.
The forest shimmered with Riftlight in the distance—alive, waiting, watching.
They stepped forward.