The sky was pale and sour when they crossed the threshold into the Vale.
A thin, constant wind wound through the canyons like a whispering thread, plucking at cloaks, brushing against skin like unseen fingers. To Kaelen, it didn't feel like air. It felt like grief. The kind that didn't scream, didn't sob — only lingered.
Tareth led the way, his hand on the hilt of his blade, as though the shadows between the rocks might rise and take shape.
Kaelen's sigil was quiet now. Not gone, but waiting.
"Was this place always like this?" she asked.
"No," he said. "It used to be loud. Colorful. A thousand banners strung across the cliffs. It was called…"
He frowned. Then shook his head.
"I knew its name."
---
The Vale twisted. Paths turned back on themselves. Roads doubled, then vanished. Time bent oddly here; they walked for ten minutes, but the sun didn't move. Their boots left no prints. The air smelled of ash and lavender.
Tareth muttered, "This is worse than Lethe."
"Why?"
"Lethe wanted to be remembered. This place is fighting it."
They passed a broken loom half-buried in stone. The threads had frayed into air. Further up the trail, a cracked amphora spilled dry red petals — some still fresh.
Kaelen knelt beside them. "Why are these untouched?"
"Offerings," Tareth said. "From Remembered who passed through. Hoping something would answer."
He didn't say if anything ever had.
---
At dusk, they reached the ridge.
Below, carved into the valley floor, was an impossible sight: a city made entirely of thread — spindled towers, woven walls, houses stitched together like lace. The colors shimmered, shifting between silver, crimson, and bone-white.
And at the center of it all: a massive loom, upright, its shuttle frozen mid-weave.
Kaelen stared, awestruck. "It's... beautiful."
Tareth looked sick.
"This is Uvenhal. The City That Sang Its Name."
He held out a pendant — bronze, spiral-marked, filled with thread. "My commander wore this."
Kaelen touched the sigil on her wrist.
It flared.
And down below, the city shivered.
---
When they reached the city's edge, everything was silent. No birds. No wind. Only the soft creaking of thread settling under its own forgotten weight.
They entered the Weaver's Hall. Spools the size of carriages lined the walls, each filled with hair-fine golden thread. Tareth stopped before a tapestry — one so faded it was nearly invisible.
But Kaelen saw it.
A face.
A woman's — sharp eyes, hair braided like a crown. The sigil etched on her neck was familiar.
Kaelen turned to Tareth.
"This was her."
He nodded. "General Nema Veyrn. My sister."
Kaelen froze. "Your sister?"
Tareth looked older in that moment. "She taught me the first sigil. She taught me to remember."
---
Kaelen stepped forward, and the air around the tapestry grew warm. The face pulsed. The thread shimmered.
And then the loom behind them moved.
Not violently.
Just once.
Clack.
The city exhaled.
Every thread in the place snapped taut — like nerves suddenly aware of being touched. And then came the sound.
A name.
Spoken softly, across every wall.
"Kaelen…"
She staggered back.
Tareth drew his blade, but it was no use. The city knew her.
The threads rose — not to strangle, but to embrace. To anchor.
And Kaelen did what she now knew only she could.
She named it.
"Uvenhal, the Singing Thread. You were real. You are real. I remember you."
---
The loom cracked.
The tapestry turned to ash.
And across her skin, Kaelen's sigil bled a second fracture — splitting the spiral wider, now branching into a woven glyph.
She fell to her knees.
"Another one," she whispered. "That's two."
Tareth knelt beside her. "That's two more than any of us ever brought back."
But Kaelen didn't feel victorious.
She felt hollow.
Because in the moment Uvenhal remembered her, she remembered something else:
Her mother's face — not as a comfort… but as the one who gave her away.
---