They descended through smoke and silence.
The battlefield was behind them now, but not forgotten. The Hollowed who had vanished left behind traces—petals, coins, names etched in dirt—that shimmered as though grateful.
Morya held the lantern now, guarding Nima's energy. But the glow had changed. It flickered with crimson streaks, as though touched by something deeper, older.
"You heard it too," Morya said quietly.
"That voice beneath the earth…"
Nima nodded, though the word still echoed inside her like thunder sealed in bone.
Daughter.
The entrance to the Vault of the First Silence revealed itself only as they stood upon its threshold—an old song embedded in the stone responded to Nima's breath. The earth rippled, parting slowly to reveal spiraling stairs that led into darkness thick as oil.
As they entered, memories curled around them—not their own, not even human.
"This place wasn't built," Morya murmured. "It grew."
The walls pulsed with root-veins that bled light. Symbols pulsed like living runes. And at the center of the chamber was a massive cocoon made of woven threads of ash, smoke, and regret.
It pulsed.
And then—it spoke again.
"Nima. Bearer of the Lantern's wound.
The storm has turned. The bridge must break or be reborn."
Nima stepped forward. Her heart beat so loud, it felt like a drum calling armies.
"Who are you?"
The cocoon unraveled in strands, slowly revealing a being not made of flesh or fire—but thread. A woman-shaped silhouette, half-complete, with eyes like weeping ink and hands wrapped in memory-bands.
"I am the forgotten thread.
The one who wove the pact and was unmade to seal it.
I am… Ashira, the First Weaver."
Nima fell to her knees. The name echoed in stories, myths buried even to the Lantern Guild.
"I thought you were just legend."
Ashira touched her brow.
"Every legend was once a lantern. And every lantern burns, eventually."
Ashira's story poured into Nima's mind:
Long before the cities. Before the Hollowed. Before the first silence—Ashira was the one who saw memory not as burden, but as bridge. She wove it into wind, into dreams, into trees.
But when people grew afraid of remembering—of grief, of truth—they demanded forgetting.
"And I… broke myself into a thousand threads to grant them silence."
Now she stirred.
"But you, Nima, have undone what I once sealed. You must choose—
Reweave the world, or let it collapse beneath the storm it has summoned."
Nima stood.
"If I choose to reweave it… what does it cost?"
Ashira's eyes dimmed.
"Everything unspoken. Everything unloved.
You will become not just the lantern… but the flame itself."
The cocoon shattered into wind and ash.
A single needle formed in Ashira's place—long, silver, glowing faintly with golden thread.
"Take it," the wind whispered.
"And begin again."
Nima reached out.
As her fingers closed around the Threadneedle, a circle of lanterns—each belonging to a past bearer—lit up around her. Behind her, Morya wept.
"I always knew it would be you," she whispered.
Nima turned.
"You'll stay with me?"
"To the end."
But far above them… in Emberthrone… something else had stirred.
The Lantern Guild had begun to fracture.
Some demanded her rise.
Others demanded her death.
And in the shadows of that crumbling city… a familiar voice smiled.
"Let the girl weave. When she's done, we'll burn the thread and wear the crown."