The scream from the well rippled outward—soundless yet deafening, like a wound echoing across time.
Nima clutched the lantern tighter. Its glass pulsed beneath her fingers, a heartbeat not her own.
Erielle turned to the well, her voice hushed.
"Every truth we bury finds a voice here. Every lie we've ever lived… floats to the surface."
Morya's eyes scanned the tree's fraying threads.
"If this place holds memory, then why does it feel like it's… forgetting?"
Erielle's face tightened.
"Because something hungry is here now. Feeding on names, untethering what's real. The Hollow Waters were once a sanctuary for remembrance. But now… the edge is bleeding."
She pointed across the still lake. On the far bank, a jagged silhouette of stone and ruin loomed—its towers twisted, as though memory had sculpted them wrongly.
"The Edge is there. You must take the lantern across. Anchor it before the Unraveling reaches the shore."
Morya stepped forward.
"And you?"
Erielle looked back at the well, her eyes dark with knowing.
"I stay. The Hollow remembers me… differently."
Without another word, Nima and Morya returned to their skiff, lantern in hand. As they pushed off, the water felt thicker—sluggish, resistant. With every stroke, the reflections below them changed.
They didn't see their own faces anymore.
They saw versions.
A Nima who wore a crown of ink.
A Morya with a blade of bone, her eyes blackened by sorrow.
Erielle weeping over a child that flickered like a broken flame.
"This place is… rewriting us," Nima said.
"Then we write back," Morya replied.
The lantern in Nima's hands grew warm, glowing dimly—remembering itself.
They reached the opposite shore.
The Edge.
The earth was cracked and veined with threads of silver and blood. The air buzzed with silence—deep, unnatural.
And at the center of the stone ruin stood a throne of mirrors, fractured and humming.
Upon it: a figure wrapped in unraveling cloth.
It rose as they approached.
"You carry the last flame," it rasped.
"But even lanterns drown in the end."
Nima stepped forward.
"You are the Unraveler."
"I am what happens when memory is left to rot."
Its hand raised—threads lashing out.
Morya blocked them with her body, pain flashing in her eyes, but her voice steady.
"Light it, Nima. Now."
Nima lifted the lantern.
But the light refused to spark.
"It needs… a name," she realized. "It needs to remember who we are."
She turned to Morya, voice breaking.
"Say it. Say my name."
And Morya—bleeding, but unbowed—whispered:
"Nima Elaye. Flamekeeper of the Loom. Weaver of Remembering. My light."
The lantern ignited.
A flame so bright the Hollow shook.
The throne cracked. The Unraveler shrieked—threads snapping away from its form, unwinding into dust. Mirrors shattered into wind. And beneath their feet, the Hollow Waters surged upward, swallowing the Edge in silver light.
When it was over, the skiff lay beached beside the great tree once more.
The lantern still burned.
And memory, for now, held fast.