The dawn that followed the trials was unlike any that had come before it.
It began not with light, but with sound—a deep, resonant chord that rang through the Hollow like the breath of a new world. The trees trembled in reverence. The waters of the silent river shimmered with silver light.
And above it all, the Loom—reborn—cast threads of living starlight through the sky.
Morya stood beneath it, raw and silent. Her skin bore the scars of her sacrifice. Her eyes, once sharp and watchful, now shimmered with quiet understanding.
Around her, the gathered weavers—young and old—knelt not in worship, but in recognition.
"You came back," Nima said, stepping forward, voice hushed.
"I was never gone," she answered, placing a hand over his heart. "Just… divided."
He nodded. He understood now. Not everything she had done could be forgiven. But some truths had to be carried together.
"What happens now?" Erielle asked from the steps, her hands trembling with awe.
"Now," Morya said, "we remake the tapestry—this time without erasing the broken threads."
The Watchers approached at last.
But they came not as judges, nor as guardians.
They bowed.
"You have endured the three trials."
"You have unthreaded the lie of your birth."
"You have chosen truth over power."
"Now, the Loom is yours to tend—not to rule."
And with that, they vanished—threads returning to the stars like mist dissolving into morning light.
The Hollow changed.
No longer merely a place of whispers and punishment, it became a sanctuary of story.
Weavers from distant lands returned to add their voices. The shunned and exiled were welcomed home. Children were taught not only how to shape thread, but how to listen to it—how to honor the truth within every knot.
Morya, once the cursed one, became the Keeper of Honest Thread.
At twilight, she would still walk alone sometimes, down to the river's edge.
There, she would take out the single silver thread she had never sewn—Layen's. She kept it wrapped in cloth, not to forget, but to remember what it cost her to begin again.
"Sister," she would whisper, "I carry you still."
And the water would glow in reply.
As the stars rose, Nima often joined her. He carried no thread, only silence. But sometimes, that was enough.
"The stars are moving again," he said one night.
"They're weaving a new pattern," she replied. "One we haven't seen before."
"Do you know how it ends?"
"No," Morya said, smiling softly. "But I trust it will be true."
The Loom had been broken.
Now it pulsed with life—not perfect, not pure, but real.
And beneath it, the Hollow sang for the first time in centuries.
End of Book Six: Lanterns Over Hollow Waters