Three weeks after the bridge incident, the Weavers came to Willow's Hollow.
They arrived like autumn mist—gradually, then all at once, their carriages materializing from the forest road as if summoned by the morning's first light. The vehicles bore no heraldry, no banners, just iron-bound wheels that made no sound on cobblestone and horses whose breath didn't steam despite the autumn morning chill.
Eris watched from his bedroom window as the procession wound through the village square. Seven carriages, each pulled by a pair of gray mares that moved with unnatural synchronization. The drivers wore deep blue robes with hoods that cast their faces in permanent shadow, and even from his window, Eris could feel something watching him back.
"They're early this year," Mara whispered from the doorway. Her voice carried a strange mix of hope and dread, the way one might speak of a long-awaited physician who could heal or condemn with equal ease.
The Weavers' Guild visited each settlement in the kingdom once every three years, part of an ancient compact between the crown and the orders. They came seeking children who showed the signs—those touched by gifts that ordinary tutors couldn't nurture, whose minds had been opened to frequencies most would never hear.
Eris had heard the stories whispered by older children. The Weavers could see things others couldn't: potential crackling beneath the skin like lightning in storm clouds, trauma that had crystallized into power, souls that resonated with forces beyond the mundane world. Some children would be taken to their towers for training. Others they simply marked with silver threads—a sign that they were watched, protected, but not yet ready.
Some they declared broken beyond mending.
***
By midday, a crowd had gathered in the village square. Parents clutched their children close, torn between pride and terror at the possibility of selection. The Weavers had set up a pavilion of midnight-blue silk that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, and from within came the soft sound of looms working—not the steady rhythm of Mara's domestic weaving, but something complex and arhythmic, like a conversation in a language of knots and tension.
Eris found himself walking toward the square despite his mother's warnings to stay home. Liran was already there, standing at the crowd's edge with their friends—former friends to be more precise. The bridge had changed more than just the siblings.
Kael Thorne stood beside Liran, but not close enough to touch. At fourteen, he was the miller's son, broad-shouldered and practical, with calloused hands from working his father's grain wheels. Before the bridge, he'd followed Liran on her adventures with the loyalty of a hound. Now he watched her with wary eyes, noting how she flinched at sudden sounds, how her gaze tracked movements in the air that only she could see.
"They say the Weavers can cure curses," Kael murmured to Vera Ashford, who stood on his other side. Vera was the blacksmith's daughter, sharp-eyed and sharper-tongued, with hair the color of iron filings and a mind that cut through nonsense like her father's hammers cut through steel. She'd always been skeptical of the old stories, but even she watched the pavilion with uncertain fascination.
"They don't cure anything," Vera replied, her voice pitched low so the adults wouldn't hear. "They collect. Like ravens picking up shiny things, except the shiny things are children who see too much."
Liran turned at the sound of her brother's footsteps, and for a moment, Eris saw something flicker in her eyes—not quite relief, not quite resentment, but something caught between recognition and rejection. They hadn't spoken since her accusation three weeks ago, but the silence between them had weight now, like a held breath or a stopped clock.
"You shouldn't be here," she said quietly. It wasn't cruelty in her voice, but something worse—concern. As if she feared what the Weavers might see in him, what they might take.
Before Eris could respond, the pavilion's entrance parted like water, and a figure emerged.
She was neither young nor old, with silver-streaked hair braided with threads that caught the light wrong, as if they were spun from moonbeams or spider silk. Her robes were the same midnight blue as the pavilion, but hers bore embroidery that seemed to shift when viewed directly—patterns that suggested meanings just beyond comprehension.
"I am Weaver Selene of the Order of Resonance," she announced, her voice carrying despite its softness, reaching every corner of the square as if the air itself chose to amplify her words. "We seek the marked, the gifted, the wounded who have learned to transform their scars into strength."
Her eyes—pale blue, almost white—swept the crowd, and Eris felt them pause on him with the weight of recognition. Not surprise, but confirmation. As if she'd expected to find him here, had perhaps come to Willow's Hollow specifically for this moment.
"The Order of Resonance," Vera whispered, "they work with sound and vibration. Make weapons that sing, or so my father claims."
But Weaver Selene was already moving on, her gaze finding Liran next. This time her expression did change—a slight tightening around the eyes, a barely perceptible tilt of the head. When she looked at Liran, she saw not a child but a puzzle, a torn tapestry that might be mended or might unravel completely.
"The Order of Sight deals with those who see beyond the veil," Kael murmured, remembering stories. "But Liran doesn't see things. She sees... wrong things."
"Perhaps wrong is simply another word for true," said a new voice.
They turned to find another Weaver had approached—a man whose dark skin bore intricate tattoos that moved like living things across his arms. His robes were deep green with silver threads, and when he smiled, it was with the warmth of someone who understood precisely what it meant to carry unwanted knowledge.
"I am Weaver Jorin of the Order of Verdant Truths," he said, his accent carrying hints of the southern kingdoms. "We tend to those whose gifts grow from suffering, who have learned to cultivate wisdom from pain." His eyes fixed on Liran with gentle intensity. "Sometimes the clearest sight comes from having seen too much darkness."
A third Weaver emerged from the pavilion—a woman with premature white hair and hands that never seemed to stop moving, sketching patterns in the air as if reality were a canvas she was constantly repainting. Her robes bore embroidery in gold and copper, depicting scenes that changed depending on the angle of view.
"Order of Synthesis," she announced briskly. "I am Weaver Thalia. We work with those whose minds operate on multiple frequencies simultaneously—the builders, the inventors, the ones who see connections others miss." Her rapid gaze found Vera and stopped. "Ah. The one who questions everything. Good. Questions are the foundation of understanding."
Kael shifted uncomfortably as no Weaver's eye fell upon him, but Weaver Selene noticed his discomfort and smiled with surprising kindness.
"Not all gifts announce themselves early," she said. "The Order of the Anchorage values those who provide stability for others, who serve as foundations for greater works. Sometimes the most important magic is simply remaining steady while others shine."
***
The selection process wasn't dramatic—no tests of power or demonstrations of skill. The Weavers simply walked among the children, occasionally asking quiet questions or requesting to see their hands, their eyes, the small scars that everyone carried from childhood's inevitable casualties.
When Weaver Selene reached Eris, she knelt to bring herself to his eye level. Up close, he could see that her embroidered threads weren't quite thread at all—they hummed with their own frequency, creating harmonics that made his bones ache with recognition.
"The bridge," she said simply. "Tell me about the sound you made."
Eris's throat closed. He'd tried to describe it to his mother, to himself, but words felt clumsy, inadequate. "It wasn't... It wasn't like singing. It was like—" He struggled, then pressed his hand to his chest. "Like something breaking inside, but in a good way. Like pressure releasing."
Selene nodded as if this made perfect sense. "Echoflux," she murmured. "Rare, but not unheard of. Your gift turns emotion into resonance, fear into frequency. Untrained, it's dangerous—to yourself and others. Properly cultivated..." She smiled. "The Order of Resonance could teach you to craft shields from sound, to speak to the stones themselves."
She touched his scarred palm, and for a moment, Eris heard it—a perfect note that existed somewhere between music and mathematics, beautiful and terrible and wholly his own.
"We would welcome you," Selene said. "But not yet. You're too young, and your gift too raw. Give it time to settle, to integrate with your growing mind. We'll return when you're ready."
The disappointment was sharper than Eris expected. Part of him had wanted to leave, to escape the whispers and the weight of expectation, to learn from people who understood what lived inside his chest.
But when he looked at Liran, he understood why Selene had said no. His sister stood rigid as Weaver Jorin spoke to her in tones too low to overhear, her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes darting to empty spaces where only she saw movement.
"Your sister's case is more complex," Selene continued, following his gaze. "Trauma-induced sight is delicate work. Push too hard, too fast, and the mind shatters completely. She needs time to heal, to learn to live with what she sees before she can learn to use it."
Vera's examination lasted longer than the others. Weaver Thalia had her sketch patterns in the dirt, solve puzzles that seemed to have no solutions, and describe the internal mechanisms of her father's forge in precise detail. When it was over, Thalia looked pleased but thoughtful.
"A mind like clockwork," she declared. "Precise, methodical, innovative. You see systems where others see chaos. The Order of Synthesis could teach you to build wonders—but first, you need time to understand yourself. Return to us in three years, when your foundations are stronger."
Kael received the silver thread—a thin band tied around his wrist that marked him as watched, protected, potentially valuable. "Patience," Weaver Selene told him. "Your gift is like deep roots—strong, but slow to surface. We'll know more when you're older."
As the Weavers packed their pavilion, the fabric folding itself in ways that hurt to observe directly, Weaver Jorin approached Liran one final time. He pressed something into her hand—not a silver thread, but a small wooden token carved with symbols that seemed to shift in peripheral vision.
"For the dark nights," he said softly. "When the voices grow too loud, press this to your heart and remember: you are not broken. You are... expansive. Learning to live in multiple worlds at once is difficult, but it's also a profound form of strength."
Liran clutched the token so tightly her knuckles went white, and for the first time since the bridge, she looked directly at her brother. In her eyes, Eris saw not accusation but something more complex—fear, yes, but also a terrible understanding that they were bound together now by more than blood.
Whatever the Weavers had awakened in her, whatever had been sleeping in him, it connected them in ways that went deeper than family, deeper than the comfortable animosity of siblings. They were two parts of something larger now, two voices in a harmony neither yet understood.
As the carriages disappeared back into the forest, leaving only wheel tracks that faded as if they'd never been, Mara found her children standing together for the first time in weeks. Not touching, but not apart—like two instruments waiting to find their key.
"The Weavers see potential," she said quietly. "But potential is just another word for possibility. What you become is still your choice."
That night, Eris dreamed of towers that sang, of libraries where books wrote themselves, of gardens where plants grew in impossible geometries. And for the first time since the bridge, he dreamed of walking beside Liran again—not as they had been, careless and young, but as they might become: two parts of a larger song, two threads in a pattern whose design they were only beginning to glimpse.
But in the deep hours before dawn, when the boundary between dreams and waking grew thin, both siblings heard the same sound drifting through their windows—the distant hum of looms working in the darkness, weaving tomorrow from the threads of yesterday's choices.
The Weavers had gone, but their work in Willow's Hollow had only just begun.