Chapter 3: The Weaver's Shadow
Elias didn't answer right away. The street was quiet again, ash drifting like slow snow, but his grip stayed white-knuckled on the spear. He looked at the elf, then at Rook, whose silver eyes hadn't left him since the fight ended, the cub wasn't panicked, it was waiting, almost… expectant.
"Hell," Elias muttered. "Guess we're following."
The elf turned without another word, cloak brushing stone as they slipped through the lane. Elias followed, Rook held against his chest again, every step measured. He kept the spear ready, eyes flicking between the elf's shoulders and the ruins beyond. He didn't like putting his back to the shadows.
They wound through half toppled arches and cracked streets, avoiding the pools of violet light that leaked from the sky. The elf never explained, just flowed around them, and Elias trusted the instinct that said stepping wrong would be bad.
Finally, the elf ducked into a narrow gap between two leaning buildings. Elias had to twist sideways to squeeze through. The cub shifted in his arms, ears brushing stone.
Beyond was a cellar door set low into rubble, nearly invisible beneath layers of ash and vine. The elf knelt, pressing their palm against the frame. Threads stirred faintly, and with a whisper the latch unwove itself.
"Inside," the elf said.
Elias hesitated. "And if this is a trap?"
"Then you die quicker than outside." The elf's voice was flat.
Rook huffed once, as if unimpressed. Elias rolled his jaw, then shoved the door open and ducked inside.
The cellar was dim, walls etched with faint lines that pulsed like veins. Shelves sagged under dust and broken jars. In the corner, a cistern dripped faintly, glowing stone set above it casting pale light. Elias lowered Rook onto an old cloak he dragged from a shelf, then leaned his spear against the wall.
The elf shut the door behind them, weaving the latch closed again. Then they pulled back their hood fully, revealing pale hair tied tight, angular features sharp enough to cut, and eyes like frozen glass.
They studied Elias openly, "you should not be alive."
"Not the first time someone's told me that," Elias rasped, throat raw. He sat on the bench, rubbing a hand across his beard stubble. "Alright. I've got questions, and I'm not leaving till I get some answers."
The elf tilted their head. "Ask."
Elias pointed upward. "Those lights in the sky. The hum in my bones. The word you keep tossing around, Threads, what are they?"
The elf's expression flickered, surprise, then something like pity. She crouched, tracing a line in the dust with one long finger. The line shimmered faintly, violet threads crawling through it like veins.
"The world is woven," she said. "Everything, stone, flesh, air, bound by strands you cannot see, the Threads are the pattern. The Loom is the whole of it. The Weaver… the hand behind it all."
Elias stared "So this is… magic?"
"Magic is the clumsy word your kind would use. This is law, it binds, it sings, some hear it faintly, fewer still can pluck, or weave. Rarest of all can cut."
Elias thought of the resonance in his chest, the way he'd moved without thinking in the Threadway, the ash patterns forming paths beneath his boots. He shifted uncomfortably, "and me?"
The elf's eyes narrowed, "you stepped true without training. You fought in the Ways and lived, no outsider does that."
That word again, outsider, Elias sat up straighter, "yeah, about that, how did you know? The second you saw me, you knew I wasn't one of you. How?"
The elf's gaze didn't waver "your steps, your eyes, The Loom hums around you in discord, outsiders fall from the Threads, but the weave does not claim them. You smell of death that was not here, wounds that never bled in Eridane. You are not of this world."
Elias felt his stomach knot, he thought of the fire, the girl he'd carried out, the rib that had pierced his lung, his last breath on Earth.
"Yeah," he muttered, voice rough "Not from around here."
Rook nosed his boot, silver eyes bright, the cub gave a low sound, not fear, but as if agreeing with the elf's words. Elias rubbed its head, grounding himself.
He looked back at the elf "alright, last one for now, where exactly am I?"
The elf's pale eyes softened, just slightly, "Ashvale, once a jewel of Asterra. Now a graveyard." Their gaze swept the cellar's beams. "And Asterra sits upon Eridane, one of the great continents. That is the map of your prison."
Elias leaned back against the wall, exhaling hard "great, traded one hell for another."
The elf tilted their head "your world must be cruel, for you to call this one the same."
"You don't know the half of it," Elias muttered.
The ceiling creaked faintly above, both Elias and the elf went still, Rook lifted his head, ears pricked.
The elf's eyes sharpened "Questions end. Wardens hunt."
Elias grabbed his spear, pulse steadying "yeah," he muttered "figures."
The ceiling groaned again, heavy, deliberate steps scuffed the stone above, too slow and steady to be scavengers. Elias knew the sound well, boots that weren't sneaking, boots that owned the ground they walked on.
The elf, Lysera, though she hadn't yet offered her name, moved to the wall and pressed her palm against a chalk mark scrawled there. The faint violet lines shivered, muffling the cellar in a blanket of silence that made Elias's skin prickle.
"Wardens," she whispered, "church hounds."
Elias kept his voice low, rasping, "these Wardens what's their game?"
Lysera's pale eyes didn't leave the ceiling "they claim to guard the Loom's will. In truth, they hunt what they fear, outsiders, beasts like your cub even our own, if we pluck where they say we should not."
Rook pressed closer to Elias's leg, not whining but alert, silver eyes fixed on the stairs Elias rested his hand on the cub's back, feeling the tiny muscles coiled, ready. "Sounds like every shitty regime I've ever fought against," he muttered.
The steps paused above the trapdoor, then came a knock, three slow raps, polite, too polite.
"Evening," a man's voice called, it was smooth, pleasant, with the trained cadence of someone used to pulpits or podiums. "We heard the bells, thought we'd check on our neighbors."
Elias's grip tightened on the spear, Lysera's lips pulled back, not quite a snarl, she looked at him, eyes like glass shards "Do not speak they will know."
The trapdoor handle jiggled once, the voice chuckled "locked tight, nothing to fear but sometimes fear festers inside, doesn't it? Wolves wear many faces."
Elias's chest burned with the need to respond, but he forced himself still.
Then another voice joined the first, lower, sharper, impatient words in a tongue Elias didn't understand, too fast to follow.
The pleasant one hushed him "peace, Brother, wolves smell fear."
The air in the cellar grew heavy, Rook's hackles rose, fur bristling against Elias's shin, the cub didn't growl, but its eyes burned silver in the gloom, it was listening.
Above, the pleasant voice grew harder "open the door, let us see your faces, if you are clean, you have nothing to hide."
Lysera moved fast. She touched a second knot scrawled in chalk near the cistern. Threads in the wall quivered, loosening, until a seam of stone shivered open, narrow, dark, humming faintly.
"The Threadway," she breathed "we go, now."
Elias bent, scooping Rook into the sling across his chest the cub nestled in, silent, watching the shifting light with unnerving calm. Elias slung the spear over his back, jaw set "lead the way."
The elf slipped into the seam, her body vanishing into the weave itself Elias followed, ducking low, feeling the hum crawl over his skin like static.
Behind them, the trapdoor rattled hard. Boots thudded voices rose the Wardens had stopped pretending to be polite.
The wall sealed shut just as wood splintered above.
The Threadway closed around them the world outside muffled to nothing, only The Loom's glow remained, thin threads stitched into walls of shadow. The air hummed louder here, steady and insistent, like standing inside the belly of a great machine.
Elias moved where Lysera stepped, copying her careful pace, but he didn't need to watch too closely. The resonance in his bones tugged at him, nudging him where the path was safe, warning where the weave snarled.
Rook shifted in the sling, ears pricking, the cub's gaze darted ahead, as if it already knew where Lysera would place her foot. Elias caught it leaning before she moved, every time, too sharp, too deliberate.
The elf glanced back once, eyes narrowing at the sight "your beast reads the Loom," she said quietly. "Better than most who train for years."
"Yeah," Elias muttered "i've noticed."
They pushed deeper, the corridor bent, threads warping like heat haze whispers trickled along the walls, faint as sighs. Elias clenched his jaw, refusing to listen Lysera's pace quickened, she clearly knew better than to linger.
Lysera lifted her hand "Wraith."
The thing tore free of the wall before Elias could breathe, its body was half shadow, half light, unraveling and rewinding in jerks, a mockery of flesh. Its face twisted between man and beast, its mouth a wound of glowing threads.
It shrieked, soundless but deep enough to rattle Elias's ribs.
Elias yanked the spear free and braced "of course."
The wraith lunged, Lysera fired a bolt, threadlight woven along its shaft, the creature convulsed, body tangling in on itself for a heartbeat before reforming.
"My spear does jack to it!" Elias barked.
"Only woven steel bites!" Lysera snapped.
The resonance screamed, Elias ducked, the wraith's claws tearing the air where his head had been, He swung anyway, the broken spear shaft passing through like smoke.
Rook leapt from the sling, The cub's tiny fangs sank into one of the creature's unraveling strands. Silver light flared, the wraith staggered, its form fraying at the edges.
"Rook!" Elias shouted.
The cub held on, eyes blazing, tearing a line through the creature's chest before it broke free and stumbled back to Elias. The wraith reeled, threads whipping wildly.
Lysera's second bolt struck true. This time the light inside the creature knotted, tangled, then burst in a shower of fading sparks. The wraith collapsed into nothing, leaving only the hum of the walls behind.
Silence followed Elias's pulse hammered in his throat, he scooped Rook back up, checking him quickly, no wounds, but the cub trembled from exertion, panting hard.
"You're too damn smart for your own good," Elias muttered.
Lysera reloaded her crossbow, eyes never leaving him. "Outsider," she said softly. "You walk the Loom untrained, and your beast… your beast cuts threads by instinct."
Elias met her gaze, sweat stinging his eyes. "Then I guess we're both problems."
The silence in the Threadway lingered long after the wraith's unraveling faded Elias pressed his palm against the cub's back, steadying both of them. Rook's sides heaved with shallow breaths, but the pup lifted its head, eyes gleaming silver, sharp and deliberate, that gaze met Elias's with unnerving clarity, aware, calculating.
Lysera finally lowered her crossbow, though her posture stayed coiled "few can face a wraith without unraveling, fewer still stand after its scream. You, an untrained outsider, and a cub that cuts the Loom by instinct? The Weaver is watching."
Elias coughed, voice scraping in his throat "not sure I like being on anyone's watchlist." He adjusted the spear strap and settled Rook back into the sling, the pup leaned into him, still trembling but steadying, ears flicking toward the hum of the walls.
Lysera studied him for a long beat, then turned deeper into the passage "come, the Wardens will have heard its cry we must reach another safehouse before they comb the ruins."
They moved.
The Threadway narrowed, walls pressing close, threads flowing faster now like a river in flood. Elias matched Lysera's steps, but more often than not his bones pulled him into rhythm without thought. Rook, impossibly, anticipated the turns before either of them, the pup would lean left a heartbeat before the Threads bent, or huff softly when Elias's boot hovered over a dangerous patch of shimmer.
"You see it too, don't you," Elias murmured, more to himself than the cub.
Rook blinked up at him, and Elias swore the little beast almost smiled.
Lysera caught the look and shook her head "I should not believe what I see, but the Loom makes no mistakes."
Elias gave a humorless laugh "First time for everything."
They pressed on until the corridor widened, the glow dimming into a knot of stone and timber, another latch knot gleamed faintly on the far wall. Lysera pressed her hand to it, weaving her fingers in a pattern Elias couldn't follow. The wall sighed open into a cramped cellar smelling of herbs and old ash.
Inside, shelves sagged with clay jars, another cistern dripped faintly into a basin, and chalk runes glowed across the beams. Lysera stepped through first, motioning Elias after. The wall sealed shut behind them, muffling the Loom's hum to a faint vibration underfoot.
Elias set Rook down gently, then lowered himself onto a bench with a grunt. His muscles ached like hell. He rubbed his beard stubble and finally looked at Lysera straight.
"Alright," he rasped. "I know I'm repeating myself, but I need it laid out again. What the hell are these Threads? Why do I feel them?"
Lysera leaned against the wall, folding her arms. Her pale eyes reflected the glow of the runes, sharp and unflinching. "The Threads are the weave of all things. They bind life, stone, fire, thought, The Loom is the pattern, endless and shifting, The Weaver is the hand behind it all."
"God," Elias said flatly.
Her brow creased at the word, "Perhaps. If your world calls the Weaver so, but the Church claims the Loom as theirs, they twist faith into leash and pyre."
Elias felt his jaw tighten. "So nothing changes, no matter the world."
Lysera's gaze didn't waver "as for you…" She leaned closer "you stepped true in the Threadway, you felt the Loom like one born to it. That is why you are dangerous."
Elias sat back, exhaling hard "great not even a day here and I'm already on the hit list."
Rook padded over and curled against his boot, the cub blinked up at him, silver eyes thoughtful, almost reassuring. Elias rubbed the pup's head, shaking his head with a faint, dry laugh "guess it's just us against the world, huh?"
Lysera's mouth twitched, not quite a smile, "oerhaps not only you. For now, you walk with me."
The beams above creaked. Dust sifted down. Both of them stilled.
Lysera moved to the wall, fingers brushing another knot "rest quick, drink, but do not linger. The Wardens will not stop until they find what they hunt."
Elias reached for the cistern, scooping cold water into his scarred hand, he drank deep, letting it soothe his throat, then poured a little into his palm for Rook. The cub lapped delicately, then pressed its muzzle against Elias's hand in quiet trust.
He leaned back, closed his eyes for a breath, and muttered, "Guess peace will have to wait."