They walked east for hours before the world began to change around them.
The clearing faded into a long stretch of rolling hills, each one marked by faint fractures of light — remnants of the Deep Pattern's outburst. As the Seven climbed the last ridge, the land dropped sharply into a sweeping valley unlike any they had ever seen.
Keir froze.
"…Stars."
Even during daylight, the valley glowed faintly — a soft, shimmering radiance drifting like mist over a massive labyrinth of intertwined threads. Some threads arced across the sky like luminous vines. Others curled on the ground like roots made of starlight. Others hung in midair, suspended like strands of a shattered harp.
Rida stepped forward in awe.
"This is impossible."
Toma's voice reverberated softly."No. This is ancient."
Lysa took a breath.
The valley felt alive — not just with resonance, but with memories.
Some threads pulsed softly beneath the soil.Others flickered like dying embers.Some brightened when the wind touched them.Some curled away from the light like frightened animals.
Elderon pressed closer to Lysa.
"It's sad," he whispered.
She touched his hair gently.
"Why?"
He pointed to the shimmering field.
"Because everything here is trying to remember something it forgot."
Keir clenched his jaw.
"We're in the Valley of the Lost Threads."
Sal inhaled sharply. "That's not real."
"It's real," Anon murmured."I've seen reflections of it in shards. A prison the Sovereign built long before the Quieting… when he first learned to erase resonance."
Yun looked around uneasily.
"If this is a prison, where are the prisoners?"
Anon swept his hand through a hanging thread. The moment his fingertips brushed it—
Images exploded outward like a burst of shattered glass.
Not illusions.Memories.
A woman kneeling beside a well.A child running through tall grass.A man sculpting clay with trembling fingers.A girl singing to a lake at dusk.
Ordinary lives.
Ordinary joys.
Ordinary echoes.
Anon staggered backward, shaken.
"They're here," he whispered."Their memories have been stripped from the world and trapped in the threads."
Mina pulled Rian close.
"You're telling me… these are people?"
"No," Rida said softly."These are what's left of them."
Lysa stepped carefully into the valley.The threads parted for her gently, as if recognizing someone who walked with purpose.
Elderon reached out to touch a pale green strand.
"Don't—!" Yun cried.
But it didn't hurt him.
The strand brightened.
And from it, a voice whispered:
"Where is my daughter?"
Elderon gasped, clutching his chest.
Lysa knelt, gripping his shoulders.
"What did it say?"
"It misses someone," he whispered. "It remembers love."
Keir swallowed hard.
"So these aren't just prisons. They're… graveyards."
Anon shook his head slowly.
"Half-graves. Half-prisons. Resonance removed from bodies, but not entirely destroyed."
Rida squinted.
"Why did the Sovereign trap them here? Why not erase them completely?"
Sal frowned.
"Because… he couldn't."
Everyone turned.
"What do you mean?" Lysa asked.
"When you erase resonance," Sal said slowly, "you can destroy tones, memories, even identity. But there's always a remnant — a footprint. A thread. Even void can't erase everything."
Toma nodded.
"These are the first resonant beings the Sovereign silenced before the Quieting began. The ones he experimented on. The ones he feared."
Yun shuddered.
"And we're walking through what's left of them."
Lysa stood again.
"We're not here to disturb them," she said quietly."We're here so they can help us."
Keir frowned. "Help how? They're fragments."
Lysa shook her head.
"Fragments still remember."
Anon's reflection rippled.
"She's right. If anyone knows the Sovereign's origin — or weakness — it's these threads."
Rida stepped closer to the nearest cluster.
"I can't hear them clearly," she whispered. "Their voices are tangled."
"Then we untangle them," Lysa said.
The task sounded impossible.
But it wasn't unprecedented.
Lysa taught children every day whose resonances tangled with fear, trauma, silence. She unraveled what was knotted. She strengthened what was fragile.
This valley was simply many children — many memories — waiting to be heard.
She took Elderon's hand and guided him to the glowing heart of the valley.
The deeper they walked, the more the air vibrated.
Not loudly.
Softly.
Like a lullaby forgotten by time.
Sal murmured:
"It's beautiful… in a tragic way."
Mina whispered:
"I feel like we're walking through people's last breaths."
Toma reached out to a cluster of orange threads.
As soon as his fingers brushed them, a shock of noise struck him.
He jerked back, gasping.
"What did you see?" Rida asked.
Toma's face paled.
"A city. Burning. A hand made of shadow. And…"He swallowed hard."A girl who looked like Lysa."
Everyone stared.
Lysa stiffened.
"A memory of me?"
"No," Toma said softly."A memory of someone who carried your resonance."
Keir stepped closer.
"There were others like her?"
Anon nodded slowly.
"Of course there were. Resonance didn't begin with Listeners. It began here."
Rida pointed at a cluster of gold threads.
"What about those?"
Lysa stepped forward.
Touching one felt like dipping her hand into cool water.
Immediately—
Voices rose.
Not chaotic.Not painful.Not violent.
A chorus.
Singing.
A song without words, without meaning, without shape — just pure resonance, layered across time.
Elderon's glow brightened.
He whispered:
"They're giving us something."
Lysa knelt, cupping the pulsing thread.
The song sharpened.
And suddenly—
Images flickered:
A being of pure light weaving threads into a newborn sky…A figure of shadow watching from afar…A burst of resonance creating mountains…A void sweeping in like smoke…The Weavers falling in silence…The Sovereign rising from the ashes of their destruction…
Lysa gasped, breath stolen.
Elderon trembled violently.
Keir steadied her.
"What did you see?"
Lysa swallowed hard.
"The Sovereign wasn't always void."
Everyone froze.
"What was he?" Mina whispered.
Lysa stood slowly.
"He was one of the Weavers."
Rida's eyes widened in horror.
"No…"
"He was a creator," Lysa said quietly. "One of the first beings who shaped the world with resonance."
Sal clutched his head.
"That means he— he understands resonance better than any Listener."
"No," Toma corrected. "He invented parts of it."
Anon shook his head, stunned.
"That's why he could silence so many. He knows the Pattern inside out."
Keir stepped beside Lysa.
"Then why destroy the others? Why erase them?"
Lysa looked back at the glowing thread.
Its song dimmed.
Elderon whispered the answer:
"Because he stopped hearing beauty."
The valley fell still.
Yun swallowed hard.
"He lost resonance?"
"No," Lysa said, voice trembling."He refused it."
The threads pulsed.
Images flickered again:
The Weaver— the Sovereign — reaching into the Pattern and ripping threads from it.Silencing creators.Breaking harmony.Forcing stillness.
Lysa's voice dropped to a whisper.
"He believed the world was too chaotic. That resonance was unpredictable. He wanted order. Perfect order."
"And the only way to make perfect order," Toma whispered, "was to silence everything that didn't match his frequency."
Sal finished:
"So he silenced the Weavers."
Rian tugged Mina's cloak.
"What about now? What's he doing now?"
Mina hugged her gently.
"He's trying to finish what he started."
Lysa stepped deeper into the valley.
The threads brightened beneath her feet.
The song rose.
She turned to the others.
"We have to keep moving. The Sovereign will come here eventually. And when he does—"
She looked at the pulsing threads.
"—this place will disappear."
Keir's jaw tightened.
"Then we find what we need before he arrives."
Lysa nodded.
She turned to Elderon.
"What do you feel now?"
Elderon looked at the shimmering valley with fear and awe mingled.
"He wants this place," he whispered.
"Why?"
"Because the Weavers trapped something here…"
Lysa stiffened.
"What?"
Elderon pointed toward the valley's heart.
Where light spiraled upward like a column of sun.
"A thread he can't break."
The air changed.
The valley pulsed once.
And every thread shivered in unison.
Toma whispered:
"We just found the Sovereign's weakness."