The valley pulsed again — more insistently this time, as if urging them forward.
Lysa tightened her grip around Elderon's hand and began descending deeper into the shimmering labyrinth. Each step carried them into thicker clusters of glowing threads, each one humming with fragmented memory and ancient resonance.
The deeper they went, the quieter the world became.
Not silent — not the Sovereign's suffocating void — but the hushed, reverent quiet of a place that had held secrets longer than humans had names.
Keir walked at Lysa's right, every muscle taut.Toma stayed close on her left, fingers brushing the ground for signs of danger.Rida and Yun moved ahead to test the path.Sal walked behind the group, humming faint anchor-tones.Mina held Rian and Eidren together, guiding them between floating strands.Anon drifted between positions, monitoring the distortions in reflections.
The deeper they moved, the more the threads changed.
At first, they merely pulsed with faint memories.
Then they began to sing.
A soft, wordless melody — threads harmonizing in subtle, shifting tones that wove gently through the valley like a forgotten lullaby.
Mina stopped, eyes wide.
"Is it… calling to us?"
Rida shook her head slowly.
"No. It's calling to itself."
"Why?" Keir asked quietly.
Toma answered:
"To rebuild."
Lysa felt it too — a slow weaving, a gathering of scattered echoes, as though the valley were trying to remember something whole.
Elderon tugged her sleeve.
"It's ahead."
She nodded and quickened her pace.
The valley opened into a wide basin, lit by a massive column of spiraling light erupting from the ground. Threads of every color converged into it, weaving upward before vanishing into the sky like smoke.
Keir took a slow breath.
"Hells…"
"I've never felt resonance this strong," Sal whispered, gripping his throat.
Yun's voice trembled.
"It's… beautiful."
But Anon didn't approach.
He stood still, reflections stuttering around him.
"What's wrong?" Lysa asked.
Anon pointed at the column.
"It's not just a gathering point."His eyes sharpened."It's a lock."
Rida stepped closer.
"A lock for what?"
But Elderon answered before anyone else could.
"For him."
Lysa froze.
Elderon trembled, staring at the spiraling column.
"It was made to hold the Sovereign."
Keir grabbed Lysa's arm.
"They imprisoned him here once?"
Elderon shook his head.
"No. They tried."
A heavy silence fell over the group.
Lysa murmured:
"Explain."
Elderon stepped forward — and the spiraling column brightened in recognition, threads reaching gently toward him like curious hands.
"When the Sovereign turned against the other Weavers," he whispered, "they tried to stop him."
"By silencing him?" Sal asked.
Elderon shook his head.
"They didn't want to silence him. They wanted to heal him."
Rida gasped softly.
"By locking him with his own memories."
Toma frowned.
"But he doesn't have memories."
"He does," Elderon replied."He just refuses them."
The ground beneath the column shimmered with faint images:
A Weaver of Light shaping the first mountain.A Weaver of Shadow guiding roots beneath a river.A Weaver of Wind breathing storms into motion.A Weaver of Song igniting the first aurora.And among them—
A tall Weaver with spiraling threads of silver and black.
The Sovereign.
But he wasn't void.
He wasn't faceless.
He wasn't hollow.
He glowed with resonant life — flawed, conflicted, beautiful.
Lysa knelt beside Elderon.
"This is what he was."
Elderon nodded.
"And the Weavers tried to make him remember."
Sal whispered:
"So this… this isn't just a lock."
Anon stepped forward, voice steady despite the awe.
"It's a memory anchor."
Keir frowned.
"Meaning what?"
"It holds the one thing the Sovereign cannot break."
Lysa rose.
"His past."
The Thread Emerges
A thick, golden strand rose slowly from the ground at the center of the spiraling column — glowing brighter than anything in the valley.
It pulsed with a deep, resonant heartbeat.
Toma's jaw dropped.
"That thread… it's intact."
Rida's voice cracked.
"He can't break it."
Sal whispered reverently.
"It's unbreakable."
The thread shimmered — not with light, but with memory.
Lysa reached out her hand.
But Elderon grabbed her wrist.
"Wait."
Lysa froze.
"He can sense it when we touch it."
"Who?" Keir asked.
Elderon swallowed hard.
"The Sovereign."
A tremor ran through the valley.
The threads around them shivered — not in fear, but in anticipation.
Lysa lowered her hand.
"We need to understand what this is before we try anything."
Anon stepped closer, eyes reflecting swirling symbols in the thread.
"It isn't just his memory," he said quietly."It's his purpose."
Rida frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Anon pointed at the shifting patterns inside the thread.
"They show… what he wanted to create."
Toma inhaled sharply.
"Before he turned against the others."
Everyone stared in stunned silence.
Lysa whispered:
"Show us."
The thread pulsed.
Images flickered in the air like floating lanterns.
A world of harmony — mountain, forest, wind, sea — all woven together in a tapestry of shared resonance. Light and shadow interlocked like lovers dancing. Voices rose together, not competing, but interweaving.
This was what the Weavers wanted.
What the Sovereign had once believed in.
What he still remembered — buried deeply, bitterly.
Keir breathed:
"He wanted to protect the world. Not control it."
"Something changed him," Rida murmured.
"And the Weavers tried to fix it," Toma said softly.
"But failed," Anon finished.
Elderon trembled.
"He broke his memories. All of them."
Lysa touched his shoulder gently.
"But he couldn't break this one."
The Valley pulsed as if agreeing.
Sal stepped forward.
"Then this is it. This is how we weaken him. We remind him of what he was."
Keir tensed.
"That's not going to stop him. Not fully."
"No," Lysa said quietly."But it will crack his void. It will force the echo of what he was to fight the void he became."
Yun swallowed hard.
"Are we… allowed to do that?"
Lysa didn't look away from the thread.
"We have no other choice."
Mina hugged Rian and Eidren.
"What happens when he feels us touch it?"
The valley answered before Lysa could.
A deep, resonant tremor shook the earth.
The threads went dark in a wave — collapsing into shadow.
The air grew cold.
The wind died.
The valley held its breath.
Elderon sobbed.
"He feels us."
Lysa pulled him close.
"Then hold on."
A tear in the sky appeared above them.
A vertical slash of void.
The Sovereign's voice echoed across the valley — broken, furious, and afraid.
"Step away from that memory."
Lysa's eyes hardened.
"No."
The Sovereign's scream ripped through the valley — a shockwave of silence that tore hundreds of threads apart.
But the unbreakable thread remained whole.
Lysa stepped toward it.
Keir, Toma, Rida, Sal, Yun, Mina, Anon — they stepped with her, surrounding her and Elderon in a protective circle.
The valley glowed.
The column brightened.
And Lysa placed her hand on the thread.
A shockwave of memory burst outward—
And the Sovereign began to break.