Meanwhile, in a small alleyway of Keloria, a new morning rose—serene, calm, yet shadowed and bitter, like the taste of a good cup of Pilporá tea. Inside one of those humble houses, a young woman stirred. Her skin was dark, her eyes mismatched—blue on the right, yellow on the left—an ancient sign of those once able to read the tapestry of reality and glimpse its secrets. Her hair curled like sheep's wool ready for shearing, her limbs thin, carved by the hunger that echoed throughout the empire.
Lira awoke before the sun. As if the very tapestry of the world had pulled her consciousness back into her body. She sat up in bed, eyes wide, skin slick with a sheen of cold sweat. A sound pulsed in her ears—not of the physical world, but the dissonant hum of threads twisting, lying.
Her room was simple, part of an ancestral house made of stone and dark wood. Everything smelled of time, of generations. But something was… wrong. Misplaced. She sensed it before she even saw it.
She rose slowly, fingers brushing along the threads that stitched space together—an old skill, passed from mother to daughter among the Women of the Weave. Her gift had always been strong: she could read the threads, see connections where others saw chance, sense the intent binding soul to soul, choice to choice.
But now… the threads lied.
She tried to read the first one: a bluish thread running from the ceiling beam to the floor—a sign of familial protection. When she touched it, she flinched. The texture was wrong, like wet silk. And the fate it spoke of... was false. A fractured tale, as if written by someone who'd never known the original language.
Lira stepped back.
She descended the stairs, calling out,"Mom? Are you up?"
No answer.
The kitchen was too tidy. No tea set. No embroidery laid out. Her mother's favorite chair—the one that always creaked—stood perfectly still, as if never used. And on the photo wall that once held memories of two women laughing under the sun… only one image remained. In it...
Only Lira.
Her hands trembled. She rushed to the bookshelf. Dug through boxes, books, letters.Nothing.No note, no name. As if her mother had never existed.
But she remembered. Every word, every touch, every prayer whispered before sleep. She remembered the low hum her mother sang to calm the threads during stormy nights. She remembered the voice that said, "You are a daughter of the Loom. And it will speak to you, even when the gods fall silent."
Now, only silence.
She collapsed onto the floorboards, eyes wet. But her tears weren't from sorrow. They came from something worse—doubt. Because when she tried to picture her mother's face… it slipped away. Like sand through open fingers.
A crack. Low. Dry.
Lira jumped to her feet. Ran to the door. Outside, the first rays of sun painted the sky in rose-tinted hues. And then she saw it—a single red thread, thick and blazing, slashing across the sky like an open wound in the Loom. It writhed violently, as if it had just been... severed.
The thread's presence crushed her. A silent scream from reality itself—a rupture seen only by those few still able to see. Someone had cut their own fate—and was still alive. An impossible act. An abyss in the logic of the world.
"This shouldn't…" she whispered.
But she knew. Something was in motion. Something ancient. Forgotten. The prophecies whispered by the Old Weavers of Varn spoke of this. Of the Final Unraveling. Of threads that would lie, of knots that would drive minds to madness, of specters wandering without purpose.
Her mind pounding, Lira braided her hair in a knot of protection—a ritual gesture to focus—and left. She needed answers. And only one place could offer them: the Sanctuary of Orasein, an underground crypt buried beneath the first tapestry ever woven, where the lines of fate still pulsed with raw force.
She crossed Keloria without speaking to anyone. The streets were too quiet. And everywhere she walked, she felt the gaps—missing people. Shops without owners. Names torn from signs. Even Minari's Clocktower looked… smaller. As if someone was erasing the world, detail by detail.
At the Veil Hill, she saw the broken arches of the crypt's entrance. A forbidden place, condemned by the twin emperors—heresy according to the doctrines of Fimbria. But Lira never feared dogma. The truth was below, stitched into stone and silence.
She entered. Descended the narrow stairs with a lantern in one hand and a spool of guiding thread tied to her belt. The corridors breathed around her. And here, the threads didn't hide. They screamed. Twisting in spasms, wrong-colored. Many were severed. Some… melting.
In the center of the chamber, the sacred loom lay still. The lines that once pulsed with divine rhythm were now tangled—like a child playing with forces beyond their understanding. And at the core, suspended in the void, pulsed a single golden knot.
It was the heart of the Weave.
Lira approached. Her eyes welled with tears—not from beauty, but terror. The knot… was lying. It was rewriting connections that never were. Creating meetings that never happened. Replacing real memories with fiction.
She saw her own thread being pulled—dragged by an external force toward another. A black thread, marked by breaks. A thread that should never cross hers.
"Who are you…?" she murmured.
And then she heard it.
Not with her ears, but with her whole body. A voice stitched into the very fabric of reality. Deep. Ancient. And entirely wrong:
"The Question has been cast. The Loom will be rewoven."
Lira stumbled back, gasping.
The chamber trembled. The loom groaned. A crack split the ceiling—like the world itself was tearing inside out.
She had to escape.
But not without what she came for: an ancient needle, carved from a weaver's bone. A relic. With it, perhaps she could begin to mend the damage. Perhaps there was still time.
Perhaps she could still...
Elsewhere, in a foreign court where mirrors never reflect truth, Thorn weaves a lie so perfect even the Loom accepts it. And in doing so, he gives life to his creation.