Chapter Eight: The Door That Bleeds
Velmirasyl – The Inner Loom
The chamber of portal-weaving was shaped like a spiral seashell carved into the upper canopy of Velmirasyl's greatest tree. Threads of raw Dreamweave flickered through the air, warping time and sound as Omkar entered.
He was alone—by design.
This test was his own.
To Dreamweave a gateway between realms, one needed three things:
1. A thread of memory rooted in another world.
2. A stable soul-signature.
3. And the will to cross without breaking.
Omkar stood before the spiral altar, heart pounding.
He placed his palm on the weaving-stone and whispered, "I want to see Earth."
The stone shuddered.
Threads of golden light swirled upward—fragmented images of Mumbai, his childhood home, his parents' laughter. But as the portal began to open, the light twisted.
Darkness bled into the circle.
A shadow figure stepped through—not monstrous, but almost human.
Vaela.
Not fully Echo. Not fully free. Her face flickered—one moment kind, the next tormented.
"Omkar," she whispered.
Recognition punched the breath from his lungs.
"You—"
"You remembered me," she said. "That thread saved me. But he's still in me."
She trembled as thorned veins flared across her neck.
"You opened the portal," she choked. "But he followed."
A second shadow bloomed behind her.
The Thornwalker didn't step through.
He stared through.
And for a moment, Omkar felt his mind unravel—glimpsing centuries of decay, echoes tortured into obedience, whole worlds turned into nightmarescapes.
He screamed—
But Vaela's hand found his, and she sang.
A note of pure memory. A name once shared.
The portal closed.
---
Omkar collapsed, blood running from his nose. The Weave around the room smoldered and sizzled with imbalance. But the portal had been made. Imperfect, fragile, but real.
And Vaela…
Was still with him.
---
Lore Interlude: The Thornwalker
He had once been a Dreamweaver.
Name: Arvalen.
Title: Bearer of the Loom's Silence.
He belonged to the first circle of Anchors—the ones who shaped realms with thread and song.
But he saw what others did not.
The Legacy System—a living network of memories passed from world to world, storing echoes of power, wisdom, and soulprints. It was designed to preserve civilizations. To carry forward the best of all that lived.
But Arvalen believed it was a prison.
A chokehold of destiny.
He shattered his Anchor.
He carved his name from the Loom.
He took the Legacy System and bent it, forged it into a weapon—turning preserved echoes into cursed revenants, feeding off the unfulfilled dreams of the fallen.
And when the Loom tried to silence him…
He became something worse.
The Thornwalker.
Now, he binds worlds in pain, twists the threads meant for growth into shackles, and infects even the memory of resistance.
But Kailash—once his brother-in-thread—survived.
And that lone thread, frayed and fragile as it may be, could unravel his entire dominion.