The Vale was silent.
Not the silence of death or devastation, but a kind of deep, reverent stillness—the aftermath of a storm whose winds had not yet fully faded. High above, the rippling sky had begun to smooth, the jagged fractures once slashed across its surface now stitching themselves into soft, wavering lines. The Loom was healing.
But Corin didn't feel victorious.
He stood alone in the cavern of the Heart, staring at the space where Kael had vanished moments earlier. The Threads had resisted him in the end, snapping him backward through a tear in reality, but Corin knew it had not been a defeat. Kael had not been broken—only slowed.
Behind him, Ashlyn and Fira moved through the chamber with silent urgency, checking the stabilizing structures that surrounded the Loom's core. Threadlines glimmered faintly in the air like strands of starlight, gently weaving themselves back into equilibrium. For now.
Corin slowly stepped forward, approaching the center of the chamber. The Heart pulsed steadily now, the hum beneath his feet returning to the familiar rhythm he had first felt long ago. But it was fainter. Fragile.
"You did it," Ashlyn said, her voice soft as she joined him. "The Loom responded to you… like it never has before."
"No," Corin said after a moment. "It didn't respond to me. It responded to balance. I just… happened to be standing on the right side of it this time."
He reached out, letting his fingers graze a nearby Thread. It danced beneath his touch, not recoiling like before. For the first time in weeks, the Threads felt… calm.
Fira approached from the other side, her boots echoing softly on the stone floor. She studied the scene with narrowed eyes. "Kael's influence is receding, but that won't last. He tore through the Loom like a blade. You forced him back, but the scars are still here—and they're spreading. Some of the damage is deep… maybe irreversible."
Corin lowered his hand. "Can we repair it?"
"Not from here," she said. "The Loom touches all corners of the world. And if Kael's managed to reach its deeper roots—the older, buried Threads—then this was just the beginning."
Ashlyn turned to Corin. "Then we need to move. We can't wait for him to strike again."
"No," Corin said, his voice stronger now. "We won't wait. From now on, we act. If Kael wants to unravel the Loom thread by thread, then we'll follow the weave to where it's weakest and hold it together ourselves."
He turned to face them both fully. "We start a new path. We track the fractures. We find where he's reaching next. And we stop him—there."
Ashlyn looked between the two of them. "Then we'll need allies. Resources. And answers. Kael's power… it didn't come from the Loom alone. Something was feeding him."
Corin nodded grimly. "The Threadborn."
Fira folded her arms. "There's more to them than Kael lets on. Their knowledge of the Loom is ancient—perhaps older than the Seers or even the Founders. We know so little about what they were before Kael corrupted them."
"Then we learn," Corin said. "We start with the archives in The Spindle."
Both Ashlyn and Fira raised their eyebrows.
"You mean the Archive Tower?" Ashlyn asked. "The one under Lock and Loop Order? That Spindle?"
"It's where my parents trained," Corin said quietly. "The knowledge they protected was meant for emergencies—Loom crises, world-scale ones. If anyone recorded the original designs of the Threads… it's there."
Fira hesitated. "It's also where the Order branded Kael a heretic and purged the eastern Threadweavers. If he has unfinished business… he might already be moving there."
Corin met her eyes. "Then we have to get there first."
A moment of silence passed before Ashlyn broke it with a resigned sigh. "Then I guess we're going to the Spindle."
Just then, the chamber began to shake—not violently, but enough to scatter pebbles across the floor. The Threads shimmered brighter, like a harp string pulled taut. Corin spun around.
At the far side of the chamber, a new rift was forming—not dark like Kael's but bright, woven from golden light and runes carved of air. A controlled portal. A calling.
"Someone's opening a channel," Fira said, already stepping forward. "But… not Kael."
Corin's heart leapt. "Then who—?"
The portal flared, and from its shimmering center stepped a woman. Her robe was deep crimson stitched with symbols older than the Archive itself. Her hair was bound in copper wire, threaded with luminous beads of light. She bore no weapons, but the moment her eyes—pure silver—locked on Corin's, he felt the Loom stir again.
"Corin Thorne," she said, her voice echoing unnaturally. "I am Grand Spinner Maera of the Sixth Spiral. I bring word from the Loomwrights."
Fira inhaled sharply. "That's impossible. The Loomwrights were—"
"Gone?" Maera finished for her, stepping further into the room. "We faded. We did not vanish. Kael's uprising was merely the beginning. But the true unraveling has begun—and you, Threadbinder, have awakened it."
Corin stepped forward, careful. "Then why come now? After everything?"
Maera regarded him coolly. "Because the next thread cannot be woven without you. The Loom no longer follows its old paths. It is being rewritten. And there is a design taking shape that none of us anticipated."
She lifted one hand and let a single golden Thread drift between her fingers. It hummed softly—familiar, ancient, and vibrating with immense potential.
"You stood before the Heart and it chose not to reject you. That has… consequences. The world is watching. And so is something else."
Corin's voice was barely a whisper. "Kael?"
"No." Maera looked upward, toward the place where the Heart throbbed in quiet pain. "Older than Kael. Older than us. A Thread no one ever dared to weave."
Fira took a step closer. "You're talking about the Weft."
Maera didn't answer directly. Instead, she extended the golden Thread toward Corin.
"A new path begins. But it will cost more than just power. The Loom remembers pain. And so must you."
Corin reached out. His fingers closed around the Thread.
And the Loom began to sing.