The tunnel beyond the sentinel's ruin narrowed sharply—so sharply that Torren muttered he preferred fighting a thousand shadows over being squeezed "like grain between millstones."
Rafi muttered something similar, except with more tears and less dignity.
Aarinen did not speak.His gaze fixed on the darkness ahead, on the space where Eryna's warning echo had vanished—Don't trust the Weaver.
The shard lay quiet in his hand now.Too quiet.Like a breath drawn and held, waiting for something.
Saevel walked close to him, silent, watching his face for cracks.Torren followed, dragging a still-shaking Rafi.Lirael stayed at the rear, marking the walls with small runes so they would not lose themselves.
The passage bent like a ribcage.The air grew warmer—but not comforting warm.The warmth of breath on the back of one's neck.Of something unseen.Watching.
After a long stretch, Torren whispered:
"Does anyone else feel like we're walking into someone's mouth?"
"Please," Rafi sobbed, "don't say that."
Saevel murmured, "Be quiet."
Aarinen did not hear them.Or rather—he heard something else more clearly.
A faint hum.
Not sound.Something deeper.The vibration of a thread plucked far away.
He knew it.Recognized it.
The Weave.
The Loom.
Its touch brushing the world like fingers against fabric.
And something within it trying—weakly—to call him.
Eryna?
He closed his eyes.
A hand slipped into his—the memory of a hand—a child's hand.
He squeezed the shard and forced the ghost sensation away.
Not memory.Fragment.Deception.Or warning.
He did not know.
He only knew he must reach her before anything else did.
The Bend of Stone
The corridor widened abruptly.
A natural cavern now, unlike the carved halls above.The ceiling crawled with pulsating veins of glowing stone, pale blue and dimming at intervals.
Saevel whispered, "This looks like a throat."
"Stop describing things as body parts!" Rafi hissed.
Torren lifted a torch."Are those veins? Or roots?"
Lirael approached the nearest vein.
"Neither."She brushed her fingers near it but did not touch."These are memory channels."
Aarinen turned. "For storing what?"
"Not what," she said quietly. "Who."
Torren swore.Rafi screamed.Aarinen stood still, pulse steadying.
Lirael continued:
"When the Weaver erases a thread, the echo sometimes… lingers. These caverns absorb those echoes. They become part of the stone."
Aarinen whispered, "Is that why Eryna's voice came from here?"
Lirael nodded once.
"It means she passed somewhere near here. Or a part of her story did."
Aarinen stepped forward.
The shard pulsed faintly—mirroring the dimming rhythm of the veins.
Not pointing.Not guiding.Resonating.
Saevel frowned. "What does that mean?"
Aarinen inhaled.
"She was close."
The cavern exhaled a long, low groan.Stone shifting under stone.A memory moving.
Lirael stiffened.
"Something is awakening."
Torren groaned. "Of course it is. Let me guess—it's ancient, angry, and hungry."
Rafi whimpered, "Why is it always hungry?"
A crack split the cavern floor.
Aarinen stepped back quickly.
Saevel pulled Rafi behind a rock.Torren drew his sword.Lirael readied runes.
The crack widened.
Blue veins snapped like lightning.
A low voice emerged—not human,not beast,but layered—
"…WHO…CALLS…THE…FORGOTTEN…"
Aarinen raised the shard.
"We are passing through," he said, voice controlled.
The cavern laughed.
Not mirth.Mockery.A deep, grinding hum.
"NONE PASS.ONLY FALL."
Torren pointed at the floor."It's talking. The floor is talking. I hate everything about this."
Lirael whispered, "It's not the floor."
The far wall bulged.
Cracked.
Split.
And something stepped out.
The Keeper's Echo
It had a human shape—broad shoulders, long limbs—but its form was carved from the same glowing stone-veins, its body pulsing like a heart made of rock and memory.
Its face was smooth and featureless.
Stone lips parted.
"…THE KEEPER WEPT HERE."
Aarinen froze.
Saevel whispered, "What?"
The creature continued—
"…THIS CHAMBER HOLDS WHAT HE FEARED."
Lirael inhaled sharply."The Keeper… feared something?"
Torren muttered, "If something scares the being who erases threads, we should turn around."
Rafi nodded vigorously. "YES. Let's do that. Right now. Please."
Aarinen stepped forward.
"What did he fear?"
The creature tilted its head.
Its face began to shift—cracking, reshaping—until the stone formed a mouth, eyes, nose.
The face of a man—stern, old, hollow with grief.
The Keeper.
Lirael gasped.
Saevel stepped between Aarinen and the echo."Aarinen, stop."
He didn't.
He faced the creature.
"What did he fear?"
The echo raised an arm.
Memories bled from its hand—like dust falling upward.
Images flickered on the stone walls:
A child crying.A thread glowing too bright.A circle of erasure runes.A cloaked figure whispering to the Keeper.A silver basin filled with light.A small girl—hair pale, eyes closed—floating in the basin.
Eryna.
Aarinen staggered.Saevel caught his elbow.
The echo spoke:
"…SHE COULD BREAK HIM."
Lirael whispered, "Break the Weaver?"
The echo nodded slowly.
"…SHE SAW THE THREAD…BEHIND HIS THREAD."
Aarinen's heartbeat stopped.
"What thread?"
The echo did not answer.
Instead, it raised both arms, as if stretching.
The cavern trembled.
Saevel shouted, "It's preparing to strike!"
Torren yanked Aarinen backward.Lirael unleashed a rune-shockwave.Rafi crawled behind a boulder and cried openly.
The echo slammed its hands down—
The cavern floor split into three.
The world dropped.
The Fall
Aarinen tumbled with the others, stone rushing past, the cavern collapsing around them.
He reached for anything—a ledge, a stone, a root—but the walls were smooth.
Saevel grabbed his wrist mid-fall.He caught hers.Torren caught Saevel's boot.Rafi caught Torren's belt.
Lirael levitated beside them for a heartbeat before gravity yanked her downward.
"Hold on!" Saevel shouted.
Torren screamed, "I AM!"
The floor rushed up to meet them—
Lirael whispered a rune.
A soft cushion of air slowed their impact.They crashed into a lower cavern.
Torren groaned. "We're alive. Somehow."
Rafi sobbed. "I saw my entire childhood flash by. And it was terrible."
Aarinen stood.
He looked upward.
The Keeper's echo peered down from the broken ledge.
Still watching.
Still waiting.
Lirael hissed, "It didn't follow."
"No," Aarinen said quietly."It pushed us here."
Torren glared. "Why?!"
Aarinen held up the shard.
"It wanted us to see something."
The shard pulsed—but differently now.
Not pointing forward.Pointing down.
Saevel frowned. "What's beneath us?"
Lirael whispered, almost unwilling to say the words:
"The deepest vaults.The first fractures.Where the Weaver stores the memories he cannot break."
Torren whispered, horrified, "She's down there."
Aarinen nodded.
Eryna had been hidden in the lowest silence.
Waiting.
Afraid.
Or worse—changed.
Aarinen felt the cold realization settle into him like stone:
The Weaver was not just hiding her.
He was shaping something.
Preparing something.
Saevel touched his arm."We go down carefully. Slowly."
Aarinen didn't respond.
Because beneath them—far beneath—a faint light flickered.
Reflected.Small.Childlike.
A heartbeat made of silence.
And her voice—
so faint he barely caught it—
"…Aari… hurry…"
He exhaled once—sharply, painfully—a vow and a plea at once.
"We're coming," he whispered.
Then he began the descent into the blackness that waited beneath the world.