The red star appeared to pulse in cadence with my own heart, and when I finally slept it followed me into dreams. I stood in a hallway woven of gleaming thread—white for hope, black for fear—and with every step another strand snapped, fluttering away as ash. A voice like rust whispered, Abundance becomes abyss. Then the walls ignited, burning without heat, and I woke with moon‑grass taste on my tongue and the phantom scent of scorched silk lacing the air around my bed.
I rose before dawn. Nightspire's torches guttered low as though unsure the shadows remained their domain. My shadow, on the other hand, stretched long and thin, sliding up walls in shapes that weren't quite mine. I whispered a grounding chant and lit a brazier of lilac bark and phoenix ash; the shape resolved into proper silhouette.
The castle clock struck five. Ember Silence. Exactly the hour Valke of the Empty was said to weave his most potent illusions.
I dressed quickly, fastening the Custodian medallion beneath my doublet, and hurried to the forge terrace where Ravan was already waiting. He hadn't slept either; silver eyes tracked the new star with almost feral intensity.
"It blinked once at midnight," he said without greeting, voice low. "No Custodian message. Weft‑Eaters, perhaps."
I relayed my dream. He frowned. "An invitation."
"Or a warning."
We'd learned by now that the line between the two was thin enough to sew shut only if both of us pulled the needle.
By sunrise we reached Dawnroot Glen, accompanied by Vael's sky‑legion and a brace of Ash‑Mark scouts. Chancellor Neril's wagons were camped far beyond the treaty line; his artisans, cowed after the cannon fiasco, worked quietly on dormitory trusses. Neril himself approached with bowed head and no feathers, sporting plain gray wool. A costume, but even costumes have meaning.
"No further mining," he announced before we could question. "Consortium directors recalled me for… audit. I leave at dusk, taking all survey crews." His eyes slid skyward toward the red star. "Some markets cannot be cornered." Then he turned sharply and strode away.
Calia exhaled. "So he retreats."
"For now," I said, but suspicion coiled. When one opportunist flees, another takes the vacant niche.
Our purpose this trip was the Veilstone—a dome of glass‑vine resin and dawn‑thread designed to shield the Loom's resonance from sudden tears. Building it required aligning six pylons across the Glen's eastern edge. The pylons resembled slender obelisks carved of mirror‑basalt, each cored with soul‑fire crystals that hummed when I touched them.
Custodian Lys instructed we must raise them during high noon, when both suns overlapped, forming a bridge of color. That bridge would empower the pylons' roots to sink into ley‑line pockets without jarring the Loom.
For five hours we toiled: Ravan's shadow braced obelisks, Calia eyed the instruments, Vael's legion kept watch. Children lugged barrels of lilac‑root mortar, singing off‑key to keep anxiety away. I sang with them, though my eyes strayed often to the red star now faint in day‑blue sky.
At the first kiss of Afterlight on true sun, Lys signaled. We poured mortar. The pylons sank a fingerbreadth, locking as if magnetized. Dawn‑thread pulses raced down their flanks, threading invisible net across valley mouth. My skin prickled; it felt like nerves outside my body.
When the last pulse faded, Glen fell still. No chime from mirror‑tree, no tremor below—the Loom accepted our veil.
Relief fled in the next heartbeat when Brina's scouts galloped in, dust streaming. "Silver ships off western coast," their captain gasped. "Unflagged sails, hulls mirrored. Locals say they anchor only at night."
Valke's vessels.
Ravan's expression roughened. "How long until next double‑dusk?"
Calia checked charts. "Five nights."
Plenty of time for an assault. Too little for political petitions.
We spent that evening on strategy. Vael argued for pre‑emptive strike: torch the ships before they launched sabotage. Ravan cautioned that open warfare might sever Custodian probation threads, unraveling their fragile trust. Lys offered compromise: deliver demonstration of dawn‑thread power as deterrent, a soft threat that Valke's faction would read.
I thought of my dream‑hallway. "No," I said. "Valke desires thread; a display only fuels hunger. We must weave uncertainty instead of power—convert the very loomfire he wants into maze he can't navigate."
Eyes turned to me. I outlined notion: craft illusions using inert decoy cloth to flood their approach with false patterns, tricking their resonance instruments toward dead ends. Meanwhile root‑iron buds beneath those false nodes would be pre‑emptively drained of energy—or better, re‑educated with lilac infusion so their hum would lull rather than beckon.
Brina smirked. "Turn battlefield into haunted garden. I like."
Ravan nodded approval. "We need dream‑weave engineer. Mirror specter?"
I hesitated. Each bargain with her carried risk. Yet she alone could infuse illusions that mimic Loom signatures without real hooks. I agreed.
Just past midnight, I stood in Mirror Wing, basin of water clear beneath star‑light. "We require safe deceit," I told the reflection‑queen. Frost‑runes spiraled across water, answering: Weave silver lies so strong they break at touch. She stretched hand from glass; I placed spool of decoy cloth into her grasp. Cloth vanished, replaced by six crystal seeds tinted smoke‑blue.
"Plant where greed listens," she whispered, then retreated.
Pre‑dawn, Ravan, Vael, and I transported seeds to Glen's western slope—the side facing sea. We buried each in root‑iron berms drained with lilac infusion; Calia sealed runes above. When sun rose, the soil hummed faint jester music—taunting, harmless.
Our work finished, we prepared envoy: Brina's rebels disguised as smugglers, carrying sample cloth to silver ships with forged map marking false seams. They sailed before sunset.
All day we waited. At dusk a signal arrow arced from cliff—Brina's torchgreen feather: success. Valke's crew accepted map, paid gold, boasted of midnight extraction. Good.
Night drew breath. Two suns slipped beneath horizons—double‑dusk again. Weft‑Eater hour.
From vantage hill we watched silver ships launch glass‑hulled skiffs. Their crews rowed into reed channels, using resonance harps to detect root‑iron song. When harps neared decoy seeds, soil glowed; illusions sprang: pillars of radiant cloth, threads ascending like vines into sky. From this distance even I felt urge to possess them—the lure was stark.
The skiff crews cheered, hammered spikes, prepared cannisters of mirror‑dust to capture energy. They struck ground. Seed illusions shattered into hollow light. The drained root‑iron emitted soothing lilac hum. Nothing else.
Confusion turned to panic; their cannisters remained empty. Then pylons shimmered, weaving barrier between Glen and coast; harps resonated with null note, snapping strings, reverberations knocking saboteurs backward. One skiff capsized.
From cliff, Vael's legion launched tracer flares: bright meteors that immersed fields in dawn‑rose glow. The show told Valke's fleet that Glen stood defended, illusions too unpredictable to risk.
I expected retaliation. Instead, horizon silvered—ships retreating, sails catching unnatural gust. We waited until their hulls became pinpricks. The red star overhead pulsed once, then dimmed half‑step. Custodian Lys whispered, "For now, loomfire quenched."
Yet peace wore brittle sheen. The following day, Calia delivered dire news: tailors sewing Academy's first banners found dawn‑thread spool fraying at edge—scorched as if by unseen ember. Not sabotage; no breach. Perhaps the Loom itself protesting deception?
The Archivist studied damage. "Star‑thread must breathe truth," he mused. "False weaving for good intent still taxes purity."
We faced grim equation: illusions saved Glen but cost us spool strength. Another such scheme could unbind thread entirely. We would need honest guardianship henceforth, not trickery.
I left library heavy‑hearted, climbed rooftop. The mirror‑tree seedling glimmered, unaffected. I traced its crystalline bark. Reflection‑queen's face shimmered faint. "Glass bends light, not ethos," she whispered. "Tend soil with sincerity. Roots will shield themselves."
Sincerity. A new tool.
That night, Ravan and I drafted The Charter of Sincere Threads: any future defense must involve open invitation for dialogue first, illusions only as last resort, and no co‑opted power without Loom consent. We carved charter into basalt stone at Academy gate.
Before dawn, newborn star blinked thrice—bright, bright, brightest. Red star lingered but smaller now, halo wan. A testament that honest weaving carries weight.
I write these words from Academy library scaffolding where students—mortal, demon, custodian—chisel runic alphabets into fresh pillars. Neril's influence wanes; Valke's ships vanish beyond horizon. Loom guardians no longer shiver.
Still, I remember dream‑hallway of snapping threads. We have not banished abyss; only taught it new respect. The tapestry remains delicate.
But today I witness a demon child and an Aurelian orphan arguing logarithms over loom tension while lilac vines shade them, and I feel—perhaps for first time since the scaffold—that possibility outweighs dread.
Above, the newborn star stands sentinel. The red star hovers, yes, but as warning, not claim. Both lights bind sky in measured dance.
And I, Leora Aelinora—once accused witch, now empress‑weaver—lift my needle once more, ready to stitch the next line of dawn into fabric that must, and shall, hold.