There was a room beneath the Weavinng Temple that most forgot existed.
It had no doors, only a narrow stairwell hidden behind an old tapestry, its threads charmed to catch and tangle wandering thoughts. Sage had found it once while dusting. No one else had remembered it was there.
He came here on mornings when the world felt too large to touch and too quiet to hold.
The stairs creaked like a voice clearing its throat. The stones underfoot were smoother than the rest of the chapel, worn by feet that had long since disappeared from history. At the bottom lay a circular chamber lined with memory-looms - spindles of crystal-thread that rotated slowly in the air, each one capturing spirit traces that drifted through Glenraeth.
The room was meant for Weavers, who were keepers of history and spinners of memory into longform spiritcloth. But in Glenraeth, there hadn't been a true Weaver in years. The looms drifted half-asleep.
Sage didn't know how to use them. Not really. But he was attracted to it. Like distant music.
He moved between the looms, one hand trailing the air. Some threads hummed with joy. Others trembled with mourning. One whispered the same name over and over: Riel. Riel. Riel.
He didn't know who Riel was. But they had been loved. That much was clear.
He stopped by a spindle that hadn't moved in weeks. Its thread was still, greyed out and knotted in strange places.
Sage frowned. A shattered weave on the floor.
The stone frame cracked. The resonance thread spread out, fading away at the edges, leaking spiritual static in flickers of light and echo. He recognised the type of weave, it was meant to hold the community's remembrance requests, names of the sick, the dying, the lost.
A sacred object was broken. Not just any object, but a memory vessel, which, if left open, could bleed stored names into the aether.
If no one rewound it, they'd lose dozens of soul-threads. People would forget their dead.
No priest in sight. No clergy are trained enough to stabilise a spill.
And the loom was still humming. The longer it bled, the worse it would get.
He knelt beside it.
His hands didn't tremble.
He'd seen one repaired before, once, by Father Emon. The way the thread had to be pulled slowly, breath held. The way each strand had to be matched in tone and memory, one by one, or the name inside would dissolve.
Sage reached for the spindle. The thread hissed like a wound touched wrong.
Don't.
You're not allowed.
You're not a Weaver.
You're not anyone.
He touched it anyway.
Each strand burned with fragments:
A grandmother's lullaby.
A child's first word.
A whispered apology to a dying brother.
Sage's chest tightened as an unspeakable sadness came over him as a result of magic tampering. He did not cry. He could not afford to. The thread demanded silence and stillness. He gave it everything.
Piece by piece, he rewound it. Matched tone to tone. Hummed where memory faltered. Whispered where the thread frayed.
It took fifteen minutes, although it felt longer.
When it was done, the weave sealed itself with a small chime.
The last name spoken into it returned to the stone in faint, glowing script:
Alven Dor. Remembered.
Sage leaned back, sweat beading on his brow.
The door opened. Sister Ilvan stepped in.
"Oh, who let you back here?"
"I... I just came to help," Sage said.
She looked at the weave. Then at him.
"…Was it broken?"
He paused.
"No," he said softly. "Just unspooled."
She nodded absently. "Ah. Well, if you're finished, the incense needs relighting in the east wing."
He stood. "Of course."
She passed him like he wasn't there.
That night, back in the orphanage, Ilya was asleep. Meren had a fever. Sage stayed beside him with a cloth soaked in calming rootwater. In the stillness, the boy asked:
"Did you fix something again?"
"Yes."
"Did anyone thank you today?"
Sage didn't answer for a moment.
"No."
"…Will they remember?"
Sage didn't know the answer himself, so he stayed quiet.
The candle sputtered low, its holder filled with dust.