The name echoed like a blade drawn across the heavens.
Maerai.
Not spoken—but carved into the sky itself. The clouds read it. The trees whispered it. The wind hummed its syllables with reverence and fear.
Kaelen clutched his chest where the Loom's lash had struck him. His fire was slow to return, and his breath shallow, but he was awake.
Rien helped him to his feet. She didn't ask if he was alright—because they were far beyond alright.
"Who is she?" Kaelen rasped.
Vel answered grimly.
"The last of the Scorchborn before the Emberlight fell.
They say she refused to fight for either the Phoenix Crown or the Ashsworn.
She walked into the Loom itself.
And vanished."
Seron added, "Or was taken. No one agrees. Her name was erased from most records."
"But not from the Loom," Rien said. "It remembers her. It's bringing her back."
Later, in the Circle of Kindling
They made camp in a grove where fire didn't burn trees but fed them. The bark glowed soft amber, and the leaves glistened with sparks instead of dew.
Rien sat before Ashweld. The blade's flame had changed—quieter, as if sensing what lay ahead.
"Do you remember her?" she asked the sword.
It didn't answer. But it trembled in her grip.
Kaelen sat beside her, face pale.
"Why now?" he asked. "Why bring her back?"
Vel, sharpening a dagger, didn't look up.
"Because the Loom's losing control.
You rewrote death. Rien rewrote memory.
The world's starting to remember its own will.
So the Loom reaches for a trump card—a myth even older than its own rules."
As if summoned by name, the ground shook.
A pulse rippled through the soil—not like an earthquake, but like a heartbeat.
And then—
She stepped into the circle.
Clothed in ash-grey robes. Hair white, lips cracked, eyes molten gold.
Not aged.
Not young.
Timeless.
And flame burned across her palms without smoke or pain.
"So," she said.
"The world still speaks my name."
Rien stood slowly.
"Maerai."
"Child of fire," Maerai said, voice low and clear. "Do you know what it means to be remembered?"
"I know what it means to remember myself."
Maerai tilted her head.
"Then let me teach you what it means to burn everything else away."
Kaelen stepped forward.
"Are you with the Loom?"
Maerai turned to him.
"No. The Loom is a structure. I am a spark. It cannot command me.
But it can awaken me.
And it has."
"To do what?" Rien demanded.
Maerai raised a hand—and fire coiled into shape above her fingers.
A burning map.
Of the continent.
And around it—threads. Gold and silver. Tugging. Restraining. Twisting fates like nooses.
"To sever this world from its lies.
The Loom has forgotten its purpose.
I have not."
She let the flame-map burn out.
"Come with me. Let us burn the Loom itself."
Rien hesitated.
Vel's eyes narrowed.
Kaelen said, softly, "Or is this what the Loom wants us to believe?"