There was no trumpet to announce the new age.
No declaration carved into stone.
No towering edict from a ruler's mouth.
Only a breeze—warm, carrying the scent of ember and ink—passing across a world that had, at long last, been given back to itself.
The Loom no longer glowed in gold.
Its light now shifted gently, as if it were waiting to hear a story instead of write one.
And for the first time since the Flame was born...
The world could choose what to remember.
Rien's Burden
She walked barefoot through the Valley of Threads, where every unravelled Codex strand was now gathered in the soil like roots waiting to bloom again.
Children played among the colored ribbons that rose from the earth.
Some wove them into songs.
Others wove them into silences.
Rien sat among them, fingers brushing a thread of deep forest green—the memory of a village that once vanished in fire.
"Do I retell you?" she whispered. "Or do I let you rest?"
The thread didn't answer.
And that was the point.
There was no command now.
Only conversation.
Tessen's Quiet
Tessen Vale no longer wore titles.
Not Seamwright.
Not Architect.
Just Tessen.
He kept mostly to the outskirts, rebuilding homes with his hands instead of commands. Sometimes, he listened when villagers asked questions. Sometimes he helped them find their own threads.
But always—always—he stayed away from the Loom.
He'd built one mind.
He had no wish to shape another.
Still, when the wind carried Rien's voice to him one dusk, reading old stories aloud to children near the flamewood tree, he paused.
And for the first time in years, he smiled without guilt.
Lanternlight Ritual
In every city that once feared the Flame, people gathered once a month under the open sky.
Not to perform.
Not to obey.
But to witness.
Lanterns were lit not by rule, but by memory—each one marking a name, a pain, a joy, a truth.
Some told stories aloud.
Others wrote theirs in smoke.
A girl in Kaelth threw her ribbon into the river, saying:
"I do not need the Codex to know who I am."
An old soldier in Drenfeld tied his war-mark thread to a tree and whispered:
"I will remember both the harm I did… and the healing I seek."
The world was changing.
Not quickly.
But steadily.
Like thread pulled through worn cloth, mending from within.
The Loom's Whisper
Rien stood alone one evening in the chamber of the Loom.
The flame in her lantern pulsed gently.
No edicts.
No summons.
Just breath.
The Loom flickered softly and spoke again—not in command, but in companionship:
I am not memory alone.
I am listening.
Rien bowed her head and answered:
"Then we'll walk together. One story at a time."