The storm did not come from the sky.
It came by sea.
A lone boat, carved from silver-wood and strung with black thread, drifted into the riverbank east of the Vale just as dawn began to stir the mist.
No oars.
No sail.
Only a single figure cloaked in cobalt robes, face veiled in linen, feet bare and burned with old ash.
They did not speak.
Not at first.
But when they stepped from the boat and knelt before the Circle's outer path, the river's surface stilled—unnaturally smooth.
And in their hand, they held something older than breath:
A folded slip of parchment inked in deep crimson.
And a single symbol burned into its skin.
The Eye of the Last Dawn.
The Watching Flame
Thera stood at the edge of the gathering, flanked by Oryn and Lira—the Trifold Flame now tempered by shared silence.
The children watched the stranger with hushed awe.
The weavers, with cautious reverence.
The gray thread above the Circle quivered, uncertain.
The envoy did not bow. Did not demand.
Only opened the parchment.
And read aloud with a voice like wind scraping old stone:
"From the Forgotten East. From the place where fire never rose."
"We bring the warning that was never woven."
"The Loom does not end with you."
"And what slumbers beneath the Threadgrave is waking."
The Threadgrave
The name dropped like a stone into water.
Even Mireon, who had spoken of erased wars and unseen blades, looked startled.
"The Threadgrave?" he murmured. "That was a myth…"
But Rien's face had gone still.
She stepped forward, cloak dragging stardust ash behind her, eyes narrowed.
"The Threadgrave is not a myth," she said.
"It is where we buried the first mistakes."
"Where the Threads That Lied were sealed."
"And where no flame has dared burn for a thousand years."
Thera looked at the envoy.
"What's waking?"
The envoy lifted their veil.
And for the first time, the Circle saw—
No eyes.
Only a hollow of darkness. Empty. Threadless.
"The unwoven," they said.
The History None Wanted
That night, under a sky with no stars, the Circle listened to the envoy speak.
Their story was not a tale.
It was a memory scraped into stone and silence.
Once, before the Loom was tamed, the First Flame birthed threads not meant for story.
Threads that disobeyed truth.
Threads that unraveled what they touched.
"The first Flamebearers called them Nullborn," the envoy said.
"They were not evil."
"They were error."
To protect the world, the elders of old did not destroy them.
They buried them.
Deep.
In the Threadgrave.
And placed every memory of them into flame…
…then snuffed that flame out.
A Choice Between Sleep and Wake
Thera rose when the tale was done.
The Circle watched her, uncertain.
"And now they stir," she said. "But why?"
The envoy closed the parchment.
"Because your Circle rebalanced the Loom."
"And when the world heals, the buried wounds rise."
"You woke healing—and woke the consequence, too."
Lira, quiet until now, spoke:
"Do we go to the Threadgrave?"
Oryn answered before Thera could.
"Or do we invite it here—on our terms?"
Rien stepped forward, gaze hard.
"Both are dangerous."
"But waiting would be worse."
The Loom Responds
That night, a single black thread crept into the Vale.
No weaver summoned it.
No child touched it.
It found its own way.
It did not burn.
It hummed.
Not evil.
Not angry.
Only… hungry.
And from the edge of the Circle, the envoy turned once, just once, and said:
"The next flame you bear must be brave enough to unravel what cannot be named."