Chapter 3: "The Cursed Gift"

  "Dreams are threads stolen from the loom of fate—the more you pull, the more reality unravels."

  — Forbidden inscription in the Elven Archives of Valtherion

  The Ritual of the Night Loom

  Nytheris arrived at the Whispering Grove when the moon was at its hungriest.

  Her bare feet did not touch the ground—each step made the grass bend as if avoiding contamination from her touch. The elves had prepared a circle of bioluminescent mushrooms, but the flickering light fled as she approached, leaving only footprints of darkness in her wake.

  Veylis was there, kneeling, her eyes still red from her first prophetic dream. When Nytheris reached out, the young elf saw that the goddess’s fingers ended in needles as thin as thorns from black roses.

  "Do you wish to see the loom?" Nytheris asked, her voice like the sound of tearing fabric.

  Before Veylis could answer, the needles pierced her eyelids.

  The pain went beyond flesh—it was as if someone were stitching her soul to the very fabric of the world. When she opened her eyes again (had she ever closed them?), Veylis saw:

  The loom.

  It was not an object but a place. A landscape of golden threads stretching to the horizon, each one pulsing with entire lives. Some shone with vitality, others were dark and gnarled like diseased veins. And there, at the center, a void where several threads had been abruptly severed—a wound in reality.

  "This is what will be," Nytheris whispered, guiding Veylis’s hand to touch the threads. "And this..." Her needle-like finger pointed to the blackened threads, "...is what can be avoided."

  The first touch was ecstasy.

  Veylis saw elven cities flourishing, children running between singing trees, auroras dancing atop crystal towers. But when her finger slipped to a black thread, the world collapsed.

  She saw herself, much older, kneeling before a figure with bowed legs and multiple arms. The creature had Veylis’s face, but its eyes were webs, and its mouth opened to reveal rows of teeth sharp as grinding gears.

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  "Spider-Queen..." the older Veylis said, offering a pair of bleeding eyes. "Accept my sacrifice."

  The vision ended with a dry snap, and Veylis found herself back in the mushroom circle, Nytheris gripping her chin hard enough to crush bone.

  "This is no gift, little liar," the goddess snarled. "It is a warning."

  The First Shadow

  While the elven elders gathered to discuss the visions, a child named Lirien played near the shores of the Lake of Dreams.

  "Who are you?" she asked her own reflection, which smiled in a way she never did.

  The image in the water did not answer. It merely pointed behind Lirien, where the shadows of the grove stretched unnaturally. When the girl turned, she saw:

  A tall, faceless figure, made of the same substance as shadows, hunched over the body of a sleeping elven elder. Its "fingers" sank into the man’s skull like knives into water, and when it withdrew them, it brought forth glowing threads, which it devoured with a sound like crumpling paper.

  The elder awoke screaming.

  "Where am I? Who am I?"

  The creature turned to Lirien then, and though it had no mouth, the girl heard clearly:

  "You will call me nightmare, but I am only the truth you hide."

  When the guards arrived, they found only Lirien, motionless, her eyes black as a starless night.

  "He will return," she whispered. "He said he is hungry for us."

  The Blade That Remembers

  In the underground forges, Gorin struck the glowing metal with redoubled force.

  "It’s wrong," he grumbled to his apprentice, a young dwarf named Thrain. "The steel sings differently today."

  And indeed—while most blades rang clear when struck, this one sounded muffled, as if trying to speak through a veil.

  When the sword finally cooled, Gorin saw the problem:

  At the center of the blade, where there should have been uniform metal, there was a strange pattern. Thin lines radiated from a central point, like a web frozen in steel.

  "What is that, master?" Thrain asked, reaching out.

  "Don’t touch it!" Gorin yanked him back, but it was too late.

  The moment Thrain’s fingers brushed the metal, his eyes rolled back and he began to scream in a tongue no dwarf had ever heard—sharp, hissing words that made the torches tremble.

  When the fit passed, Thrain stared at his own hands as if seeing them for the first time.

  "I remember..." he whispered. "The place before the place. The time before time."

  Gorin did not ask what he meant. He wrapped the blade in thick cloth and hid it at the bottom of his chest, beneath three iron locks.

  But in the night, as all slept, the chest trembled softly, as if something inside it were dreaming.