Chapter Seven: Threads at War
Part I – The Dreamweavers' Circle
The path to Velmirasyl—the capital of Velmyra—was not a road but a river of light. A bridge woven from dream-strands that shimmered beneath their feet, supported by memory-laced mist and ancient oath-bound willows. Omkar, Saenril, and Niv walked together, the atmosphere growing denser with energy as they neared the city.
Velmirasyl was unlike anything Omkar had ever imagined.
A city grown, not built—its towers were titanic flowering trees with crystal-laced canopies. Bridges stretched between them like spiderwebs of living silk. The air was filled with drifting song-birds and fragments of half-formed dreams chasing one another. Everything felt alive, interconnected.
The Dreamweavers' Circle awaited in a grand chamber formed inside the heart of a tree older than stars.
Seven figures sat in a ring, their bodies cloaked in fabrics that shimmered between form and memory. Each one was marked by a symbol glowing above their heads—representing a domain of the Weave: Time, Healing, Shadow, Flame, Memory, Sound, and Stone.
Omkar knelt, unsure of what to say.
"You bear two names," the eldest Dreamweaver said, her voice like falling snow. "Omkar, the outsider. Kailash, the once-bound."
"And you walk the edge between healing and destruction," added another, with no eyes but a third one gleaming in their chest. "You are a thread torn from the Loom."
Omkar stood. "I didn't choose this."
"No," said the Weavers in unison. "But you were chosen."
They offered him a choice: join them for training—to master Dreamweaving, anchor the Weave's broken patterns, and learn how to forge portals between dimensions…
Or continue walking the edge alone.
"I'll learn," he said, "but not for you. For those who suffer under the Thornwalker's reach."
They nodded.
And so, his training began anew.
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Part II – The Roots That Rot
But while light flourished in Velmirasyl, darkness seeped in the Shadowroot.
A twisted forest growing upside-down from the underside of Velmyra's crust, the Shadowroot was a place of inversion—where dreams collapsed and thoughts became predators. There, Echoes fed on entire histories, and Thornseeds grew from the flesh of the forgotten.
In its black heart, a figure wandered.
She wore tattered robes made of unspun nightmares and walked with a staff grown from regret. Her name had once been Vaela—the same memory Omkar had glimpsed in the Echo he freed.
But now, she was something else.
Half-Echo. Half-Weaver.
Her body shimmered with instability, threads of her soul still tethered to the Thornwalker's curse—but one memory anchored her: Kailash had remembered her name.
"I dreamed of your fire," she whispered, touching a cracked memory-stone.
"And I will find you again."
Above her, a great thorned tree pulsed with dark energy—its roots slithering into Velmyra like veins into a heart.
The Thornwalker watched through its branches, silent.
For even in the roots of corruption… hope had taken seed.