The Hall of Threads, once quiet, now buzzed with life.
Elara stood beneath the great loom, watching the tapestry shift. The seven central threads—hers, Caelum's, Idran's, and the others they had gathered—glowed with new strength. They moved with purpose, in patterns previously unseen, diverging from the ancient weave spun by the gods. But even now, as the balance shifted, a subtle tension remained in the threads. A tremble of uncertainty.
Victory at the Court had not meant safety. Six of the Twelve had bowed. Six had not.
"They're watching," Caelum said, stepping beside her, his voice low and guarded.
She glanced at him. "The other gods?"
He nodded. "The ones who didn't kneel. Iros is rallying forces. Elion hasn't spoken since the trial. Vireon… he sees endings in everything now. They won't yield without a final reckoning."
Elara's eyes traced the weave. "Then we're not done."
"No." Caelum's gaze flicked to her. "And what you did in the Court… it changed something. Not just the gods. You."
She didn't respond. She felt it, too.
Ever since she'd faced the Unmaking, a quiet pressure had grown inside her—like the tapestry whispered not just around her, but within her. She no longer saw threads. She felt them. Lives. Emotions. Choices. And not just in the Hall. Everywhere.
The divine spark in her was no longer dormant.
"Does that scare you?" she asked.
Caelum didn't answer at first. Then: "Only if it pulls you away from who you are."
—
Later that day, Idran found her walking alone along the Echo Gallery—a corridor where past weavings were stored as echoes in crystal. He leaned against a pillar, arms crossed.
"You don't sleep much anymore," he said.
"Neither do you."
Idran gave a half-smile. "The closer we get to rewriting the tapestry, the louder the old voices become."
"Voices of the gods?"
"No." His gaze darkened. "Of what they tried to erase."
She paused beside him. "You remember something new."
"I felt something new," Idran corrected. "When you stood before the Twelve. Something buried was released. I saw… flashes. A mountain. A blade made of woven time. And a woman."
Elara tensed. "Who?"
"I don't know. But she called you sister."
Elara's breath caught. "That's not possible."
"Isn't it?" Idran's eyes burned silver. "We were made by the gods' mistakes. Who's to say there aren't more like us? More forgotten truths?"
Elara swallowed. "If that's true, we need to find her."
Idran nodded. "But not all truths want to be found."
—
That night, as stars gathered above the Hall, Caelum led Elara to a tower she hadn't seen before. The door opened with his touch, revealing a chamber filled with starlight—no windows, no torches. Just drifting orbs of soft silver.
"This place…" she whispered. "What is it?"
"A mirror of the heavens," Caelum said. "Once used by the gods to read the sky's prophecy. Before they turned away from the future."
She stepped into the light. The orbs drifted around her, illuminating her skin, her eyes. "Why bring me here?"
Caelum walked closer. "Because if we're to survive what's coming, I need you to see something."
He reached out, and one of the lights dipped toward him. With a gentle motion, he brushed it into the air. It stretched and shimmered, forming an image—a vision.
Elara saw a battlefield. The ruins of the Hall. Smoke. Screams. The tapestry torn. And herself—eyes glowing, hair whipped by unseen winds, standing alone among the wreckage.
She turned to Caelum, shaken. "Is this what's coming?"
"One possible future," he said. "But not the only one."
"Why show me this now?"
Caelum stepped closer, cupping her face. "Because if we don't face it, we can't change it. And I won't let that be your fate."
Elara pressed her forehead to his. "Then we change it. Together."
—
In the days that followed, Elara trained.
Not with blades or fire, but with thread and will. With Terenna's guidance, she learned how to pull on the weave without tearing it—how to stitch protection into the wind, how to silence a scream with a breath, how to sense the tremor of a lie.
Nessa taught her how to listen to endings. "Every soul has its echo," she said. "If you hear it fade, you can catch it before it breaks."
And Aurelien, though rough in voice and manner, showed her how to stand in fire. "You don't conquer fear," he told her, "you carry it like a sword."
Idran watched from a distance. He trained alone, always on the edge of the group, his bond with her steady but unreadable. She saw in him a mirror of her own questions—a reflection of what she might become if she let the divine consume her humanity.
But it was Caelum she returned to at night.
In the quiet hours, he taught her to meditate within the threads. They would sit together beneath the loom, their knees touching, hands clasped. He would whisper ancient hymns in a forgotten language, and she would feel the weave around her soften—flex—breathe.
"I'm starting to understand it," she said one night. "The tapestry isn't just fate. It's feeling."
Caelum looked at her with something like awe. "That's what they never understood. The gods thought the weave was a cage. But it's a heartbeat."
—
One morning, Terenna approached Elara in haste, her blind eyes wide with urgency.
"The gods move," she said. "The remaining six are not idle."
Caelum joined them within moments. "What did you see?"
Terenna held out a crystal fragment. "In the sky's vision, Vireon weaves a shroud of silence. Iros gathers sparks of war. Elion… he reaches toward something beneath the Hall."
Elara took the fragment. "Beneath the Hall?"
"There is a hidden chamber," Caelum said. "Buried since before the gods sealed themselves away. The First Loom."
Elara stiffened. "You never told me."
"It was forbidden," he said. "Even to me."
Idran stepped into the room. "Then we break the seal. If the gods are reaching for it, they mean to use it against us."
Caelum hesitated. "We don't know what's inside."
"We'll find out," Elara said, already walking. "We don't have time for caution."
—
The descent into the depths of the Hall was not easy.
Wards pulsed in the stone, ancient and volatile. The very walls resisted their passage. But Elara's thread glowed brighter with each step, guiding them like a torch. They passed into forgotten halls—lined with glyphs that sang in languages lost to time—until they reached a door woven of starlight and obsidian.
It opened at her touch.
The First Loom sat in a chamber of void and silence. It was smaller than the great loom above, but older—its threads not silk or essence, but memory itself. Each strand pulsed with echoes of lives long gone, of worlds before gods, of choices made before time began.
Elara stepped toward it. "It's beautiful."
Caelum's voice was reverent. "It's truth."
Idran narrowed his eyes. "And it's also a weapon."
Elara turned to him. "No. It's not meant to destroy. It's meant to rewrite."
Behind them, Nessa shivered. "Someone's coming."
The chamber trembled.
A crack opened in the weave, and from it stepped Elion—the god of light, his form more radiant than ever, but his eyes hollow.
"You shouldn't have come here," he said.
Caelum stepped forward. "You were reaching for it. Why?"
"To restore what was lost," Elion said. "To fix what you've broken."
"We broke nothing," Elara said. "You refused to let the world grow."
"You speak of love, but love is fleeting," Elion snapped. "Order endures."
"Order without soul is tyranny."
Elion raised his hand.
Threads of light surged forward—aimed at Elara.
Caelum leapt in front of her, his own power flaring. The light struck, and he fell.
"Caelum!" Elara cried, catching him as he dropped.
He gasped, blood on his lips. "Don't… let him…"
Fury erupted within her.
Elara rose, her thread pulsing like wildfire. The First Loom responded, its memory-threads unraveling around her. She spoke a single word—and the light froze in place.
Elion stumbled back, stunned. "What have you done?"
Elara's voice rang like thunder. "I've seen the future, Elion. I am the future."
She reached into the loom—and rewove the threads around her.
Not to kill.
But to heal.
Caelum's body pulsed with golden light. His wounds closed. His eyes fluttered open.
She turned back to Elion. "You can't stop what's coming. You can only choose whether you stand with us… or fall."
Elion stared at her. Then, slowly… he vanished.
—
Back in the upper halls, the others gathered in awe.
Caelum stood beside Elara, pale but alive. He held her hand tightly.
"You touched the First Loom," he said softly. "You rewrote a thread."
"Only because I believed I could."
He looked at her, and the depth in his eyes made her heart ache. "You are no longer just a thread in the weave."
She turned to him. "Neither are you."
That night, they lay together for the first time.
Not out of fear, or urgency, but love.
Elara's fingers traced the lines of Caelum's back, her body pressed to his. He whispered ancient truths into her skin. She kissed the corners of his silence. They breathed in rhythm, souls entwined.
And as they drifted into sleep, the tapestry above them wove a new constellation—
Not of gods.
But of lovers who dared to change the heavens.
— End of Chapter 7