Chapter Five: The Thread and the Thorn
Velmyra, Outer Dreamgroves
Omkar knelt in the grass, sweat dripping from his brow as Saenril's voice echoed like drum beats through the forest.
"Again!"
He raised his palms, trying to summon the light that had burst from him during the battle with the Echo. But nothing came. Just a flicker. A tremble. As though the power recoiled from his reach.
"You are fighting the thread," Saenril said. "Stop thinking. Listen."
She walked a slow circle around him, her barkskin armor creaking as the vines across her shoulders writhed and pulsed.
"You do not command the Weave," she continued. "You allow it to move through you. You are not the stone. You are the water that runs over it."
Omkar exhaled, closing his eyes.
The world sharpened.
He could feel the tree roots speaking to each other below the ground. He could hear the dreamwinds shifting in the upper branches. Somewhere, far away, a chorus of winged creatures sang in patterns that shaped weather. All of it was part of the Weave.
He reached inside.
And then—
It answered.
Silver light coiled around his fingers. Symbols sparked to life along his forearms. The air around him rippled, and the grass bent away from the force gathering in his hands.
A wave of power surged outward in a pulse—gentle, controlled, and alive.
Niv clapped softly from the grove's edge.
Saenril raised an eyebrow. "Better."
---
Later, the three of them sat beneath a tree that grew feathers instead of leaves. Omkar chewed on dreamfruit—sweet, but somehow nostalgic, as if it reminded him of something he'd never eaten.
"Why train me?" he asked. "You don't even know what I am."
Saenril's eyes never left the horizon. "I know enough. Velmyra accepts you, which means you are part of its story. And stories… have power."
Niv leaned closer. "Also, I like you."
Omkar smiled. But inside, he still carried questions—about the name Kailash, about the Echo, and about the force that had dragged him through the dimensional rift in the first place. He had a lot of questions.
He would have asked more.
But far across the forest, something dark stirred.
---
Elsewhere — Between the Realms
He had no true name anymore.
Only a title.
The Thornwalker.
He stood at the edge of a dying realm, one foot in shadow, one in fire. His cloak was made of memory, shifting endlessly into the faces of those he had devoured. His fingers were long and sharp, dipped in dreamrot. Where he walked, stars dimmed.
Around him drifted the shattered remains of a forgotten world—a place that once sang in harmony with the Dreaming Realms, now hollowed out by his hunger.
He gazed into the Spiral Rift—a breach in space shaped like a blooming wound—and watched as tendrils of time knotted and twisted into broken loops.
"He has arrived," he whispered.
A fragment of light floated beside him, flickering like a dying thought.
"Yes," it answered. "The one who bears the forgotten name."
"Kailash."
The Thornwalker smiled, though there was no joy in it. Only hunger.
"He will resist. He will struggle."
"And if he remembers who he was?"
The Thornwalker extended his hand. Within his palm, a writhing, screaming Echo struggled against invisible threads—another soul stolen, bound, repurposed.
"Then I will unmake him," he said softly. "As I did the others."
He turned from the Rift and stepped into the shadows, leaving only silence behind.
---
Velmyra, That Night
Omkar dreamed of a silver river flowing between stars. He stood at its edge, a thousand threads tangled around his chest, each one glowing with a different memory. Some were his. Some… were not.
From the far bank, a voice called out.
"You are not yet whole, Kailash. But you are beginning."
The river shimmered.
And Omkar, half-asleep, whispered back:
"I don't want to remember. I want to choose."
The river said nothing.
But the threads grew tighter.