Chapter 20:The Void's Embrace.
The silver thread pulsed against Veythar's wrist like a second heartbeat, its light ebbing and flowing with the rhythm of the mended Veil. Around them, the Shattered Realms had quietedno longer bleeding, no longer screamingb- ut the silence was fragile. The air itself seemed to hold its breath.
Rune's fingers brushed the thread, her golden eyes widening as it*reacted*, curling around her fingertips like a living thing. **"It remembers you,"** she whispered.
Thalion limped forward, his remaining hand gripping the hilt of his sword.
**"And it's afraid."**
The thread *tugged*.
--
The vision struck without warning:
- **The Keeper**, their bone mask split in a grotesque grin, standing over the First Core's broken form.
-**Sylviaris**, her shadow still raw and formless, whispering: "'The Devourer was never the enemy. It was the *balance*."*
- **Veythar's grandfather**, plunging the Eclipse Pike not into the Corebut into the *Keeper's back*.
The memory shattered as the thread *screamed*.
The ground beneath them trembled, the silver veins of crystallized void energy darkening to violet. The Devourer wasn't gone. It was *waking*.
**'The seal is incomplete,"** Veythar realized, his voice hoarse.**"The First Core gave us the weavebut the anchor is missing."**
Rune's breath hitched. **'The anchor was *you*."**
Thalion's gaze snapped to Veythar's chestwhere the Void Core had once pulsed. **"No. It was the *bond*."**
---
The thread *moved*, slithering up Veythar's arm, its light merging with the scars left by the Hollow Pact. The corruption the Devourer had forced into himthe power Sylviaris had redirectedwas still there.
Dormant. *Waiting.*
*'The ritual Sylviaris used,'** Veythar said slowly. **"It wasn't just to transfer corruption. It was to *store* it."**
Thalion's grip on his sword tightened. **"You're saying she *wanted* the Devourer's essence inside you?"**
**"No."** Rune's voice was steady, her golden light flaring. **"She wanted a*key*."**
The thread *pulled* again, harder this timenot toward the sky, but*downward*, into the earth. Into the place where the First Core had stood.
Veythar exhaled.**"The loom needs a weaver."**
Thalion moved first.
He seized the thread, his remaining arm trembling as violet energy*the Devourer's essence*surged up the silver strand.
**'Then let it take me,"** he snarled.
**'Thal!** Veythar lunged, but Rune caught his wrist,
*"Wait,"** she breathed.
The thread *changed*.
Where Thalion's fingers touched it, the silver light darkened, twisting into something newnot corruption, not purity, but *balance*. The vines that had once cursed his bloodline *regrew*, but now they gleamed like starlight, their thorns delicate as spun glass.
**'It's not a curse,"** Thalion whispered, awed. **'It never was."**
The ground beneath them *opened*, revealing a chamber of pulsating silver and violet lighto-loom of living energy, half-woven, waiting.
The Devourer's voice echoed from the depths:
**'FINISH IT.*** ---
The chamber wasn't a prison. It was a *cradle*.
The visions came faster now;
- The First Core, whole and radiant, *weaving* the Shattered Realms into existence.
- The Keeper, stealing not just her powerbut her *purpose*.
- The Devourer, born not of hunger, but of *grief*a- fragment of the First Core, twisted by the Keeper's greed.
**'The Devourer was never the enemy,"** Rune murmured. **"It was the part of her that *remembered*."**
Thalion stepped forward, his new vines intertwining with the loom's threads.**'Then let's remind it what it was."**
---
The weave *reacted*.
Light eruptednot gold, not violet, but a radiant "white*, pure and unfiltered. The Devourer's voice rose in a chorus of screams and whispers, its form unraveling into the loom, into the threads, into *Thalion*.
Veythar's scars burned as the Hollow Pact's power *answered*, surging from his body into Rune's, then back againa-circuit of energy, a "bond*.
The loom *hummed*, the Shattered Realms trembling as the final threads fell into place.
And then-
*Silence."
The chamber vanished. The thread dissolved.
Thalion stood before them, his eyes no longer humanbut not quite Void either.
**"It's done,"** he said, his voice layered with something older.
***But the weave is fragile. The Devourer is... *sleeping*. Not gone.'**
Rune reached for him, her golden light blending with his silver vines.***Then we protect it."**
Veythar looked down at his handsno longer scarred, no longer burning. The Void Core was gone. The power was gone.
But the *bond* remained.
And somewhere, in the depths of the mended Veil, the First Core's voice whispered:
**"Begin again."**