Chapter 41: Embersong Unbound

The ascent from Needlepoint Hollow took three days, but each step felt longer—measured not by distance but by the weight of what they'd left behind. Rafael felt it in his bones, in the ache behind his eyes.

The Hollow had not just broken—it had transformed, and so had they. As they climbed into the fractured backbone of the Riven Teeth mountains, it became clear: this wasn't a journey forward. It was a return. To truths buried.

To memories exiled.

The world beyond the Hollow was jagged and loud with silence. No birds sang. No wind carried laughter. Just the hum of the Loom, subtle and strange, as though singing to itself.

Threadlines shimmered faintly beneath their boots, half-visible veins under the skin of a dying land.

The Riven Teeth mountains towered before them—worn spires of grief, sheathed in frost though snow hadn't touched them in years. Resonance clung to the peaks like prayer cloths, some vibrating low, others silent, as if mourning something forgotten.

Calyx said that the threadlines were tightly wound here, woven into patterns older than any known hymn. But something else moved through the peaks too—an echo deeper than words, a pressure in the lungs.

On the second night, they camped beside a stream that shimmered with embers beneath the surface. The water glowed faintly under the light of a bruised moon, like it remembered fire.

Rafael sat apart from the others, surrounded by a loose ring of stones, fine threads whispering between his fingers, looping skyward like a spell half-formed.

Lira joined him, arms crossed. The cold didn't bother her much, but the quiet did. "You're weaving again," she said.

"I'm trying to listen," Rafael replied. His voice was quiet, pulled tight at the edges. "The Loom is different here. It's ancient. Older than our oldest songs. It remembers things I've tried to forget."

She crouched beside him, her breath curling in the frost. "You've been distant since we left the altar."

He sighed. "I've been remembering. There was a city—Emberpoint."

Her brow furrowed. "That name…"

"Where I was born," he said. "Before the Threadwars. Before the rupture. Before I became... whatever I am now." He chuckled bitterly. "It was the kind of place that smelled like baking bread and copper dust. Everything glowed. And she was there."

"Who?"

He nodded. "She was a bard that flew freely like butterfly. Always climbing places she wasn't supposed to. Said the resonance was clearest on the rooftops. We used to race up the sky towers."

Lira's eyes softened. "You loved her."

He didn't deny it. "I lost her. I missed her."

A beat of silence. Then another.

"She'll came back," Lira said carefully. "At least part of her will. I believed that."

"I know," Rafael murmured. "But what if that's not a blessing?"

Behind them, the others rested. Stanley was snoring in his makeshift bedroll, muttering about bacon. Dasha slept with her blades still strapped to her back, twitching every few minutes. Beatrice, ever silent, stood watch with her hands clasped at her belt, whispering prayers to the Loom.

Calyx, meanwhile, tuned her threadharp under the shadow of a leaning stone arch, plucking notes that didn't sound like comfort so much as memory rethreaded.

Clara, however, did not sleep.

She stood farther down the slope, facing away from the fire, drawing symbols in the air. Glyphs of resonance. Her hands glowed with a pale, pulsing threadlight—warm, not burning. She traced signs that hadn't been taught, only remembered.

Calyx approached her. "You're remembering."

Clara didn't look away from the stars. "It's like smoke clearing. Emberpoint was fire. And we burned with it."

"You died."

"We did. Rafael and I. But I think the Loom never let go. It held onto us in the threadlight."

"Not a blessing," Calyx said gently. "But a second thread. You get to decide what to weave into it."

Clara didn't answer.

By dawn, they had reached the pass.

The trail carved through the Riven Teeth like a wound. It coiled between steep cliffs and narrow ledges, the earth crackling underfoot.

Here, the resonance wasn't passive. It buzzed. It reacted. Strange symbols etched into the stone pulsed when touched, glowing briefly like they were tasting your intentions.

It was nearly midday when they found the breach.

A gash ripped through the mountainside, its edges ragged and molten, as though clawed open by something starved. Threadlines bled from the wound—gold, crimson, and sickly green. The air crackled with a static charge.

Beatrice stepped forward, sword drawn. "Something moved through here. Not long ago."

Stanley crouched and examined the stones. "Scorchmarks. Soot. And…" He touched the wall, frowning. "That smell. Iron and ash. It's him."

Dasha spat. "Echo."

The name echoed in their bones.

Rafael reached out to the breach. As his fingers grazed the edge, a burst of resonance flared, and for a heartbeat, he wasn't standing in the mountain pass anymore. He was staring across time.

Ash drifted like snow. Emberpoint burned again. And he stood there—Echo. Wrapped in fractured light and veilfire, his face the same as him, but eyes colder than the void. He smiled. And vanished.

"He's ahead," Rafael whispered. "And he's not alone."

That night, they entered the breach.

The tunnel swallowed light. It twisted unnaturally, bending sound and space alike. The walls pulsed faintly with resonance glyphs—warnings, perhaps, or invitations. Rafael couldn't tell. He just followed Clara, who walked ahead like someone retracing footsteps in a dream.

"You feel it too?" he asked her.

Clara nodded. "It's familiar. Like coming home to find your house changed. The walls know your name, but they don't trust you."

They passed stone pillars carved with faces—anguished, beautiful, screaming. Some wept threadlight. Others whispered as they passed.

Then the passage widened.

A cavern opened before them. Massive. Cathedral-like. The floor was layered in scorched stone and broken memory. And standing at its center—

Echo.

He looked the same. And different. The Rafael that wasn't. Draped in fractured light, his hands weaved constant loops of threadlight into sigils no one understood. Around him, Loomshards floated like planets. His voice rang out—rough, musical, wrong.

"You followed the wrong thread."

Behind him, the flames stirred.

A figure stepped forth—shaped like a man, cloaked in roaring fire, but its face a void. The Uncore had sent one of its vessels.

And the resonance screamed.

***