Chapter 3: Echoes of The Forgotten

Elias sat alone beneath the sanctuary's stone lattice ceiling, the light of the glowing glyphs casting shifting patterns on the floor. It smelled like old rain and burnt paper down here—like the world had once tried to remember something, then given up halfway through. His hands still trembled from the vision. Not fear. Not wonder. Something stranger. Like he'd glimpsed a truth too old to understand.

He turned the pages of his grandfather's book again, slower this time. Between faded margins and half-legible notes, something caught his eye—a passage written so faintly it barely stained the page.

If you find this, it means the Threadkeeper failed. But the thread remembers. It always remembers.

Below it, a tiny symbol: a closed eye, circled once, with three trailing marks. He didn't recognize it. But it felt familiar, as if some part of him had dreamed it.

"I wouldn't stare at that too long," said a voice behind him. "You might accidentally unravel something."

Elias turned to find Wren, hands stuffed in the pockets of a frayed jacket, chewing what looked like smart-gum and holding a soldering iron for no clear reason.

"You ever sleep?" Elias asked.

Wren gave a theatrical gasp. "Sleep is a myth perpetuated by people who don't have enough existential dread. Also, I have insomnia."

They plopped down beside Elias, criss-cross-applesauce, and peered at the book.

"Your grandfather was sharp," Wren said. "Bit paranoid, though. That symbol? Old protection mark. Like a lock on a lock. But not for keeping people out. For keeping something in."

"In?" Elias asked.

Wren grinned. "Yep. Fun, right?"

Elias sighed. "Everything here is either a metaphor, a warning, or a slow-burn existential crisis."

"Welcome to the Veil, buddy."

Cass found him next. She approached without sound, her presence unsettling in the way gravity is—constant, undeniable, and vaguely threatening.

"You're doing better than expected," she said, not unkindly. "Most initiates take weeks before they stop trying to rationalize the visions."

"I'm not sure I've stopped," Elias admitted. "I just ran out of better ideas."

She studied him for a moment. Then her tone dropped.

"The Council knows."

He stiffened. "Knows what?"

"That you've awakened. Or started to."

Elias looked up sharply. "And?"

"And they don't interfere unless they must,"

Cass said. "But if they choose to act… no one escapes their reach."

The name landed like a weight. The Council. No one spoke of them directly. They were less an organization than a rumor carved into the bones of every sanctuary. Watching. Waiting. Unfathomable.

"Why me?" Elias asked.

"That's what they'll want to know," Cass said, and left him with that.

Later, Mira led him through the eastern wing—a long corridor etched with faded maps and glowing ley-lines that traced the city's hidden currents. Her fingers brushed the stone as she walked, as though retracing an old path.

"Before I found you," she said, "I spent years watching others. Most of them broke. A few vanished. One set the sky on fire. You remind me of him."

"That supposed to be comforting?" Elias asked.

"No. But it's honest."

He smiled in spite of himself. Mira's voice always carried something unspoken—like she was trying not to mourn something still alive.

"You weren't born into this," she said. "But your blood remembers. And if you're going to survive, you need to understand what you're carrying."

He hesitated. "Are you talking about the Veil?"

"I'm talking about you."

They stopped before a wall marked with a spiral staircase descending into the dark.

"Down there's where the first truths sleep,"

Mira said. "But you're not ready for that yet."

"Will I be?"

She shrugged. "That's between you and the Veil. And maybe your grandfather."

That night, the sanctuary seemed quieter. Even Wren's tech pile had gone silent.

Elias sat at the central hearth, rereading the book, trying to decipher what hadn't yet been revealed. The fire's glow cast long shadows. He almost missed the quiet mechanical hum outside the door.

A courier drone hovered, small and silver. It dropped an envelope into the offering dish, then zipped away.

Cass brought it in. "For you."

Elias frowned, breaking the seal. Inside: a sketch.

Jamie's hand was unmistakable.

It showed a figure—Elias—standing at the edge of a cracked city. Light spilled from a wound in the sky. And above him, a feather fell. A white one. Alone.

Below the sketch, in the corner, a single word had been scrawled: "Remember."

Mira took one look at it and froze.

"He's further than we thought," she whispered. "And he's dreaming of what hasn't happened yet."

Elias held the drawing tighter.

The city outside went on sleeping, unaware of the storm preparing to return.