The Echo Knight

They saw the knight long before he moved.

He stood in the snow on a narrow ridge, alone, silver-plated and motionless. The trail the rebels had chosen twisted sharply at the pass, and there—where the sky opened wide and the air tasted thin with altitude—he waited like a statue left behind by time.

"He hasn't moved in hours," Vel whispered. "Even birds land near him. Like he's just… part of the mountain."

"No," Kaelen said. "He's listening."

Rien felt it too. Not just the stillness, but the pull. The same kind of thread she'd torn when she first named herself—except this one was tightly wound and burning cold.

Maerai squinted through the spyglass. "Armor of mirrored flame. Sword with a twisted hilt. No insignia. That's one of the Echoes."

"What are Echoes?" Lira asked, standing too close behind Rien.

Maerai's voice dropped low. "They're not people. Not anymore. The Loom rewrites them until even their memories obey. They become reflections of what the Spire wants most: obedience. Silence. Control."

"So he's here to stop us?" Lira asked.

"No," Rien answered, already stepping forward. "He's here to test if I still fear what I used to be."

The Approach

The rebels stood back as Rien climbed the slope alone.

Each step crunched on the frost-rimed stone. She made no attempt to mask her approach, nor to ready her blade. She did not raise the Rebel Thread—though it pulsed beneath her ribs, humming louder the closer she drew.

The knight remained still, his mirrored helm reflecting the white sky above.

Then—when she was close enough to see her warped reflection in his breastplate—he finally moved.

One slow motion. A bow of the head.

"You carry a name the world does not know," the knight said. His voice was deep and distant, like a bell heard through ice. "You are a tear in the Weave."

"And you're what they stitched to stop me," Rien replied.

"No. I was something before this."

She stared at him, truly seeing the man behind the metal. A thread shimmered behind his left shoulder—frayed, badly patched.

"Do you remember who you were?" she asked softly.

The knight hesitated. For a long moment, he was only breath in cold air.

"No. But I remember that I loved. Once."

His hand went to his blade.

"The Spire says I must kill you."

"And what does your heart say?" she asked.

The pause was smaller this time.

"It says that I should kneel."

He dropped to one knee, armor groaning, sword lowered.

The air cracked.

Rien felt it before it came: a snap in the Weave. A punishment. A lash sent down from the Loom itself. The knight screamed—not aloud, but through his thread. His body arched. His limbs convulsed.

"They're rewriting him now," Maerai cried from the ridge.

Rien surged forward, both hands grasping the echo of her own thread. She reached—into his frayed one—and found a name.

Not a full one. Just a spark.

"Soran," she whispered.

The thread pulsed.

And instead of breaking—he breathed.

The pain stopped.

The knight collapsed to the ground, trembling but alive, human again.

A Spark Reborn

Rien knelt beside him. His helm had fallen aside. He had olive skin, sweat-streaked and pale with the cold. His eyes flickered between fear and awe.

"You said my name," he rasped.

"Only part of it," Rien said. "The rest is yours to remember."

Kaelen and Maerai reached them moments later, weapons drawn but unneeded.

"You unwrote the Echo," Maerai whispered. "No one's ever done that before."

"I didn't unwrite him," Rien said. "I reminded him."

The others gathered in slow, stunned silence as the former Echo Knight stood on shaking legs.

"I will follow you," he said. "Not because the Spire failed. But because I remembered why I once fought."

Rien offered her hand.

"Then walk with us. There are more like you still trapped in the thread."

The Unraveling Begins

That night, around the fire, Soran spoke of the Echoes. How they were taken, hollowed, rewritten. How they feared nothing more than recognition.

"You mustn't pity them," he said, "but don't hate them either. Some still hear their names in dreams."

Rien stared into the flames, the Rebel Thread coiled in her chest like a serpent waking.

She thought of the Spire. Of her mirror-self still waiting there. Of the Weavekeeper's silver hands.

And of all the names buried beneath silence.

Not much longer now.

Soon, the world would burn.

And from the ashes truth.