The new tunnel wasn't carved from stone. Not entirely. It shimmered with woven strands—like light braided through air, each thread pulsing with faint sound.
The floor beneath their feet wasn't solid, but neither was it unstable. It responded, humming softly with each step they took, resonating like a harpstring barely plucked.
"This is the Weftway," Calyx said. Her voice was quiet, as though afraid to disturb the harmony. "A thread-path between echoes and action. Where memory becomes momentum."
Stanley grunted. "And the ceiling's made of yarn? What happens if someone unravels it?"
"Then you fall into a memory you weren't meant to walk," Lira replied. She didn't smile. "And you don't come out the same."
The walls flickered with images—not stable, not quite visible. Shapes danced at the corners of Rafael's eyes: a crowded street, a sunlit cliff, hands covered in ash. None of it made sense. Not yet.
But one image held longer. A woman. Not old, not young. Hair like copper flame. Standing in a forest of threads, looking back at him.
Rafael blinked, and she was gone.
They walked.
As they moved, the corridor slowly reshaped. Walls curved, twined. Occasionally, they passed openings—short diverging paths, narrow and silver-lined. Calyx warned against stepping into them. "Those are thread-tests," she said. "Not ours to take. Not yet."
More illusions surfaced as they continued: Rafael glimpsed a home he had never lived in, its windows glowing orange with candlelight. Lira paused by a vision of a battlefield where she stood alone, blood on her hands. Stanley briefly touched a frozen image of himself at a crossroads—one road paved, the other wild.
Every image felt real. Every image felt like a question.
Then came the Loomkeeper.
He was tall, thin as a willow reed, and moved like he had no bones at all. His robes were threadbare but shimmered with the same energy as the walls. No face. Just a mask—smooth and white, with no features.
He stepped out from the tunnel itself, like the path had grown a guardian.
"Three walk in step," the Loomkeeper intoned. "But the weave wavers. One thread pulls too tight."
He turned his head to Rafael.
"You carry a thread not your own."
Rafael felt the weight of the pendant again, but also something else. A pull. Something tied to his spine and chest, a thread that tugged in both directions.
"What does that mean?" Rafael asked.
The Loomkeeper tilted his head. "You are not the first Rafael to walk the Weftway."
The silence stretched like thread on the verge of snapping.
Lira stepped forward. "If he's not ready—"
"He is walking," the Loomkeeper interrupted. "Ready or not, he walks. And walking is weaving."
From his sleeve, the Loomkeeper drew a strand of bright gold and flicked it forward. It coiled through the air like a snake, then dove toward Rafael's chest. There was no pain. Just resonance.
Rafael gasped as his vision shifted.
He stood alone. Same corridor—but the others were gone. Ahead of him was another Rafael. Older. Hardened. Wearing armor, eyes full of sorrow. In his hand was a blade woven from songlight.
"I walked too fast," the older Rafael said. "Tried to run past my echoes. Lost them. Lost her."
"Who?" Rafael asked.
The older him looked away. "If I say her name, you'll dream of her before you meet her. And you'll rush. And you'll ruin it."
Rafael's throat tightened. "Then why show me any of this?"
"Because you deserve a choice." The elder Rafael stepped back. "You can follow my path. Or you can make a new thread."
The corridor folded.
Rafael fell backward into his own body with a gasp. The Loomkeeper was gone. Calyx and the others stared, wary but unharmed.
"What did you see?" Calyx asked.
"An echo," Rafael whispered. "Of a future that warned me not to chase it."
They walked in silence for a time. The Weftway grew narrower, the walls pressing close. The threads no longer danced—they pulsed. Urgently.
The corridor turned downward, leading into a descending spiral. In the silence, music threaded its way through the air—subtle harmonies, unfinished songs. Sometimes they seemed familiar, like lullabies half-remembered.
At a bend, they came upon a hollow where threads hung like curtains. Behind them was a loom—a real one—massive and suspended in air, weaving and unweaving images of Rafael's face. Child, teen, man, stranger.
Each thread that passed through the loom came away slightly different.
Lira held Rafael back. "This is the Loom of Reflection. It tests who you think you are."
Calyx nodded. "It can reveal what you've buried."
Rafael stepped forward.
As he approached the loom, his reflection multiplied—each version showing a Rafael who had made a different choice. One stayed home. One fought in a war. One never found the Echo Pendant. One held hands with a girl with the lute.
"I…" he faltered. "I don't know which of these is me."
"You don't have to choose," said Lira gently. "They're all part of the thread. Even the ones you never walked."
Rafael closed his eyes. The loom whirred. Threads passed through.
When he opened them, the illusions were gone—but the air felt clearer.
They descended one final stair and reached the end of the Weftway.
At the end of the tunnel stood a gate. Woven entirely from golden thread, shifting and knotting upon itself like a living net.
"A choice gate," Lira said. "We don't pass until we choose the thread to follow."
Three threads emerged from the gate and hovered before them:
One shimmered green, pulsing with potential and unfamiliar voices.
One glowed red, warm and violent, thrumming with urgency.
One burned violet-blue, steady, quiet, with a haunting melody buried within.
Calyx looked at Rafael. "Only you can choose. We follow where you lead."
Rafael reached toward the threads—and paused. He didn't know where each led. Not really. But he thought of the boy with the recorder. Of the echo of a future self. Of the woman in the thread-forest.
He chose the violet-blue thread.
The gate unraveled.
They stepped through.
Behind them, the Weftway closed with a long, gentle sigh. Ahead, the thread narrowed to a single strand winding through mist.
But it sang with his steps.
And somewhere, faint and clear, a voice hummed in harmony.
***