Serapha returned near dawn, her cloak stiff with frost and soot, her eyes unreadable.
She didn't speak until she'd locked three layers of wards on their door and drawn the curtains closed with a flick of mana-thread.
"She believes you," Serapha said. "But she says we must move faster."
Caelum rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Emera?"
"She knew about the Dreamroot. She was there when it fell."
"Then she's—what—centuries old?"
"No. She inherited memory-threads from one who was. The last real Seer of Aestra's line."
Caelum sat up straighter.
"She says if you're truly carrying the Sigil of Unweaving, you must begin training—not like a channeler or a knight. Something older."
"Older than channelers?"
"She called it listening back. It's not just resonance magic. It's echocraft."
Caelum blinked. "What do I do?"
Serapha walked over and handed him a plain stone disk.
It pulsed faintly in his palm.
"You begin by sitting. And not doing."
The training chamber was beneath the Archive—below even the restricted vaults.
It was a bare stone cell with no windows, no glyphs, no lanterns. Just silence.
Serapha stayed with him for the first hour, instructing him in breath alignment. But after that, she left. He was alone with the stone, the dark, and the distant hum of his own mind.
He expected visions. Power. Pain.
Instead, he got… boredom.
And then, slowly, a tug.
At first, it felt like a heartbeat. Not his own. Then a whisper—not in words, but in pressure.
The stone began to vibrate.
Listen.
He didn't hear it.
He felt it.
He tried focusing, reaching out.
Nothing.
Tried relaxing.
Still nothing.
He exhaled.
And in that non-effort, the stone opened.
The world folded.
He found himself standing on a plain of woven threads—each strand shimmering with memory and color. Some glowed with fire, others with shadow, others with impossible hues that shifted when he looked too long.
The threads sang.
A harmony that was not sound, but story.
He stepped forward.
One thread pulsed brighter. He reached toward it—and was yanked into a memory.
A battle.
A knight of silver fire facing a Nullform cloaked in stillness.
The knight screamed and struck. The Nullform said nothing—and the light died.
Not from damage.
From silence.
A woman stood nearby, watching. Her eyes were mirrors. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded like the monk's from his dream.
"This is what happens when echoes are severed. Light forgets how to shine."
He fell back out of the thread, gasping.
The threads recoiled. The vision ended.
And Caelum was back in the chamber.
Hours had passed.
Serapha stood nearby, watching him through the now-open door.
"You listened," she said.
"I didn't try to," Caelum admitted. "I just… stopped trying."
She nodded. "That's the paradox of echo-paths. You can't bend them to will. They have to want to show you."
He stood slowly. "Who was the woman?"
Serapha looked away. "That's one of the Dreamroot's voices. A remnant of the Sixth Path. We call them Echo-Saints."
Caelum blinked. "Are they alive?"
"Not exactly. But they remember being."
That night, he dreamed of the thread-plain again.
But this time, he wasn't alone.
A figure moved at the edge—hooded, cloaked in mirrorlight. Not like the monk. Not gentle.
Its presence frayed the threads near it. Where it walked, memory shivered.
Caelum turned to face it—and felt pain bloom behind his eyes.
It raised its hand.
And he heard a single word:
"Unwrite."
He woke screaming.
Serapha arrived immediately, blade drawn. "What happened?"
Caelum shook, holding his temples. "Something found me. Something else. It tried to undo me."
"Describe it."
He told her.
She paled.
"That was no Echo-Saint," she whispered. "That was a Scribe of Ruin."
Caelum frowned. "What's that?"
Serapha hesitated. "The Arcanum would say it's myth. But the Dreamroot believed they were born when too many echoes collapse at once. Memory infected by absence. Not just erasure. Malice."
"And now it knows I exist."
She nodded.
"That was a warning."