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Nalduun, Mother of the Turning.

She gathered it onto her loom.

Anchored it with rhythm.”

The air moved with Maelis’s gestures, light curling through her fingers like silver smoke, and an image appeared—a circular loom, thread shining like a spider’s web.

“Together, they wove the Great Pattern,

Both the shape and the span of Naldoreth—

Balanced and without flaw.”

Her voice darkened, solemn and mournful. Wren found herself mouthing some of the words. An Elder told it every year, but the wonder never disappeared.

“But the Thread shattered.

And from its unraveling came the Five Weaves:

Spirit, Earth, Flame, Water, and Air—

Each less than the whole.

Yet still powerful enough

To create, to heal, to change the pattern anew.”

A hush rippled through the crowd.

Even the glow-crystals dimmed around them.

“The gods withdrew then,

Watching the cycles rise and fall,

Letting others define the world in their stead.

And thus, Naldoreth was woven, unraveled,

And woven again.”

Maelis’s final words drifted into stillness. The hush that followed was too deep for applause. Then, slowly, hands began to come together. The sound swelled until the curtain shook with it. She bowed, and the applause rose like a wave into the evening air.

Frinna appeared at Wren’s knee, silent and sure, slipping past the Fist with the ease of someone used to being overlooked. Her gaze flicked to the soldier’s hand pressed against Wren’s back, as if daring him to stop her.

“Here,” Frinna murmured, drawing something from her pocket. “Didn’t want to pin this too early.”

In her palm lay a feather sealed in resin, gleaming amber beneath the lanternlight, a small loop of silver at the back. She fastened it to Wren’s collar with steady fingers.

“Whispers won’t carry,” she said quietly. “But anything louder…” Wren nodded once. Her pulse steadied at the sound of Frinna’s voice—small proof she wasn’t completely alone in this.

Then Theordrin stepped forward, passing Maelis as she left the stage. He turned toward Wren and caught her eye. The smile that met her was patient, knowing, and cruel. A hunter confident he’d cornered his prey. Wren met it head-on, spine straightening.

She wasn’t prey. Not tonight. Soon, he’d see how wrong he was to think so.

The applause for Maelis still echoed as Theordrin reached the center of the stage. He raised his arms in a sweeping gesture, his voice cheerful and booming—amplified to fill the Glen, wrapped in the false generosity Wren had come to know too well.

“Let us offer our gratitude to Elder Maelis,” he proclaimed, “for reminding us who we are—and who we’ve always been. A keeper of our truths. A light in the dark. May her words echo long after the fire burns low.”