Chapter 8: The Sleeping Tyrant
The stairs steepened, coiling downward like the spine of some ancient, slumbering beast. With each step, the violet glow from Kael's shard dimmed—consumed not by distance but by the darkness itself. It wasn't the simple absence of light. It was something alive. Watching. Breathing.
The air thickened, no longer content to simply linger. It pressed against their skin like damp cloth, whispering threats in a language no tongue could form. It was an old language. A forgotten one. The kind that never needed to be spoken aloud to be understood.
Kael led the descent, his breathing shallow. Pain no longer spiked—it pulsed. It had taken root, blooming deep in his back and leg like a parasite feeding on his defiance. Blood trailed behind him, slow and steady, marking their passage with quiet red testament. Every drop was a costly memory.
Behind him, Toren followed with grim steadiness. His massive hammer rested against his shoulder like a sleeping god, ready to wake. In his other arm, cradled with a gentleness that defied his size, was Lirien—small, alert, her fingers clinging to his cloak. Her eyes never left Kael. Not once. They weren't eyes of fear anymore. They were eyes of belief.
Mara brought up the rear. Slower than the others, her cane tapping only when she couldn't avoid it. Her right arm cradled her bloodied side, the fabric soaked through. The blood loss had turned her face pale, but her steps never faltered. Regret clung to her like a second skin—but so did fierce, unyielding resolve.
The silence broke—not with sound, but with rhythm. A pulse. Low, steady, seismic.
Thump… Thump…
It echoed inside Kael's skull, matching the beat of something old and buried, something still alive. The heartbeat of the vault. Or something buried deeper still.
The stairway ended abruptly.
The stone walls split wide into a chamber unlike any they'd seen.
The floor wasn't stone. It was a tapestry—intricate threads stretched taut, glowing with ember-like runes. They shimmered, but not with idle magic. These threads shifted as they moved, reforming in Kael's peripheral vision like they knew they were being watched.
The walls pulsed. Not light, not shadow—something between. They were breathing, trying to remember their shape. Dreamstuff. Half-formed and ancient.
At the center stood the Loom of Fate.
Raised on a dais of jagged obsidian, the Loom was skeletal in form. Its frame twisted with sharp black angles, threads dangling from its arch like the limbs of a dying god. They pulsed—not only with violet energy, but with memory. Names. Dreams.
Above it, the rift gaped—wide and torn, bleeding violet fire. The wound in the world churned, the edges clawing at reality itself.
Something moved within.
The Sleeping Tyrant was waking.
Kael stopped. The shard in his hand surged suddenly, defiantly. A flare of light cast back the oppressive shadows for one stubborn heartbeat.
"That's it," he whispered, the words more breath than sound. "The Loom. This is where the whole thing breaks."
Toren stepped beside him, setting Lirien down gently behind his legs. His voice was cold, ironbound. "And the monster guarding it?"
As if summoned by the thought, the rift pulsed violently. A thunderless roar shook the air.
And the Tyrant emerged.
No longer a shadow in their nightmares—it had form now. It towered with the height of a small cathedral, woven of runes and unraveling night. Its limbs were thread and void, clawed and shifting, a nightmare given terrifying, physical shape by hatred. Its face burned—a mask of violet fire, swirling with unspoken, impossible runes. Its eyes—if they were eyes—locked onto Kael.
Pure malice. Timeless. Personal.
This was a being of Initiate Tier power. Bound to the Loom like a parasite to its host. Damaged. Weakened. But wide awake and fully present.
It spoke.
"Kael…"
The name slid through the chamber like a newly sharpened blade. A whisper that pierced marrow and muscle.
"You've come," it hissed, voice low and terrible. "To sever the final thread. The final anchor of this broken reality."
Kael stepped forward, lifting the shard. Its glow sharpened. Challenging.
"You're done," he said, his voice hard despite the pain in his ribs. "Release the village. Release them all. This ends now."
The Tyrant raised a hand—if it could be called that. Tendrils of night spiraled down, instantly entwining the Loom like possessive, protective limbs.
"They are mine," it rasped, almost gloating. "Dream-woven. Soul-still. To unbind them… is to free me. I am woven to the fate you seek to reclaim."
It leaned forward, its violet mask flaring.
"Leave them, and they sleep. Forever. Safe. Peaceful. Mine."
Kael's hand didn't waver. "Then there's no choice at all."
Behind him, Toren stepped forward, hammer raised. "We finish this. With you."
Lirien's voice was soft, but solid, a clear tone in the chaos. "You saved me. I know you can save them."
Mara stood silent, her eyes locked on the Tyrant with a gaze of ancient recognition. Her silence was heavier than any spoken vow.
Kael turned his eyes back to the Loom. The threads pulsed—not with magic, but with names. Faces. Jessa. Korrin. Torm. The villagers—still trapped. Still dreaming.
He drew a breath, focusing through the dizzying pain, and struck.
The shard whipped forward. Light lashed out—white and violet—cracking across the Tyrant's shoulder.
It struck true. The creature recoiled violently, a sound of grinding stone escaping its mask.
And then it laughed.
A low, grinding sound, like bones breaking underfoot.
"Foolish Unshackled," it sneered. "You dare weave with threads beyond your grasp. You mistake tools for power."
Its second arm surged forward. Darkness like a crushing, physical wave.
Kael barely managed to take a single step before it hit.
The force lifted him off his feet. He flew back—skidding across the woven floor. Pain bloomed through his ribs. Something cracked deep inside. The shard slipped from his hand, spinning away across the threads.
"KAEL!" Lirien screamed.
Toren charged. Hammer up. Roaring with the desperate fury of a father.
He brought it down with the power of falling stone.
Threads lashed out from the floor, catching his legs mid-stride. They snapped taut.
He hung suspended in the air, limbs flailing against the invisible bonds.
"Stay," the Tyrant commanded, its voice like the slow drag of heavy chains.
It flung Toren aside like garbage. He slammed into the stone wall and didn't move.
Lirien bolted for him.
Shadow snapped toward her small, retreating form.
"No—!" Kael forced his fingers forward. Thread. Just one.
A single strand of pure, desperate will shot out.
It caught Lirien. Yanked her back—barely.
The effort cost Kael the last of his energy. He sagged, his vision swimming in a dizzying haze.
The Tyrant glided above him, looming.
"Yield," it breathed, the decision offered as cold mercy. "Cut the Loom, and I am free. Do nothing, and they sleep. You sleep."
Kael's lungs burned. Blood soaked his shirt. The weight of the fight dragged on him like physical lead.
But he saw them—Lirien, stumbling but alive. Toren, groaning as he crawled. Mara, face bloodied, but watching. Waiting.
He stood.
No. He refused.
He limped back toward the Loom. His hand reached out. Searching—
There.
The shard.
He dove for it.
The Tyrant struck instantly.
Claw met stone where Kael's head had been a second ago.
Kael rolled, snagging the shard and stabbing it deeply into the Loom's side.
The Loom shuddered violently. Threads writhed, entangling the shard.
The Tyrant screamed—a sound that could tear the soul from the body.
Darkness lunged—like a tidal wave of pure malice. It slammed into Kael.
But he held on.
His hand blistered against the shard. Skin peeled away. But the shard stayed locked into the Loom.
"Stop!" Mara's voice, surprisingly strong, rang out.
She stepped forward, cane raised like a desperate banner.
Words poured from her—old words. Forbidden ones. Runes danced before her, shimmering briefly in the air.
A barrier bloomed—fragile, pale—but momentarily real.
The Tyrant paused, momentarily stunned by the ancient power.
"You must channel it!" Mara cried, blood staining her teeth. "Kael—the Loom! It's yours now! It has to be!"
Kael coughed blood. "How?!"
"Through you!" she shouted. "You're Unshackled! You have no fate—so now you weave it!"
The Tyrant shattered her barrier instantly. Threads lashed out, dragging her down by the leg.
"NOW, KAEL!"
He screamed, using the pain as focus. He stabbed the shard into the Loom's central heart.
Everything broke.
Light exploded—vivid, unchained. Violet and white fire roared through the chamber. It didn't just shine—it sang. A song of unmaking.
Power rushed into Kael like a thousand molten rivers. Every nerve burned. Every thought blurred.
His strength buckled. His soul cracked—and then instantly rose.
He surged beyond Gifted.
For one breathless instant—he was Initiate Tier.
He saw everything.
The Loom. The threads. The captured villagers' names.
And the Tyrant's core lie.
Kael raised the shard. Threads leapt from it—alive, burning, his to command.
They wrapped the Tyrant.
"You don't own them!" he roared, his voice layered with the sound of the Loom itself.
He spun a thread—a trap. A simple, defiant snare.
It snaked into the Tyrant's shimmering core.
The monster writhed. Screamed. Threads snapped from its structure. Its towering form unwove.
"No…" it whispered, its voice becoming static. "Not yet… not yet…"
Kael twisted the shard.
And the dream collapsed.
The Loom pulsed once.
Twice.
Then it stilled.
The rift's violet fire faded. The Tyrant shattered entirely. Its mask flickered—and went dark, the remnants sucked into the rift.
And then… silence.
Kael dropped to his knees. The shard fell from his fingers, dull and empty.
The power was gone. He was Gifted again.
But he was alive.
"Kael…" Lirien ran to him, sobbing in relief. "You did it!"
He nodded, blinking slowly, his eyes fixed on the rift.
"No," he rasped, his voice raw. "It's weaker. Not gone. Just its current form."
Toren groaned, dragging himself up with immense effort. "You sure?"
Mara limped forward. Her eyes sunken, her voice hollow with exhausted knowledge. "You freed their fates. But… that wasn't its full self. It's a fragment, Kael. It has layers."
Kael turned toward the Loom. Behind it… the stone wall shifted.
A new passage opened.
Stairs. More stairs. Descending.
The voice returned. Faint. Cold. Promising.
"Kael… soon…"
Kael turned to the others. His face set, wiping blood from his chin.
"No more secrets," he said, his voice hard.
Mara met his gaze, weariness and resolve fighting on her face. And nodded. "None. It's time you knew the truth of what you are."
Together, they stepped toward the new path.
The final thread awaited.