The Loom pulsed beneath Obavva's hand, but this time, the pain was different.
It wasn't just the sting of blood or the searing truth of ancient memories—it was something deeper.
Something sentient.
The room darkened as the Loom consumed the chamber's light. Ayana and the others stepped back, eyes wide with caution but silent in awe.
Obavva's breath hitched. Her feet were rooted. Her body refused to move, even as her mind screamed to pull away.
Then came the voice—not external, not hers, but something buried in the bones of the tunnel.
"Witness the world rewritten."
And the Loom dragged her in.
She was no longer in the chamber.
She was inside a living vision—a corridor made of flickering memories and fragmented futures. Roots twisted along the walls, each one pulsing with glowing symbols from civilizations long forgotten.
She walked forward, barefoot on liquid stone, and with every step, the tunnel reshaped itself—walls bending, reality curving, logic folding in half.
Then the whispers began.
"They came first with fire…""Then with silence…""And finally, with a lie too heavy to carry."
Obavva passed scenes unraveling in ghost-light:
—A queen executed for teaching girls to read.—A village razed because its women outnumbered the soldiers.—A temple drowned in ink and fire.—A language erased from all tongues because it spoke only of resistance.
Then she saw herself—not in armor, not in battle—but standing before a child…
…her own child, in a time not yet born.
"What is this?" she whispered.
The Loom answered.
"The war that waits. The one your blade cannot kill. The one your story must wound."
Suddenly, the walls exploded outward.
She found herself atop the fortress of Chitradurga not as it stood, but as it would fall.
Smoke.
Chaos.
Screams.
And in the distance, a flag not of Mysore nor of the Eye but one cloaked in forgotten truths.
It was ink-black, etched with ancient glyphs from the Root itself glyphs that bled.
Beside it, a man stood tall.
Face hidden. Hands red. Eyes glowing like the Loom's core.
"You'll never win," Obavva shouted."I don't have to," the figure replied. "I just have to erase."
He raised a scroll.
Reality shimmered.
And suddenly, Obavva could no longer remember her mother's face.
She screamed.
The vision shattered.
She was back in the chamber, collapsed on the stone floor, gasping, drenched in sweat.
Ayana knelt beside her. "What did you see?"
Obavva looked at her, eyes wide with terror. "A man. Not of Mysore. Not of any kingdom. He held a scroll, Ayana. And when he read it—"
Ayana finished the sentence for her, voice shaking:
"—The world forgot itself."
That night, the council met in silence.
Kaashi paced the room. Reva sat, knuckles white on the table's edge. Ayana stood by the fire, looking into its core as if searching for lost names.
Obavva spoke slowly, carefully.
"This man. He's not from this time. He's a memory devourer. Like the Eye—but worse."
Ayana turned. "The Mouth of Silence."
Kaashi frowned. "That sounds made up."
Ayana shook her head. "It was a forbidden term. An entity erased from Root records centuries ago. One who didn't fight with weapons—but with forgetting. If the Eye sees… the Mouth unsees."
Reva's voice dropped. "And if he's writing scrolls that undo memory—"
Obavva leaned forward. "Then we're not in a war of bodies anymore. We're in a war of stories."
The next day, Obavva returned to the Loom alone.
Ayana watched from the shadows.
Obavva placed her hand on the edge—not to bleed, but to ask.
"How do I fight a man who rewrites truth?"
The Loom pulsed.
A new vision formed.
Not of the past.
Not of the future.
But of something hidden in the present.
She saw a woman sitting in a hidden library deep beneath the Chitradurga temple—an Archivist.
Blind, yet she could read memory like thread.
The Loom whispered:
"She guards what even the Mouth cannot erase. Find her. She holds the Codex of Echoes."
Obavva blinked.
The vision vanished.
Ayana approached. "What did it say?"
"We're not the last Keepers," Obavva replied, voice resolute. "There's one more."
By nightfall, Obavva, Reva, and Kaashi were already moving through the ancient water tunnels beneath Chitradurga.
Torches hissed.
The walls wept with condensation.
Root symbols glowed faintly along the walls—markings only the Loom-bonded could see.
Kaashi grumbled, "You sure this isn't just a hallucination?"
Obavva grinned. "You want to go back?"
Kaashi didn't answer.
Reva muttered, "Thought so."
At the third turning, the wall trembled.
From the cracks, a voice echoed:
"You bring flame into the sacred ink. Declare your name, or be erased."
Reva reached for her blade.
Obavva stepped forward.
"Onake Obavva. Tunnel-blooded. Loom-bonded. Daughter of Anika. Keeper of Root."
Silence.
Then the wall parted.
They stepped into the Codex Chamber.
It was unlike anything they had ever seen.
A dome of obsidian roots.
Shelves of scrolls that shimmered like starlight.
Glyphs danced in the air, suspended in memory.
And in the center an old woman with bandaged eyes, sitting cross-legged, hands dipped in ink.
She looked up without looking.
"You've come for what the Mouth wants."
Obavva nodded. "The Codex."
The woman smiled. "Then you must prove your story is worth remembering."
End of Chapter Sixteen