Smoke rose from the Veyne estate.
By the time Eliar crested the final ridge, his pulse had already settled into a cold rhythm. The banners above the manor walls were torn, the courtyard gate cracked. The main tower leaned slightly to one side, as if the earth beneath had shifted or been pulled.
A siege hadn't happened in this region for over fifty years.
But this wasn't a clan war.
This was targeted.
This was personal.
Someone wanted him silenced before he could reach the next Seal.
And they didn't care who else burned.
Eliar descended fast.
Kiren followed behind, boots crunching dry soil.
"You didn't say your home was cursed castle royalty."
"I didn't say a lot of things."
They reached the outer fields. The ground was scorched in patches. Burned threads tangled with the weeds — leftovers of curse-slinger traps. Dozens of them.
Kiren crouched and pulled one thread free.
"These aren't clan-regulated. Whoever attacked came from the outside. Underground curse market, maybe. Or hired Threadsmen."
Eliar looked up at the smoke again.
"Doesn't matter."
He closed his eyes and whispered:
"Echo."
The air behind him split open. A new Echo stepped out — this one carried a cracked bow and a frost-scorched left arm. One eye swollen shut.
"How did you die?" Eliar asked.
The Echo rasped: "Entered through the north gate. Walked into a rune trap."
Eliar nodded. "South wall it is."
They entered under cover of silence, moving along the garden trench where Eliar had played as a child. The once-beautiful walkways were littered with broken curse sigils and cracked stone. Familiar blood painted unfamiliar faces.
Eliar stepped over a corpse. Clan guard.
Neck twisted the wrong way.
Kiren kept scanning.
"These weren't normal mercenaries. Too clean. Too fast."
Inside the manor, it was worse.
The entire east wing had collapsed. Eliar's training hall was gone, buried in ash and black thread residue. As they moved through the halls, he spotted at least eight different types of curses layered over the floors, walls, even bodies.
Poison thread.
Silence field.
Memory-sink.
Each was meant for a specific type of person. Each one predicted resistance.
They knew who they were coming for.
Near the archive stairwell, Eliar stopped.
Blood pooled around the base of the statue — the same one that had always stared down at the children during family ceremonies. The stone head had been shattered.
His mother's steward lay beneath it.
Throat cut.
Kiren crouched, wiped a hand across the blood, sniffed.
"Clean slice. Ritual blade. This wasn't for speed. They wanted pain."
Eliar turned toward the hidden passage behind the archive.
Still sealed.
He muttered the code.
"By thread and ash, I recall the path."
The wall slid aside.
Inside: silence.
And a note.
The note was pinned to the center of the underground curse chamber. Right on top of the empty pedestal where he'd taken the Silent Ring as a child.
The message was written in blood.
Not ink.
Blood.
"Echo-Knot must not gather the Seals. Curse the thread. Burn the cycle. Return it to sleep."— The Weavers Below
Kiren read it, then looked at him.
"They know about the Seals."
"They know about me."
Worse —
they understood the curse logic behind his Core.
The Weavers Below were not random cultists. They were an old name. One that had vanished from Veyne records long ago. Eliar had seen it only once, in the margins of a forbidden scroll.
"The Weavers existed before the Cursekeeper Era. They believe curses are gods in disguise. That threads are not tools, but destinies we shouldn't control."
And if he continued down this path… they'd come again.
Harder.
Upstairs, they found survivors.
Five guards, badly injured.
One of them was Callen.
Eliar grabbed his collar and dragged him upright. "What happened?"
Callen coughed blood. "They… they came through the wall. Not the gate. Used a stoneworm curse. Came up from below. No banners. No names. Just black threads and knives."
"Who led them?"
"Didn't see his face," Callen rasped.
"But he wasn't normal. He bled curse smoke. His eyes weren't human."
Eliar froze.
"Smoke?"
Callen nodded weakly.
"He asked for you. By title."
"What title?"
Callen's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Cursekeeper Reborn."
The words sat in Eliar's mind like a brand.
He turned to Kiren.
"That title's not known outside Veyne records."
She frowned.
"Maybe it's someone from inside?"
"Or worse, someone who was there when the first Cursekeeper died."
Her eyes widened.
"You mean someone old enough to remember the fall?"
Eliar didn't answer.
He just looked at the wounded, at the blood, at the message in the archive.
Someone had declared war. Not just on him, but on the idea of a second Cursekeeper.
Later that night, in the silence of his shattered room, Eliar summoned three Echoes.
One had died running.
One had died staying.
One had died making the wrong choice.
He sat in the middle of them, staring at the broken ceiling where stars peeked through.
"We're not ready," he said.
One of the Echoes answered: "But we can be."
"They'll come again."
"They always do."
Eliar gritted his teeth.
"Then next time, we don't defend. We strike first."