The morning came without birdsong. A quiet, still dawn blanketed the elven grove where Hector had made his ritual walks for months. The Tree of Life, tall and patient, rustled as if to greet him, its ancient leaves whispering with anticipation.
Today felt different. The dreams had ceased the night before. For the first time in years, Hector had slept without inheriting the pain of another life. There was no burning home, no failing lungs, no shattered bones. Only silence. But not emptiness—a pause. As if something was preparing to begin.
He stepped barefoot onto the soft moss beneath the tree's great roots and knelt. The air shimmered faintly around him, drawn not by spell or command but by familiarity. Magic recognized him now. It did not rush, but arrived with reverence.
He closed his eyes and began to hum.
It was the same melody. The one no one taught him. The one that wrapped around the soul like a lullaby from the before.
The world listened.
Hector slowed his breath, inhaling through the nose and exhaling from the soul. He was no longer drawing mana. He was inviting it—not just from the air but from the spaces between memory, from the hollow where forgotten things slept.
Then he reached deeper.
Into himself.
Into the part of him shaped by the Moon-Eater, by the void that had shown him the cost of remembering.
And he felt it.
Not magic.
Not power.
But weight.
A sorrow so familiar it felt like home. An ache that pulsed not in the body, but in the thread of what made him him.
And that's when he saw it.
A single glowing thread hovering before him, humming in response to his hum.
It was a memory.
But not his.
A girl crying beneath a staircase. Alone. Unheard. A life that would never rise beyond that moment.
He reached out.
The thread responded.
He wove it gently through the air, twisting it like silk between his fingers. And as he did, it became real.
The air shimmered.
A shimmer took the shape of the girl's shadow—not whole, not sentient, but felt. A presence of sorrow, hovering beside him like a whisper never spoken aloud.
"Soulweaving," he whispered.
His voice cracked.
This wasn't illusion magic. It wasn't casting. It was translation.
The soul, translated into form.
---
He practiced for hours.
He called forward threads from the buried weight of other lives. Sometimes they were vivid—a mother who had lost her child in the snow; a child who never saw the sea; an old man who died with a poem no one heard.
Each time he weaved, he shaped emotion, not element.
He created presence.
When he shaped anger, the air grew hot.
When he wove grief, the light dimmed around him.
When he dared to weave hope, the plants around him bloomed—not visibly, not by any rule of spellcasting, but as if reacting to something more primal than magic: memory.
His mana core spiraled quietly inside him, gathering but never spilling. It was steady now, no longer chaotic or undefined. It resonated with every hum.
He didn't know how long he practiced until the pixie form of the Tree appeared.
She floated silently before him, studying his work with ancient eyes.
"You have begun," she said softly.
"What is this really?" he asked, shaking. "It feels like I'm stealing something."
"Not stealing," she said. "You are remembering for those who no longer can."
She floated around him, trailing her fingers through the woven shapes.
"This is soulweaving," she said. "Not all who remember can do it. Most forget because it hurts too much. But your pain is not a wound. It's a well."
"Why me?"
She paused, thoughtful.
"Because you were born in the place outside time. Because you are not wholly here. And because the forgotten chose to be remembered by you."
Hector looked at the forms he had made—flickers of lives long buried.
"What do I do with them?"
"Carry them," she said. "Shape them. When the time comes, let them speak."
---
The next day, Hector walked through the city of Kael-Terun with his senses open. Every passerby left a trail—not physical, but emotional. Some smiled while hiding despair. Some shouted while longing for forgiveness. The world was full of half-spoken truths.
He began to hum.
Softly.
In the corner of a busy marketplace, he saw an old beggar clutching a worn shawl. No one paid her mind. But her sorrow sang.
He touched the space near her.
And he wove.
Not her directly. But the feeling.
A shimmer of youth returned to her eyes. Her hands stopped shaking. For a moment, she smiled.
The effect faded, but the thread remained woven.
She looked at him, not confused but grateful.
"What did you do?" she asked.
"I remembered what the world forgot," he said.
And walked on.
---
That night, as he wrote in his book beneath the tree's roots, he felt it again—that strange pressure, not painful, but heavy.
His body could not contain all the memories forever.
He would need to be careful.
But also—he was ready.
His magic wasn't about domination or spectacle. It was about restoration.
Giving shape to what had once been silenced.
And as the stars flickered in the sky, he hummed once more.
One thread at a time.
One soul at a time.
He was a weaver of the forgotten.
And soon, the world would remember.