“They said, ‘It’s the only way.’ ”
Lide’s form pulsed, a rapid beat of light and shadow, threatening to unravel completely. Her eyes, wide with a terror Ibai hadn’t seen before, fixed on him, pleading for an answer he didn’t yet possess. The bone hilt pressed against his thigh, hard and cold through his wool trousers.
“Amaia,” Ibai said under his breath. “It was Amaia holding the knife?”
Lide shook her head, a translucent motion. “I… I don’t know. Not truly. Only the feeling. The sadness. And the words.” Her voice trailed off, thin and ragged against the quiet creak of the timber.
Ibai swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. The implications were stark, chilling. Amaia, Lide’s own sister, weeping, knife in hand, uttering a phrase that spoke of desperate sacrifice. It coiled in his gut, a cold, hard knot. The Lumin Cordis texts spoke of such rituals with revulsion, tales of spirits bound, not cleansed, to power wards or fuel dark intentions. The very thought made his skin crawl, but Lide’s terror was real, and his commitment to her only solidified.
“We need to understand this,” Ibai said, his voice firm, pushing down the instinctive fear. “We need to see what she saw, hear what she heard, truly.” He stepped toward the hearth, turning a thought over in his mind. The forbidden texts he had found in the corner cupboard detailed methods of attunement, drawing out memory through sympathetic magic.
He thought of the *aintzin lore* in the garden, its vibrant indigo petals now muted by the early evening light. He remembered the dried roots and seed pods hung from the ceiling beams. The valley was famous for ritual mordants and tinctures, not simple pigments.
“Lide,” Ibai began, turning back to her. “When you were alive, as a weaver, did you ever use dyes for… for something more than just coloring thread? For a specific purpose, a ritual, perhaps?”
Lide tilted her head, a faint frown creasing her brow. “Dyes were our art,” she murmured, her voice still weak. “But some… some were special. My grandmother spoke of them. For protection, for blessing a new loom, for seeing truths hidden in the threads.” A gleam brightened her eyes, then dimmed. “The Sight-Dye. She mentioned it once. A difficult blend, used to clarify what came before, or what followed.”
Ibai felt a surge of adrenaline, a rush of certainty. “The Sight-Dye,” he repeated, retrieving the tattered, ink-stained pages he’d hidden under his cot. He quickly flipped through the brittle parchment. Sure enough, nestled between diagrams of intricate weaving patterns and blessings for the harvest, was a section titled: *Irudien Tindua: The Dye of Visions*. The description was precise: a blend of *aintzin lore*, a pinch of dried *erreka-hosto* leaves for clarity, and a sliver of petrified wood from a lightning-struck oak, all steeped in spring water drawn at dusk.
“This is it,” Ibai murmured, running his thumb over the brittle script. “Lide, do you know where these might be?”
Lide drifted toward the recessed alcove set into the stonework. “The *erreka-hosto*… dried… they would be in the back,” she said, her translucent hand gesturing. “And the petrified wood… Amaia kept a piece. From the old lightning-split oak on the ridge. She called it her ‘story stone’.”
Ibai quickly located a bundle of papery, rust-colored leaves and a small, charcoal-dark sliver of wood, smooth and cool to the touch. He filled a small ceramic pot with water from the rain barrel outside, careful to collect it as dusk settled, just as the text instructed. Back inside, he set the pot on a hook above the low-burning hearth. Woodsmoke mingled with the scent of damp moss on the stone floor.
He crushed the *erreka-hosto* between his fingers, their dry fragrance sharp and green. He added the *aintzin lore* petals, watching as their vibrant indigo bled into the clear water, staining it a deep, velvety violet. Finally, he dropped in the petrified wood sliver. The moment it touched the water, a subtle shimmer seemed to ripple through the liquid, a current of energy that prickled against his forearms.
Lide drifted closer, her edges blurring and restabilizing as she watched. “It feels… familiar,” she murmured, her gaze fixed on the simmering pot. “Like warp threads stretched tight before the shuttle flies. Full of possibility.”
Ibai stirred the liquid with a small, charred stick. The instructions warned against impatience. The dye needed to ‘breathe,’ to ‘absorb the echoes of the air.’ As the water warmed, a fine mist began to rise, swirling lazily above the pot. The scent deepened, becoming richer, more complex—earthy, floral, with a metallic tang that made Ibai’s teeth ache slightly. He felt a subtle pull, a sense of tension in the air, as if the room shrank around them.
The mist thickened, coalescing into swirling forms. Ibai leaned closer, his breath held. Lide’s form, usually distinct, blurred at the edges, seeming to merge with the ethereal fog emanating from the pot.
A stench of overripe lilies rolled off the steam. The mist shifted, resolving into images. The stone hearth vanished around Ibai. He was standing in a familiar, yet distorted, version of the very same room. The loom was there, but it looked different—a few threads were already hanging loose, unfinished. The masonry was streaked with rot, and outside the window, a pale mildew choked the bracken along the hillside.
Amaia. She was there, hunched over the loom, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. She looked thinner, her face etched with exhaustion and despair. In her hand, Ibai saw it clearly: the bone-hilted knife, Amaia’s knife. Her fingers trembled as she held it above a small, crudely drawn circle on the floor, etched with symbols Ibai recognized from the forbidden texts. They were binding runes, meant to shackle spiritual energy.
“Oh, Lide,” Amaia choked out, her voice raw, fractured by grief. “Forgive me. The blight… it’s everywhere. It’s crawling towards the village. The elders, they say the old ward is failing. They say we have no choice.” She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed and desperate. “This is the only way. Your light… it’s the only thing strong enough. It’s the only way to save us.”
She looked at the loom, then back at the knife, a desperate resolution hardening her features. She raised the blade against her thumb, slicing just enough to pool a single dark bead. She pressed the drop onto the exposed warp of the loom. As the blood touched the threads, a surge of brilliant, painful light erupted from the loom, and Amaia cried out, not in pain, but in wrenching sorrow, her voice echoing the exact words Lide had recalled.
“It’s the only way.”
The image shuddered. The heavy reek of spoiled flowers intensified, choking his throat. The air grew thick, shimmering, and Ibai felt a sharp, burning heat against his hand. The dye pot. It was boiling violently, the purple liquid frothing over the brim, searing his skin.
He recoiled, staring at the pot as the last vestiges of the vision faded. But etched into the boiling dye, swirling for a moment before dissipating, was an image. Not of Amaia, or the blight, but of the great, ancient Oak of Aizkorri, the one Amaia had taken her ‘story stone’ from. Its bark was desiccated, and etched into the dead wood was the identical geometric design from Lide's loom, glowing faint and sickly.
The vision vanished, leaving Ibai panting, his hand throbbing. He looked up, his gaze snapping to the loom. Near the center of the work, another golden strand had parted. Lide’s form, already tenuous, was now terrifyingly transparent, like a wisp of smoke caught in a sudden breeze. She was fading, faster than before. Her eyes, wide and hollow, stared at the loom, then at Ibai, a silent scream of utter despair.