The coded page Eneko had handed him was a frustrating puzzle, its tightly packed script an infuriating tangle of symbols and numerical sequences. Ibai traced a finger across the parchment, the ink still faintly smudged from its hasty removal. Lide drifted beside him, her form alarmingly transparent, like mist clinging to glass. Only two threads remained taut on the loom, a stark, final count against her very existence. “The Eldrak alphabet,” Lide murmured, her voice a fragile chime. She pointed to a series of glyphs that repeated with an unsettling regularity. “It’s often paired with numerical ciphers in older texts. My grandmother used to teach me games with them.” Ibai’s head snapped up. “You know this?” Hope, sharp and sudden, pierced through his mounting dread. He had been poring over the page for hours, the waning daylight offering little clarity across the cottage's dusty interior. “Only bits,” she admitted, a wisp of a smile playing on her lips. “The first sequence… it looks like the date notation for the Festival of the First Bloom. And these numbers,” she drifted closer, her ethereal hand hovering over the page, “they correspond to specific nodes on the loom's draft schema. See how they align with the spiraling motif?” Together, they worked, Lide recalling fragmented lessons from her childhood, Ibai cross-referencing against the few obscure codices he possessed. The cipher began to yield. Each solved fragment revealed a chilling truth, a stark betrayal etched in bureaucratic prose. The journal belonged to a high-ranking cleric, a Master Koral of the Lumin Cordis, and it detailed not a solution to the blight, but its exploitation. “‘The Nar’e basin possesses a unique resonance,’” Ibai read, his voice tight. “‘Its natural energies, once harvested and amplified through a binding array, offer a sustainable power source for all nearby Order enclaves. Subject’s essence must be tied to the loom, grid woven to draw upon the surrounding flora’s intrinsic force. The rot acts as a catalyst, weakening natural defenses, making the lowlands ripe for extraction.’” The page vibrated in his trembling hand. Lide’s form flickered violently, her face a mask of dawning horror. The final two cords on the loom gave a strained groan, one of them snapping with a sound like a distant sigh. Lide cried out, her entire being blurring, almost gone. “No, Lide!” Ibai reached for her, his hand passing through empty air. He wanted to pull her close, to anchor her with his presence, but he was helpless. His gaze fell upon the remaining, solitary fiber, thinner than a spider’s silk. He read the last lines aloud, his voice raw. “‘The sacrifice must be framed as an act of salvation for the local populace. Emotional distress amplifies the spiritual charge, making the binding more potent. The subject’s regret acts as a key, locking the energy cycle in perpetuity.’” Lide stared at him, tears glistening on her cheeks without dropping. “A battery,” she murmured. “I wasn’t meant to save our home. I was meant to feed them.” The revelation sank into the room, cold and heavy. A heavy knock rattled the window panes. Ibai spun, shoving the scrap behind a book stand an instant before the iron latch lifted. Eneko stood there, his usual zealous intensity replaced by a grim exhaustion. Behind him, Amaia appeared, her face pale and streaked with fresh tears, her eyes red-rimmed. “Ibai,” Eneko said, his gaze sweeping the cottage, pausing on Lide’s almost invisible form. He held up a thick, leather-bound book. “This is the grimoire. Everything Amaia told me… it’s true. The Order, they twisted the truth. Master Koral orchestrated all of it.” Amaia stepped forward, her hands clasped in front of her. She looked at the loom, at the single, final thread, then at the nearly translucent outline of her sister. “Lide,” she choked out, her voice breaking. “Oh, Lide, I am so, so sorry. I didn’t know. I never would have…” Her words dissolved into a sob. Lide, though faint as breath on water, moved toward the frame, fixing her gaze on the solitary fiber. “Amaia,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.” She turned to Ibai, then to Eneko. “The design,” she began, her chin held level. “The one carved into the tree’s bark. It’s the final part of the binding array. But it’s not finished. They were preparing for the final phase.” Ibai felt a chill colder than any mist. “The final phase? To drain everything?” “No,” Lide countered, a faint light beginning to emanate from her fading form. “To finish the weaving. If I set the final cross-threads… with the correct intent… I can change it.” She looked at the last fiber, then at Ibai, a fragile hope rising in her gaze. “The design is a conduit. It was meant to siphon the soil’s life force into me, and then to the Order. But what if… what if it was worked to sever the rot instead? To release the accumulated energies back into the earth, cleansing it, freeing the region from their corruption.” Eneko frowned. “Freeing the land… but what about you, Lide? Your essence is tied to finishing this cloth.” “Precisely,” Lide said, a faint smile gracing her lips. “If the design is closed as a cleansing, not a prison… then my essence will be released, too. Peacefully. It will sever the rot, and sever my tether to this world, all at once.” Ibai felt his throat constrict. He understood. This wasn't about saving her anymore. This was about a final, impossible choice. Saving the valley, but losing her forever. “We finish the cloth,” Lide declared, her voice steady despite her flickering outline. “We bind the last rows. But not for them. For the village. For Amaia. For me. It’s the only way to truly fix my regret.” She paused, her gaze locking with Ibai’s, a silent plea passing between them. “But it will mean…” “It means you’ll be gone,” Ibai said quietly, the cost pressing into his chest like stone. He saw the last thread on the loom, impossibly delicate, impossibly final.

The Weaver's Gambit