I might see something relevant to your plight." She held out a small, intricately woven hand-cloth, its pattern shifting subtly in the sunlight, reflecting the hues of autumn lea

sual obsidian scales were now dull and patched. He used the cloth to gently wipe Blackfang's brow, more out of a paternal instinct than belief. As the cloth touched the dragon's skin, a faint, almost imperceptible shimmer seemed to emanate from Blackfang's scales. The dragon le

d necessity in the tangled threads around him, agreed. The journey to Aethelgard was arduous. They rode for days through forests that gradually grew sparser, their leaves tinged with an unnatural grey. The air grew heavy, losing its crisp vitality. Kaelen, ever the stoic, rarely spok

be dormant, a relic. No one knew how to tend it." "It needs re-weaving," Elara stated, her voice firm despite the tremor in her hands. "The central thread, the heart of its song, must be restored." She reached out, her fingers hovering over a thick, dark cord that was clearly the source of the corruption. It throbbed with a sickly energy, spreading its decay to the surrounding threads. "Can you do it?" Kaelen asked, his voice laced with a raw hope she hadn't heard before. Elara looked from the dying Loom to Kaelen's desperate face, then to the faint, vibrant gold thread connecting them. "I must try." She approached the Loom, her hands trembling as she laid them upon the corrupted thread. A searing cold shot through her, threatening to engulf her senses. The black tendrils pulsed, resisting her touch. Elara cried out, staggering back. Kaelen was instantly by her side, catching her before she fell. "Elara! It's too much!" "It's fighting me," she gasped, clutching his arm. "The corruption... it's like a knot, tighter than any I've ever seen." Kaelen looked at the dying loom, then at Elara's determined, yet pained, expression. He thought of his ailing Sky-Serpent, of his suffering people. He knew he could not sit idly by. "There are legends," he said, his voice low, "of the Dragon Princes and the Loom. Of a resonance, a symbiotic bond. We are connected to the Sky-Serpents, and they are connected to this Loom." He closed his eyes, concentrating. A faint, golden glow began to emanate from his own hands, echoing the luminescence of the fading ley lines. He placed his hands over hers, his larger, stronger fingers enveloping her smaller ones. "My power is weak," he said, his brow furrowed with effort, "but perhaps together, we can awaken the Loom's true song." As their hands met, a surge of warmth enveloped Elara. Kaelen's dwindling dragon magic, his innate connection to the lifeblood of Aethelgard, flowed into her, amplifying her own thread-weaving gift. The bitter cold from the corrupted thread receded, replaced by a surge of raw, untamed energy. Elara focused, her mind becoming one with the Loom. She saw the corrupted thread not as a solid entity, but as a densely tangled knot of intentions, a malevolent pattern woven into the Loom's heart. It wasn't an external curse, but a slow, insidious accumulation of disharmony – perhaps centuries of greed, conflict, and neglect by the previous rulers of Aethelgard. "It's a broken promise," she whispered, "a forgotten purpose." With Kaelen's power flowing into her, Elara began to work. Her fingers, guided by an instinct deeper than conscious thought, moved over the corrupted thread. She didn't try to break it; she began to re-weave it. She disentangled the dark strands, meticulously separating them, then, with a deep breath, began to introduce new, vibrant threads of light and healing. She pulled from the collective energy of the land, from the whispers of hope and resilience in Kaelen's heart, from the dormant power within the Sky-Serpents. The cavern filled with light. The dying hum of the Loom slowly shifted, becoming a vibrant, resonant song. The black tendrils shriveled and receded, replaced by dazzling new threads of gold, emerald, and azure, intertwining with the Loom's ancient patterns. The ley lines above them flared with renewed brilliance, their light pulsing outwards through the stone. Kaelen felt a rush of energy flow through him, a sensation he hadn't experienced since childhood. His connection to Blackfang, which had been a faint murmur, now roared to life. He felt the vast network of Sky-Serpents, their collective