The path of names was not straight. It weaved, spiraled, stopped, resumed. Each stone beneath my feet held a name. Some I knew. Some I had forgotten. Some... I had never learned, but still mourned.
Above me, the sky shifted from stars to stories. Constellations bent into symbols—half language, half memory.
I walked until I found the altar.
It wasn't grand. Just a slab of stone floating over a pond made of dusk.
But I knew. This was where it would happen.
My first Sigil.
The realm's answer to my truth.
---
"To craft a Sigil," said the voice of the veiled figure, now echoing in memory,
"You must offer not power, but conviction."
The altar responded. Light gathered from nowhere. But it wasn't light. It was remembrance made visible.
My thoughts slowed. My heartbeat steadied.
And then I saw it.
---
A forge not of flame, but of forgotten voices. Whispers shaped the form. My glyph of loss and choice hovered above the altar, spinning slowly.
And from within me, images surfaced:
Her smile in the dark room lit by Core sparks
My hands trembling as the first wire connected
The silent night I chose not to give up
Each one burned itself into the altar.
"Let it shape," the voice said.
"But do not control it."
I watched.
And the glyph cracked open.
From within, a shape unfolded—slow and elegant. Not a weapon. Not a tool.
A Sigil of Memory-Thread.
A glowing strand that pulsed like a living heartbeat. It floated before me, not to be wielded— but to be understood.
"What does it do?" I whispered.
And then I knew.
The Sigil would let me anchor a memory into reality. To pull it forward. To weave it into the now.
Once per thread, once per truth.
I reached for it.
And it whispered her name as it entered my hand.
---
The path behind me vanished. The pond turned solid. The realm shifted again.
"You have made your first Sigil," the world said.
"You have begun the Weaver's Path."
A new arc had begun inside the Gate. No longer just a Witness.
Now, I would be a Weaver.
Not just of truth— but of possibility.
---