Ezra didn't waste any ti.
He imdiately headed to his study, moving to the room beyond. The weave room.
The automatic lights flickered on as Ezra strode to the pillar on the circular platform in the middle of the room.
He placed his hand on the pillar and it humd to life as he called on his vitality.
The weave burst to life before him, the golden threads shimring. He reached in.
Slowly.
Delicately.
He began with the thread of Aurora, luminous, small, yet complex. It thrumd in harmony with his own thread, connected by blood and soul. She was fine. Safe.
But when he looked for disruption... there was none.
No sign of tampering.
No signal of intrusion.
Ezra pushed deeper.
He scoured the threads that touched his territory. Searched the external weaves. Looked at overlapping influences. But every thread led to peace, stability, and growth. There was nothing.
No shadow. No hook. No thread of theft. No plot to trace.
And that terrified him more than anything.
Because sothing had to be there. Omnia never spoke lightly. If Romanus had seen it, it existed. But the weave refused to show it.
Either sothing was stronger than the weave... or soone was manipulating it from the outside.
And he had no idea which was worse.
In any case, the weave was hiding sothing from him.
Or… it was protecting soone else.
That didn't matter to Ezra. He refused to accept that fact, so he spent the next two nights buried in the depths of the weave, his vision blurring, his eyes burning with golden threads.
The room had been silent in the past few days, save for the tis Olivia, Red or Gen had co to see him, with Gen's visits being more frequent.
He was still trawling the weave, moving carefully, cautiously. He rembered what had happened the last ti he peered too deep, how the knowledge had seared his sight and left him blind for months.
Even with his full regeneration complete, Ezra had learned that peering too deep into the weave was not without price. But now, with the warning from Romanus still echoing in his head, he had no choice. He had to find the danger before it found her.
And after two days, he was back where he started. Where any father would start. Aurora's thread.
Over the past two days, it had changed. It now glowed like a miniature sun, bright and constant, more radiant than anything else in the weave he'd ever encountered.
Her weave thrumd with an innocent brilliance, unlike the dull gold that was the weave of adults. But that wasn't what had changed. It was what was coiled around her weave that was different.
A barrier. No, more than that. A sheath of protective energy.
Ezra hadn't placed it, but he knew where it was from. Aurora was an Eternal before she was a vampire, just like him. This was from her Eternal ability.
No matter what he did, he couldn't budge the protection. He couldn't change anything. And that cald him. If the attack ever did co, it would be physical. It wouldn't be in the weave.
He moved on.
He moved through Olivia's thread, to Red's, and then to Gen. The danger also isn't coming through them first. So, where would it be coming from?
He scoured his own thread, but there was no sign of nothing amiss.
So, he moved on, just like he'd done over and over in the last two days.
He started with his Overseers.
Raphael Drayton was the rigid soldier he'd always been. No change there.
Aurelio Devereux was more interested in finding a beautiful lady to add to his harem. Also nothing, except for his normal propensity for having a silver tongue.
As for Kieran Vale, his weave burned with eagerness. His thread shimred erratically, like a bonfire, but it was honest. Too honest.
Ezra frowned as he sat back. The weave showed nothing. There was no danger, no redirections, no knots of interference. Every connection he traced returned to stability. Order. Peace.
And that troubled him.
Because the weave never lied.
But it didn't always speak.
He sat down on the floor, leaning his back against the pillar. Just where would this attack co from?
His mind conjured mories of loss. Of pain. Of grief.
No! It wouldn't end like that.
He gritted his teeth and stood, pouring vitality into his eyes again, searching further, this ti, deep into the Vampire Society itself.
What did he find? Nothing.
Still nothing.
It was Gen's voice that pulled him from the silence.
"You're wearing grooves into the floor, you know." She said as she floated into the room.
Ezra didn't answer imdiately. She hovered near his shoulder, silent for a mont as she took in the expression on his face.
"No change?"
"Nothing." Ezra replied, voice flat. "Not even a fluctuation in the weave. Not even a flicker."
Gen frowned. "Then that is the anomaly, isn't it? The weave always shows sothing. The fact that it doesn't now..."
"ans sothing is silencing it." Ezra finished. "Or working around it."
Gen folded her arms and hovered lower. "You think it's... the Abyss?"
Ezra didn't respond.
"You've seen what's happening, Ezra." Gen said, quieter now. "If sothing is stopping the weave, but Omnia could see it, it has to be the Abyss. The Progenitor designed the relics to aid his heir. Omnia should be able to see things of the Abyss."
Ezra shook his head. "No. It can't be the Abyss. The gate is still sealed, and it can only be opened from this side. And last ti I checked, it's still hidden under the Vampire Society's Ark."
"Are you sure?" Gen asked, not accusing but honest. "What about Aurora's birth? The sky changed that night. The weave shimred. Sothing shifted."
Ezra stood and began pacing, his hand rising to his face.
"I don't know." He muttered. "But it doesn't make sense. If sothing had co through, I'd feel it. I'd see sothing that important in the weave."
"Unless it isn't in the weave." Gen suggested. "Unless whatever is coming... is still outside."
Ezra stopped pacing. That possibility…
The weave did not account for everything. It only mapped what was in this specific reality. Only it. The Abyss wasn't within its weave. And creatures of the Abyss might not be under its weave.
Could it be that sothing had reached through, not fully, not in body, but in influence?
Could it be… laying seeds?
He exhaled hard, then turned toward Gen.
"There's also one more option."
Gen raised a brow. "What is it?"
"There could be no danger in the first place."
"Sohow," Gen sighed, "I doubt that."
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