Chapter 10 - One thread at a time

Eirian was ten years old now. Old enough, some would say, to know better than to go climbing rooftops in the spring wind. Old enough to keep her skirts clean and her questions quiet. But Eirian had long since stopped measuring herself by other people’s voices.

That morning, she sat atop the porch roof again—her usual perch since she’d first taught herself to climb the lattice vines without being caught. Sera always sighed when she saw her up there; she had already given up with Eirian and her insistence on being in high places. And Orlen just muttered something about "foxes on the roof again" and went back to hammering.

From there, Eirian could see the entire village curve gently around the bend of the river, rooftops swaying like stones caught mid-drift. The fishmonger's children were chasing each other with wet reeds. Two dogs barked and didn’t know why.

And down the path from the south fields, Tomas’s sisters were coming to visit.

They came every few days now, their hands full of blossoms or scraps of ribbon or jars of old beads. Sera said it was good for them all to have company. Eirian wasn’t sure if it was true. But she didn’t mind. They were kind, mostly.

They never talked about Tomas. Not unless she asked. And Eirian had learned not to ask after the twin sisters cried their eyes out.

Still, she remembered the day his parents came back from the tower road. Seven years ago. Eirian had been just three; she remembered standing behind the well and watching them return alone. Dust-covered and with their eyes hollow, as if something had been scooped out of them and left behind. She didn’t know what they were expecting, but apparently they accomplished their desire of having a wizard teach their son.

After a year of comporting that way, they started showing off again in front of the villagers, saying their son would return for them and take them to another place with a lot of money.

It was almost the time of the month when a merchant would visit their village. That person had appeared five years ago; apparently his company was expanding, and they included Eirian’s village as one of the points of selling. She had been insisting Sera get some materials for years and finally had convinced her to buy them for her; it wasn’t something cheap, apparently.

She wrapped her fingers tighter around the chimney’s edge, peering out toward the hills beyond the wheat fields. Spring had come early this year, and already the trees were blushing green. The breeze was gentle. Bees buzzed below. Somewhere, someone was baking, and the smell of cardamom bread drifted through the air like a lullaby.

That was when she saw it, a silver thread, glowing as if it was calling for her, brushing against her palm like a hair caught in the wind.

It didn’t hurt her or cause some sort of pain, just a faint tug. Like a whisper, asking to be heard.

She froze. Her eyes blinked once, slowly. Her breath caught behind her ribs.

And then the world shifted.

It wasn’t like falling. Or flying. The experience was akin to dreaming. It was like stepping sideways into something so quiet it could be mistaken for nothingness.

For a heartbeat, Eirian was no longer on the rooftop; she was elsewhere.

She saw a window, cold glass, and a room full of silence. And then she saw Tomas, older than she remembered him—seventeen, maybe more—sat by the ledge, his hands folded tight in his lap. But he looked at something beyond the frame—something distant.

There were books stacked near his feet. A candle burned low and steady. Behind him, the stone walls flickered with lines of strange glyphs pulsing faintly like breath.

It was only a flicker. Then it snapped.

Eirian gasped as the rooftop came back into focus.

She clutched the chimney with both hands, her knuckles white. The wind slammed into her face all at once. Her stomach twisted. Her ears rang. Something warm dripped from her nose.

She touched it with trembling fingers.

‘Blood.’ She thought.

The wind carried it away with a cruel gentleness.

Below, she heard Sera calling her name. One of Tomas’s sisters was already at the garden gate, holding a fistful of violets. But Eirian didn’t move.

Not yet.

She pressed her other hand to her chest, feeling the thread’s echo still vibrating somewhere just beneath the skin.

She hadn’t meant to touch it. She hadn’t meant to see, and yet… she had.

The image of Tomas didn’t fade. Not even as her head began to pound, not even as she climbed down the lattice in slow, aching movements, not even when Sera touched her cheek and frowned at the streak of blood.

“What happened to you? Are you feeling sick?” Sera murmured, guiding her toward the water basin.

“I don’t know,” Eirian whispered.

She wasn’t sure Sera would believe her if she told her about it. She wasn’t sure she believed herself.

And the threads weren’t just whispers in the wind anymore.

They were doorways, and something inside her had begun to turn the knob.

***

The forest edge always felt lighter after the rains—like the leaves had exhaled something they’d been holding too long. The sky was overcast but kind, and the soil underfoot smelled like bruised herbs and clean water.

Eirian walked the ridge path behind the bakery with little Mirin trailing just ahead, chattering about sky-beetles and whose turn it was to feed the goats. Tomas’s youngest sister had inherited her brother’s gap-toothed grin and none of his quiet. She wore a wreath of thistle and honeysuckle on her head and had somehow convinced herself it was a crown.

“I saw a red fox this morning,” Mirin announced, pointing at nothing in particular. “Right over there. It winked at me, I swear it did!”

“Mm.” Eirian stooped beside a patch of fever-thorn and began trimming the younger branches.

“It did! And then it ran off and didn’t even say goodbye.” She spun in a slow circle, arms raised. “Do you think it was a spirit?”

“Foxes don’t say goodbye.”

“That’s what makes it rude,” Mirin huffed.

Eirian smiled, faint and distracted. She tied the fever-thorn stems with a strip of flax and dropped them into her gathering pouch. The birdsong above had dipped lower, a softer cadence. Beneath it, the wind stirred the grasses into little braids.

Then she saw it—a charm string snagged in the crook of a hawthorn limb, fluttering like a forgotten prayer. It was an old one: a driftwood disc, two faded beads, and a sliver of bone knotted into the braid.

Mirin was already halfway down the hill, chasing something she probably imagined.

Eirian reached up.

The moment her fingers brushed the charm, a thread tugged against her skin.

It vibrated, faint and off-tempo, like a harp string out of tune.

Eirian froze.

The thread curved outward from the charm like a floating strand of hair caught on the wind. She didn’t mean to follow it, but it welcomed her. Like a breath held open. Like an invitation.

Her fingertips grazed the thread—

—And the world shifted.

The sky flashed blue, washed and bright like midsummer.

She was smaller. Or no, the world was larger. A child ran ahead of her—ginger curls bouncing, feet bare and reckless. Laughter pealed through the air like a bell. The path twisted around wildroot and moss, familiar.

Then the child tripped.

A sharp crack. A scream full of pain, the way pain always was when it surprised you.

The boy clutched his wrist, sobbing, dirt streaked down his face. Another voice—older, thin, and breathless—said, “Don’t tell your mother, or she won’t let you climb anymore.”

The moment broke.

The forest returned.

Eirian gasped and dropped to her knees. Her vision tunneled, everything edged in red. The charm-string dangled from her hand. Her nose dripped warm.

She was bleeding again. This had been happening more frequently now. The moment she touched those threads floating in the air, a vision came to her. It wasn’t like she wanted to feel them or see them.

She blinked.

The world swam.

A breeze stirred the trees.

Then came the voice.

“Threads bind more than the present. They carry echoes. But you’ll bleed for touching them.”

Eirian didn’t need to ask who it was.

Askariel. Her old passenger. The whisper in the woven edge of her soul.

She tried to sit up, but her limbs felt hollow, like she’d been rung like a bell.

The memory still clung to her skin.

Not just the pain—but the breadth of it. The smell of the moment. The way the grass had leaned toward the fallen child as if listening.

“Was that…” she whispered aloud, her mouth tasting copper. She didn’t finish her sentence because now she knew what those visions represented: memories. Someone else’s. Left behind. Caught in the thread of a charm, of a place, of emotion so sharp it carved itself into the weave of the world.

She had followed it—and the world had let her.

She sat very still as the dizziness passed, blinking up at the trees.

Then she felt Mirin’s hand on her arm.

“Did you fall?” the girl asked, wide-eyed. “You look… pale. Like candle-wax pale.”

Eirian forced a smile and wiped the blood from under her nose with the edge of her sleeve. “Just… tired.”

“You need more honey cakes,” Mirin declared, confident. “That’s what Sera says when I faint.”

“Mm. Maybe.”

But in her chest, something was kindling, a sense of awe and a sliver of fear.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

***

The whole village gathered for the Blessing Rite. That morning, the chapel bell rang clear and sweet, echoing through the valley like a memory polished by wind. It was the season’s midpoint—between planting and harvest, between risk and reward—and no one wanted to tempt fate by skipping the offering. The priest in their community wasn’t even one that could manipulate holy energy; it was one of those people who dedicated all his life to the temple, and in recognition, the temple sent them to a forbidden place where they could spend their lives teaching the scriptures to the commoners.

Eirian wore a garland of dried chamomile and green thread, her sleeves rolled to her elbows, dirt already under her nails from prepping the shrine grounds with Sera. The shrine was little more than a crescent of standing stones nestled against the grove's oldest yew, its base coiled in prayer vines and cracked offerings from past years: bowls of corn, faded ribbons, even a tiny carved bird whose wings had snapped clean off.

Sera knelt beside the altar, murmuring softly as she set out the protective charm she’d been weaving since the rains ended. A circle of twine wound with lavender, juniper bark, and three silver drops of cooled wax. Simple in appearance, but it was complex beneath.

“Here,” she said, not looking up. “Help me bind the center.”

Eirian crouched and touched the inner thread. The knot was tight, braided in threes—the healer’s weave. Her fingers hovered above it. Her mana stirred without command, like it had been waiting.

Sera’s magic moved with deliberate rhythm: steady, warm, like the hum of moss soaking in morning light. Eirian added something smaller—gentler, a single breath, in and through; with it, the charm pulsed.

Eirian felt it open, like a gate she didn’t know was closed. The wind shifted. Leaves rustled though there was no breeze.

The vines coiled around the shrine trembled.

Then it bloomed, all at once. It was a spectacular view, entirely breathtaking.

Pale buds burst into color—coral, violet, and gold—spilling over the altar stones like spilled sunlight. The scent was rich, too much for spring. Birds came then—two dozen at least—swooping from the canopy in spirals, singing in overlapping, almost harmonized notes.

The crowd went still.

Voices dropped to whispers. Some crossed themselves. Others bowed. Even the mayor blinked twice and muttered something under his breath.

Eirian stepped back, her heartbeat fluttering like a leaf on a string. No one had seen her touch it. She had barely done anything.

But the shrine now looked like something from an old hymn. Like the paintings in Sera’s books of the sacred groves near the capital—untouched, eternal.

Sera stood slowly. Her expression was unreadable.

The villagers murmured.

“It’s blessed for sure.”

“Did you feel that warmth? Like the breath of the gods.”

“The charm’s never flared that bright.”

“I thought I saw a shape in the vines.”

“...She was standing too close.”

Not many turned to look directly at Eirian. But enough eyes glanced sideways. Enough lips moved behind closed hands.

Later, as the villagers sang and danced around the painted stones, Sera took Eirian aside.

They walked beneath the edge of the trees, where the shadows stretched long but safe.

“You did well,” Sera said softly, her voice low enough to be swallowed by birdsong. “But you let too much of yourself go into it; you might not realize, but showing too much power for some people could be dangerous.”

Eirian blinked. “It felt like… it wanted to.”

“That’s how power works. It tempts. It asks to be given. And it’s so easy to say yes, just remember that everyone in this world wants power, and if you attract the envy of the wrong people, it could lead to your worst nightmare.”

Eirian looked at her hands.

The warmth still clung to her fingers, like sunlight pressed into skin.

Sera touched her shoulder.

“Power always draws eyes, Eirian. And not all eyes are kind. I don’t want you to live in fear of others; just be careful.”

The wind stirred the trees again.

***

Later that same day, after everyone had gone to their own activities, the children in the village decided to play a game. It had started like any other.

A circle of children laughing, chasing each other between the roots of the shrine grove while the grown-ups prepared for the evening feast. Eirian sat beneath the vine arch, weaving a small grass crown for Tomas’s youngest sister, who had insisted that she be called "Queen of Mice" for the afternoon.

It was a good day, with a warm sun and a cool wind, the kind of day that made the heart quiet without asking it to.

Until the scream.

A high, broken sound—sharp enough to silence even the wind.

Eirian dropped the crown.

Her eyes snapped up just in time to see a boy—Rolen, a farmer’s son—tumbling from a low tree. He’d climbed it on a dare, reaching for a squirrel’s nest, and lost his balance. He hit the ground with a sickening crunch. The kind of sound that made adults curse under their breath.

The grove held its breath.

Then the boy screamed again, clutching his leg.

His foot was pointed the wrong way.

Children scattered; some ran to fetch help, and others froze without knowing what to do. One girl covered her ears and whimpered; even if they wanted to help, no one moved toward him.

No one… except Eirian.

Her feet were moving before she could think.

She reached Rolen in seconds and dropped to her knees beside him. His face was contorted in agony, tears streaking his cheeks, breaths coming in ragged gasps. His hands clawed at the earth like he could crawl away from the pain itself.

“Shhh,” she whispered, brushing the hair from his forehead. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Her mana surged; it answered because something in her heart had torn open at the sound of his scream.

The threads around her shimmered, faint and swaying. The ones connected to Rolen were tangled with pain, sharp and red.

But there was another thread. One thicker, older, this one with the color green. Reaching from the roots of the tree he had fallen from.

A life thread.

She reached for it.

The bark of the tree groaned behind her, branches shivering as if in protest. Leaves curled at their edges. She wove the tree’s strength—its age, its warmth, its stored light—into her fingers; the boy was screaming; there was no time for grace.

The tree’s thread frayed.

And then—

Rolen gasped.

His leg shifted under her hand, the bone slid, and the muscle mended. The skin shivered like water settling in a cup.

Silence fell again.

The pain was gone.

Rolen blinked up at her, dazed and pale.

“It… doesn’t hurt anymore.” There was confusion in his voice.

But Eirian didn’t answer.

The thread snapped.

The tree behind them gave a final groan—and died. Leaves withered in seconds, with its branches slumped, the bark cracked and split, and the grass around its roots turned gray.

Eirian dropped forward onto her hands.

The world spun sideways.

She could taste iron. Feel it dripping from her nose.

‘Bleeding, again,’ she thought; apparently, every time she conducted something out of the ordinary, there was a reaction with her body.

She tried to sit up—and failed.

The last thing she saw was Rolen’s mother sprinting from the nearby garden rows. Her apron flared like wings, her mouth open in a shout. She scooped the boy into her arms, held him tight, examined the leg—unbroken, untouched—and then turned her eyes to Eirian.

No words.

Just a look.

And it wasn’t gratitude that Eirian saw in those eyes; there was fear in them, and a little of hate, as if she was seeing a monster that needed to be exterminated.

***

When Eirian woke, her limbs were lead; she didn’t have a lot of energy in her, but she could recognize that she was in her room.

‘Someone must have brought me here after I passed out.’

Sunlight spilled across the ceiling beams, gold and heavy. Her head pounded like it was packed with river stones; she could feel a little headache the moment she tried to move her head.

Sera sat beside the bed, weaving something between her fingers—prayer thread, red and black.

“You’re awake,” Sera said softly.

Eirian swallowed. Her throat was dry. “The boy… Rolen?”

“He’s fine.”

Eirian closed her eyes, relief a weight of its own. “The tree…”

Sera nodded. “Yeah, it’s gone.”

A long silence.

Then: “That wasn’t a small thing you did, Eirian.”

“I didn’t think,” she whispered. “I just felt it; he was hurting, and I wanted to help him, so just—”

Sera reached out and took her hand.

“I know, but you decided to ignore my advice.”

“Your advice?”

“I told you that the moment you show your power, it would bring you trouble.”

Another silence.

And then came the rustle; they could hear that the villagers had a lot to discuss; their words were being carried through walls and fields.

***

The rumors began before the evening stew was served.

“She drained a tree to save him, like it was a bucket of water.”

“Didn’t even chant, just touched him, and the boy was cured.”

“Old roots died for it; you call that natural?”

“She did what none of us could.”

“Was it worth the price?”

“They say a true Weaver can kill with a glance.”

“She’s just a girl.”

“She’s not just anything.”

Some villagers defended her. Others whispered, wary now of letting their children too close. No one said anything to Eirian’s face.

They didn’t have to.

She felt the difference in every step they took around her. In every eye that lingered a moment too long. In every pause of conversation as she passed.

That night, as the stars stitched themselves into the sky, Eirian lay in her bed, eyes open to the ceiling beams. Sera sat beside her, quiet.

A voice came—soft and patient as a ripple over still water.

“You are not becoming me,” Askariel said from the corner of her mind. “You are becoming something new. But they will still fear you for it.”

Eirian turned her head, unsure if the voice was inside or outside.

She thought of Rolen’s scream. Of the tree's death. Of the silence that followed, what these new abilities represented in her life.

***

The fire had gone to embers, and the house was quiet.

Eirian sat cross-legged on the floor, the hem of her sleep robe tucked under her knees, fingers curling around the edge of the woven mat. Sera was mending a small cloak by lamplight, her needle moving slowly and steadily through thick wool.

“I want to ask you something,” Eirian said softly.

Sera looked up. “Of course.”

She hesitated. Then: “Could I become a Weaver? Or something like it?”

The question landed like a stone on still water.

Sera didn’t answer right away. She set the needle down, folded her hands, and watched the flame for a few long breaths.

“I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “The city has books. Schools. Traditions. They teach spells in lines and potions by the ounce. But we… we learn by listening. And surviving.”

Eirian nodded, but her eyes stayed low. “The Weaver told us I shouldn’t go to the city. Not until I could control and hide my power.”

“That’s true,” Sera said gently. “There are people in the world who would want to use what you are. Or fear it. Or both.”

“But how do I hide something I don’t understand?”

Sera sighed. “I wish I had an answer. I didn’t have your gift, Eirian. I knew the roots and weather. I knew which plants whispered which truths. But I never… touched the soul of a place. Not the way you do.”

Eirian looked to the hearth, watching the last flames flicker into ember-glow.

She thought of the thread in the tree. The moment when Rolen’s pain had become her own. The way the grove had turned silent.

Sera gave her a quiet look. Something between worry and pride.

Later, long after the lamps were darkened and the windows shut against the chill, Eirian stepped barefoot into the garden.

The wind had pulled down an old spider’s web between the herbs and the chipped birdbath. Now, under the starlight, the spider had begun again—its legs dancing, spinning a new pattern from silk and memory.

One thread at a time.

Eirian sat cross-legged in the dirt and watched.

She didn’t know what she was.

But someday, she would.