Graymire. Year 831 of the Threaded Calendar.
The smoke always came first.
It slipped through the narrow alleys of Graymire like a living thing, curling around crooked lamp posts and seeping into the thin cracks of rusted brick buildings. Its scent—part soot, part burnt honey—was the kind of thing that sank into a man's lungs and stayed there for life. And on this night, it was thicker than usual.
Corin Vale crouched behind a stack of rotting crates, fingers pressed to the cobblestones. They were still warm. That meant the constables had only just passed through. A patrol, maybe two. He didn't plan on being here when they doubled back.
Above him, the moon looked like it had been gnawed on, a ragged crescent barely piercing the murk. Corin pulled his threadbare coat tighter and scanned the street. Broken windows. Blackened lamp-glass. A slumping corpse of a factory that hadn't belched smoke in over a year.
Tallow Lane, the locals called it. The kind of place that didn't exist on city maps.
He dashed across the alley, boots silent despite the cracked pavement. The old Brasslock Workshop loomed ahead—its steel doors sealed shut, its sign burned halfway down. It used to buzz with automaton tinkerers, gearwrights, and relic smiths. Now it was a mausoleum of broken dreams and better times.
But it was home.
Corin pried open a side hatch with a bit of rusted iron, slipped inside, and pulled it shut behind him. The workshop's insides were just as he'd left them: mechanical limbs dangled from ceiling hooks, rust-eaten blueprints lay scattered across workbenches, and the air smelled of oil, iron, and bitter tea.
"Three minutes behind schedule," came a voice.
Corin didn't jump. He just sighed.
A young girl sat cross-legged on the edge of the loft above, toying with a pocket watch that had no hands. Her eyes gleamed in the gloom—one pale blue, the other glass and cracked. Her name was Nella, and she claimed to have never been born.
"I took the long way," Corin replied, climbing up. "Constables are sniffing again."
"They're always sniffing. That's what hounds do."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a wrapped bundle: stale bread, half a turnip, and a tiny wedge of bitter cheese. He split it evenly. Nella didn't thank him, but she never had. They ate in silence for a few moments while the wind moaned outside.
"You saw it again, didn't you?" she asked.
He paused.
"...The Threads?"
Nella nodded, staring at him like she always did—like he was unraveling before her.
Corin hesitated. Then: "Only for a moment. When I looked at a constable, I saw a... a silver line, just hovering near his throat. It shimmered. And then it snapped."
"Did he die?"
"Slipped on the curb," Corin muttered. "Cracked his skull on a rail. Bled out before his partner even noticed."
Nella didn't smile. She didn't look surprised either.
"You're waking up."
Corin didn't know what that meant. Nella spoke in riddles, half-truths, and stories that always seemed a little too real. But ever since he found the book, nothing had made sense.
It had arrived three weeks ago. No letter. No name. Just a bundle left outside the workshop door, wrapped in black silk and bound shut with golden thread. Inside: empty parchment pages that now whispered to him when he dreamt.
The first whisper had come the night after he'd opened it: "Memory is not the past. It is the needle."
He hadn't understood. Not then.
"You should burn it," Nella said, not for the first time.
"I tried. The fire wouldn't catch."
"Then bury it. Throw it in the river. Feed it to the rats."
Corin stared at the watch in her hands. It ticked now, even though it had no hands.
"You're afraid of it."
"I'm afraid of you."
That silenced them both.
From below, a sudden creak. Footsteps.
Corin drew a breath and motioned for quiet. The girl vanished into the shadows—one of her tricks. He didn't know if it was a Thread thing or just skill. He dropped down into the main floor, hiding behind a tall crate, and peered through the dust-flecked window.
A figure stood at the workshop's entrance.
Tall. Slender. Cloaked in crimson silk that flowed unnaturally, like it moved in reverse wind. A mask covered the face—ivory white with no mouth, only three eyeholes arranged in a triangle. The cloak had stitching too fine for human hands, and the shadows near the figure's feet writhed like worms.
Corin's stomach twisted.
Then he saw it—the Threads.
They bloomed into view like a hallucination: hundreds of glowing lines radiating from the stranger's body, fanning out like a spider's web. Some lines curved gently, others pulsed with violet heat. One thread reached toward Corin—faint, quivering.
The figure tilted its head.
"Corin Vale," the stranger said. Voice smooth, androgynous, layered—like three people speaking at once. "You opened the Loom."
He didn't answer. Couldn't. The air was thick, pressing on his lungs. His legs refused to move.
"Do you know what you've done?"
No. He didn't. But a part of him—a deep, buried part—knew this was only the beginning.
"I…" His throat was dry. "Who are you?"
The figure took one step forward.
"I am Vermielle, of the Loomguard. And you have seen the Threads."
Corin's heart thundered in his chest.
"You have two choices," Vermielle continued. "Come with me. Or continue blindly, until the Threads strangle you."
A whisper slithered through the air, not from the stranger but from the book in Corin's coat. A single line of text burned behind his eyes:
"To weave is to become. But first—you must unravel."
His hands shook.
The world was changing. No, it had already changed. He just hadn't noticed.
Corin Vale took a step toward the figure in the crimson cloak.
He didn't know what came next.
But he knew he couldn't go back.