Of course, The Weavefibers had bought Alucent three days of decent meals and a night in an actual bed instead of the cottage's increasingly uncomfortable furniture. But money had a way of disappearing, and by early evening he was back to scanning the market for work.
That's when he heard about the old district.
"Nobody goes to Fadeheart anymore," the tavern keeper had said, wiping down mugs with practiced efficiency. "Not unless they have to. Place gives people the shivers."
"What kind of shivers?" Alucent had asked.
"The kind that make you feel like the world's coming apart at the seams. Which it probably is, over there."
Curiosity was dangerous. Alucent knew that. But curiosity also led to opportunities other people were too scared to take. And if there was work in Fadeheart that nobody else wanted to do, the pay would probably be good.
The transition was gradual at first. The cobblestones became less perfectly fitted. The Lanternposts burned with flames that flickered more than they should. The air carried scents that didn't quite match what his eyes were seeing.
But it was the buildings that really told the story.
The Steamcottages here had the same basic architecture as the rest of Eryndral, but something was wrong with them. The Ironvine Wood walls seemed to shimmer, not with heat distortion but with something more fundamental. Like they were struggling to remember what they were supposed to be.
As he walked deeper into Fadeheart, the wrongness intensified. Sounds echoed strangely, voices carrying further than they should while footsteps seemed muffled. The scent of ironwood smoke was still there, but underneath it was something else. Something that smelled like rust and old copper and decay.
The shimmering haze that occasionally surrounded him was more visible here, responding to the warped environment like oil on disturbed water.
This is a mistake. Turn around. Go back.
But he kept walking.
The ring on his finger was getting cold. Not the comfortable coolness of metal at room temperature. This was the cold of winter nights and deep water and things that had been dead for a long time.
Then it started throbbing.
The rhythm was wrong. Not like a heartbeat. More like something broken trying to keep time with music it could no longer hear properly. Each pulse sent a chill up his arm that settled somewhere behind his ribs.
Alucent stopped walking and pressed his back against the nearest wall, trying to steady himself. The Ironvine Wood felt wrong against his shoulders. Warm when it should have been cool. Soft when it should have been solid.
That's when the visions started.
Flashes of impossible machinery. Gears the size of buildings grinding against each other with sounds like breaking glass. Steam that moved in patterns too complex for any normal engine. And underneath it all, a sense of something vast and intricate and fundamentally broken.
The Loom. The word appeared in his mind without context, but he knew it was right. Something called the Loom, and it was screaming.
Not with sound. With existence itself. Every gear that slipped. Every pattern that failed to complete. Every thread that snapped under tension. All of it was a scream of cosmic anguish that few could hear but everyone could feel.
And he was hearing it clearly.
The cold from the ring intensified until his entire arm was numb. His vision blurred. The ground under his feet felt unstable, like standing on a ship in rough seas.
He could feel the world coming apart.
Not metaphorically. Literally. The fundamental patterns that held reality together were unraveling, thread by thread, and the process was agony for everything touched by it.
A nearby wall caught his attention. The Ironvine Wood was flickering more rapidly now, the runes carved into its surface fading in and out of existence. As he watched, a section about the size of his torso began to dissolve entirely, leaving behind not emptiness but something worse. A space that hurt to look at because it wasn't space at all.
The wrongness was spreading.
Without thinking, Alucent pushed himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against and reached toward the dissolving section. His pale hand looked almost ghostly in the failing light.
The moment his fingers touched the affected area, everything changed.
Power flowed through him. Not the gentle warmth he'd felt in the cultivation house. This was a torrent of raw energy that felt like sticking his hand into a lightning storm. It coursed up his arm, through his chest, and out into the world around him.
The dissolving wall solidified. The flickering patterns steadied. The runes that had been fading blazed back to life for a moment before settling into a steady, healthy glow.
The effect spread outward from his touch. A Lanternpost that had been tilting at a dangerous angle straightened with a metallic groan. Windows that had been showing reflections of things that weren't there cleared to show normal views of the street.
For maybe thirty seconds, this small section of Fadeheart looked like it belonged in the normal parts of Eryndral.
Then the power faded, leaving Alucent gasping and shaking.
What the hell was that? What did I just do?
The ring had gone quiet again, but the memory of that torrent of energy remained. Like the taste of copper in his mouth or the ghost pain of an old injury.
"Impressive."
The voice came from behind him. Female. Calm. Familiar.
Alucent spun around, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Raya stood in the shadow of a partially collapsed Steamcottage about twenty feet away. Her chestnut hair was pulled into the same tight bun he remembered from the market. The scar across her left cheek was more visible in the strange light of Fadeheart.
But it was her eyes that made him take an involuntary step backward. They weren't just looking at him. They were studying him. Measuring him. Seeing things about him that he didn't even know himself.
"How long have you been watching?" His voice came out rougher than intended.
"Long enough." She stepped closer, her movements precise and controlled. "That was Thread 2 work. Crude, but effective. Who taught you?"
"Nobody taught me anything. I don't even know what Thread 2 means."
Her eyebrows rose slightly. "No formal training? No guild certification? No mentor?"
"Lady, three days ago I didn't even know runes were real."
That got a reaction. Her expression shifted from professional curiosity to something sharper. More dangerous.
"Impossible. What you just did requires years of study. Decades of practice. The kind of power you just channeled..." She shook her head. "People don't just stumble into reality manipulation."
"Well, apparently I did."
She studied him in silence for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was softer but somehow more unsettling.
"Show me your hand. The one with the ring."
Every instinct Alucent had screamed at him to refuse. To run. To get as far away from this woman and her measuring gaze as possible.
Instead, he held out his left hand.
Raya's eyes locked onto the Weave Anchor Ring. Her expression went very still.
"Where did you get this?"
"I don't remember."
"You don't remember acquiring an artifact of this magnitude?"
"I don't remember a lot of things."
She looked up from the ring to meet his eyes. "What's your name?"
"Alucent Luci."
"Your real name."
The question hit him like a physical blow. Because she was right. Alucent was the name that came with this body, these memories, this life. But it wasn't his name. Had never been his name.
"I don't know what you mean."
"I think you do."
The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications he didn't fully understand. Around them, Fadeheart continued its slow dissolution, reality fraying at the edges like cloth worn too thin.
Finally, Raya stepped back.
"I'll be watching you, Alucent Luci. Very carefully."
She turned and walked away, disappearing into the shadows between buildings with the kind of fluid grace that suggested she'd had practice moving unseen.
Alucent stood alone in the decaying district, his hand still tingling from whatever he'd done to the wall. The ring felt heavier on his finger. The air felt thicker in his lungs.
As the adrenaline faded, something else took its place. A whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Not words. Not even sounds. Just a sensation of immense, ancient pain pressed directly into his consciousness.
The world itself was weeping.
And somehow, impossibly, he was the only one who could hear it clearly.
The thought should have been terrifying. Instead, it felt like a responsibility settling onto his shoulders. Heavy and unwelcome and absolutely inescapable.
The Loom was broken. Reality was unraveling. And he was connected to both problems in ways he didn't understand.
As he walked back toward the safer parts of Eryndral, the whisper followed him. A silent scream that seemed to echo from the very fabric of existence, reminding him with every step that the world's suffering had found its listener.
Whether he wanted the job or not.