Thud.
Pain.
Not the dull, ignorable ache of a poor night's sleep. This was sharp. Crawling. A splinter bored into the side of Lycus's skull like a rusted nail twisted by invisible hands. He inhaled sharply—stone, copper, rot. The smell of a dying alley.
[No good. Woke up in a place that stinks like corpses. Never a good sign.]
His eyelids resisted opening. Too heavy. But he forced them anyway.
Above him, the world stuttered.
Shards of broken masonry—was it glass? Pottery? A clock face?—hung mid-air. Frozen. Suspended in crimson light that poured through the storm-heavy sky like old wine. The ruins of Caldareth's old clock tower loomed above, fragmented like a shattered memory.
Lycus groaned.
This wasn't a dream.
[I knew it. Dreams don't come with this kind of pain. Something went wrong. Again.]
He tried to rise. His elbows trembled beneath him, shoes scraping wet cobblestone. Around him, the market square lay in disarray—stalls upturned, crates split open. Cabbages rolled through oily puddles like fleeing survivors.
Then—silence.
Or rather, the absence of sound.
A merchant's shout nearby cut off mid-syllable: "Get do—"
Nothing.
And then: whispers.
Not words. Not exactly. Pressure. A sensation behind his eyes, like gears grinding through marrow.
[Something's here. Watching? No—pressing. Like it's inside already. Shit.]
He blinked again. His left eye twitched. There it was again.
That hum. That sickening vibration in his jaw.
[That's not real sound. That's bone-deep. Whatever this is, it's crawling under the skin.]
Move.
His body answered before his mind did. He stumbled upright, hands bracing against a toppled crate. Blood dripped from his nose. A single drop landed on the stone and sizzled faintly—just his imagination. Just another Tear-flare. He'd had worse. He always told himself that.
[Still standing. Still bleeding. Good. Means I'm not dead yet.]
But the whispers... they grew thicker. Tangible. Wrapping around his thoughts like wires.
Fracture. Fracture. Fracture.
A child's doll hovered mid-fall beside him—porcelain eye gleaming. A shard of reality split down its cheek like a wound.
Lycus lunged forward. His shoes slipped on something slick.
[Damn it. Always something. Streets don't forgive.]
[Idiot. Should've bartered for shoes, not bread.]
He crashed into a side alley. Dark. Narrow. Shadows pooled like tar. Ahead, a rusted pipe leaked thick black sludge. And just above it—
A thread.
Thin as hair. Silver-bright. Strung taut between the alley walls. It quivered in the air, vibrating with a soft sound that made his teeth ache.
Beneath it, scrawled into mortar:
ϟ
Lycus froze.
That symbol.
The one from his dreams.
The one carved into the corners of his Echo-Sense, lurking at the edges of his thoughts.
[It's real. No question now. The dreams weren't dreams. Just previews.]
[No. Not here.]
Glass shattered above.
A blade-sized shard crashed beside his head.
He flinched, ducked, breath ragged.
[Close. Too close. Next time I won't get to flinch.]
[Think. Breathe.]
He fumbled in his pocket—nothing. No coin. No food. Only the smooth river stone he'd carried since childhood. Cold. Familiar. Useless.
[Figures. Sentimental junk when I need steel. Always the wrong thing in hand.]
The thread's hum sharpened. The black sludge twitched.
[Move or die.]
He bolted, bursting from the alley onto a broader street.
The air rippled. A cart lay shattered ahead, its wheels spinning lazily in the void. Someone—or something—had painted the side in dripping red pigment.
The same symbol.
ϟ
He stopped breathing.
And then:
THUD—THUD—THUD.
Not his heart.
The Tear's pulse.
The floating debris above shivered. A wine bottle exploded in mid-air.
And then—rain.
Not water.
Glass. Needle-thin shards. A sudden curtain of razor brilliance fell from the sky, slicing the air itself.
His shirt shredded. His cheeks burned. Black blood welled along shallow cuts.
Glass-thread storm.
Lycus threw himself beneath the broken cart. Glass clanged like hail against splintered wood. Through a crack in the wheel, he saw it again:
That silver thread. Still glowing.
Fracture. Fracture. FRACTURE.
The whispers became a scream.
His vision blurred. Pain surged—not in his body, but in something deeper. Behind his eyes: a golden flicker. Shapes. Threads. Patterns.
The Loom.
Gone.
Then—silence.
The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Lycus crawled out, breathing smoke and fear. Blood dripped from his chin. His fingers touched the side of his temple.
Not just scratches.
A scar.
Deep. Still warm.
[Something cut more than skin. That wasn't glass. That was a mark. A tag. They'll come for it.]
Across the street, a door creaked open.
An old woman peered out, her eyes wide with terror. She made a sign—thumb over heart, fingers splayed like a gear.
The Wardens' sign against anomalies.
She shut the door.
Hard.
Alone.
Lycus stared at his bloody hand, breath ragged.
The whispers had faded—but behind his eyelids, the symbol ϟ remained.
[Can't scrub it out. It's inside now.]
[Why here? Why me?]
[Doesn't matter. Wrong question. The real one's: how do I live with it?]
He stumbled forward.
Toward the northern bridge.
Toward home—if such a word still meant anything.
Halfway there, something made him stop.
High above, atop a half-collapsed tower, a silhouette stood against the bleeding sky. Cloaked in dusk. Still.
Watching.
No face. Only shadow. But around one wrist...
A silver thread.
Lycus's breath caught.
The Architect?
The figure turned.
Vanished.
And only then did Lycus feel it—something clutched in his hand.
Warm. Metallic.
Not his river stone.
A cracked brass gear. Glowing faintly. Warm as a heartbeat.
Etched with one symbol:
ϟ