Chapter 19: ThreadFang
The temple stones shook with the sound of Rook's cry, not a pup's yelp anymore but a ripping howl that tore through Elias's chest and rattled the air like a horn of war.
Rook staggered in the firelight, silver glow leaking from his veins in jagged streaks. His paws scraped against the flagstones, claws carving shallow furrows where none should have held. His body convulsed as if something inside was pulling his bones apart and stitching them back together with fire.
"Saints preserve us" Tamsin's voice cut short when she caught Elias's glare.
"Don't touch him," Elias snapped, forcing himself up despite the ache in his ribs. His body screamed for stillness, but he couldn't sit there while Rook writhed. "He'll fight through it."
The cub, no, not a cub anymore, hit the ground hard, breath coming in broken snarls. His fur split with light, each hairline crack glowing white hot before sealing over with thicker, darker strands. Muscle surged along his shoulders, his frame stretching, broadening, until Elias realized with a hard swallow that Rook already stood eye to eye with him when on all fours.
Elvi had half raised her bow but forced it down with trembling fingers. "That's no natural beast."
"No," Lysera agreed quietly, her eyes sharp, studying every fracture of light. "But he isn't wrong. He's… becoming."
Hale tightened his grip on his spear, jaw iron, but he didn't move forward either. Even the old soldier knew some battles weren't his to fight.
Elias's Resonance Sense hammered with every pulse of Rook's change. It was like standing too close to a collapsing wall, yet the collapse didn't crush, it built. Threads wove through Rook's body in jagged patterns, snapping and rejoining, reforging bone and sinew. Elias felt the pitch of it like a war drum in his skull.
"Easy, boy," Elias murmured, voice hoarse, though he doubted Rook could hear him through the roar of his own blood. Still, he pressed the words out. "You're not alone. You hear me? You're not alone."
The glow climbed Rook's spine like a second skeleton. His frame shuddered once, twice, then slammed outward with a shockwave that scattered embers from the fire. Noll threw up his arms against the blast, and Thorek only laughed, wild and delighted.
"By the Forge, he's forging himself!" the dwarf bellowed. "Look at him, lad! That's no pup anymore!"
When the light finally settled, the wolf stood tall, no longer small enough to tuck against Elias's chest, but broad and sleek, the size of a full, grown hound. His fur gleamed dark as coal but shot through with faint silver streaks that pulsed like veins of ore under a lantern. His eyes… Elias's breath caught. They were no longer merely bright, they burned silver, intelligent and feral all at once, the gaze of a predator who had learned to walk with men.
Rook's chest rose and fell with steady power. He flexed his claws against the stone, testing them, then lifted his head and loosed a howl that rattled the rafters. Not a cry of pain this time, but a declaration.
ThreadFang. Elias didn't know the name, but it sang in his bones all the same.
No one spoke for a long breath.
Noll broke first, whispering, "He's… beautiful."
Elvi shot him a look, somewhere between scorn and awe. "Beautiful? That's a beast built for killing."
"Both," Lysera said, voice unreadable. Her eyes lingered not on the wolf, but on Elias, as if the man and the beast were one thread now, woven together too tightly to be undone.
Rook padded forward, steady now, his paws whispering against the stone. He stopped in front of Elias, pressed his massive head against Elias's shoulder, and rumbled low in his chest. The vibration rolled through Elias's bones, grounding him. For the first time since the fire, Elias felt something close to steady.
"Good boy," Elias muttered, fingers digging into the thick new ruff of fur at Rook's neck. He swallowed hard, chest burning, but not from pain this time. "Damn good boy."
Rook's tail thumped once against the stone, slow and deliberate.
Behind him, Hale finally exhaled, long and heavy. "That bond of yours," he said, "the Church would call it heresy before they bothered with a trial."
"Then they can choke on it," Elias growled.
Thorek laughed again, the sound echoing off the broken arches. "Spoken like a true mad bastard! By the Forge, soldier, you've got a wolf the size of a forge hammer at your heel now. That's worth a hundred sermons."
Lysera didn't laugh. She only studied Rook and Elias, her pale eyes sharp as blades. "You should remember what power costs. Neither beast nor man climbs without burning something behind them."
"Yeah, well," Elias muttered, ruffling the wolf's ears, "we've already burned."
The fire hissed in the silence that followed, as if agreeing.
Rook's breathing slowed to a steady furnace rhythm, heat rolling off him in waves, the glow in his fur easing to faint silver seams, Elias kept a hand buried in the thick ruff until the last tremor passed, then he stood and the room tilted for a heartbeat and settled again, not from weakness, from… alignment, the hum inside him that used to buck like a bad engine now running smoother, tighter, like someone tightened all the bolts he didn't know were loose
Lysera watched him with that blade bright focus, then lifted her hand, threads whispering into a thin veil between two shattered pillars, "Show me," she said, "no brute force, no panic, just what you feel,"
Elias stepped up, spear low, and for the first time the veil didn't look like fogged glass to him, it sounded, a thin off key ring along one edge, a seam where the note wavered, he angled the spear not at the center but at that wavering line, built the lever again in his palms, but added a breath of torsion down the shaft like winding a spring, then released, the point kissed the seam and the veil rippled outward in a clean circle instead of shattering or bouncing, Lysera's brows flicked, just a fraction, which for her was a drumroll
"Again," she said, and wove a second bar, heavier
He rolled his shoulders, the familiar ache didn't spike, it smoldered, manageable, he set his back foot, counted half a beat, and drove, not harder, smarter, impulse over time, let the push stretch a blink longer so the peak force stayed under the fracture point, the spearhead rode the resonance the way a skater rides the thin of ice, the veil bowed and held, then released with a sigh
Lysera lowered her palm, eyes on his hands, "Your pulse isn't buckling anymore," she said, not praise, a finding, "his change steadied you," her glance cut to Rook, then back, "there is a line between you, I can feel it"
"Feels like one," Elias said, flexing his fingers, "used to be I pushed and the Loom shoved back, now it pushes with me, if I ask it right,"
Thorek tromped closer, grin big enough to be a third fire, "If you're done flirting with the air, soldier, hit something that swings back," he dropped his hammer head on into both palms and rolled his neck, "I promise to complain loudly if you break me,"
"Get in line," Tamsin muttered, though her mouth had the shadow of a smile as she looped a strip of linen back into her kit
Hale planted his spear and nodded once, "Drills, then rest," he said, "Lysera, give him angles,"
They moved through a simple sequence, but it felt different now, clean, Elias could feel more than bodies, he could feel the temple's quiet song, the way the old stones held the air like cupped hands, how the arches seemed to lean their weight into the ground and the threads followed those curves, his sense stretched a little further too, not far, but enough that he could call a shift before he saw it, "Elvi, two paces left," he warned without thinking, and before she asked why, a loose pebble slid and a hairline crack in the floor gave under a boot that would've been hers, Hale's instead, who grunted and recovered without losing his line
"Show off," Elvi said under her breath, but there was no bite in it
Rook padded a lazy circle around them, head high, tail level, every few breaths his ears twitched at things Elias couldn't see but could feel, faint eddies of resonance where wind dragged through broken rafters, where the fire's heat made the threads swim like summer air over asphalt, he cataloged them without trying, terrain under a different light
They reset, Lysera flicked another veil, this one cross grained, trickier, and Elias tried something he'd only done by accident before, he breathed a small pulse into Hale's stance, a nudge to the ankles, and the captain's weight slid half an inch to the place where the floor would give him best purchase, then Elias fed the tiniest beat into Noll's ward just as the boy shaped it, smoothing the wobble before it became a shiver
Hale didn't look back, but he said, "Again," in a tone that meant keep doing that,
Noll blinked at his own steady shield like it had told him a joke, "I… felt that," he said, "like a hand under my elbow,"
"Good," Elias said, "that's the point,"
Lysera tossed him a look that said you said you couldn't teach, but she didn't say it out loud, maybe because she could see he wasn't teaching in the way she meant, he was just… keeping time
Thorek, never content to be ignored, swung the hammer in a short arc toward Elias's shoulder, lazy speed that would still bruise like hell, Elias didn't think, he laced a thin weave across his deltoid like a strap, a torsion brace to catch load, not stop it, the hammer kissed and slid, the shove traveled through and out his hips instead of snapping his joint, Thorek's eyebrows climbed, "Hah," he barked, "you figured out how to wear your own armor on the inside,"
"Something like that," Elias said, rolling the shoulder, the ache there was warm and even, not the hot sting of damage, his breath came easy, not the ragged scrape he'd learned to hate these last days, the backlash hadn't vanished, it had found a groove
Elvi swiped sweat from her brow with the back of a wrist, and with Rook looming at Elias's side she shot a grin over, "Careful, Hale, between the hammer goblin and the wolf, we're going to lose sight of our fearless leader entirely,"
Thorek snorted and elbowed Elias, " Hey shortstack, your dog's outgrowing you,"
Elias rubbed a hand down his face, deadpan, "Keep it up, short jokes are the height of comedy."
Noll choked on a laugh, Elvi actually snorted, and even Lysera's mouth twitched before she smoothed it into its usual line
"Enough," Hale said, but his voice had the rare warmth of a man allowed to enjoy his unit breathing, "again from the top,"
They ran the pattern until the fire popped low, until sweat ran and Tamsin clicked her tongue and shoved a cup into Elias's hand, "Drink before you fall over," she said, "your heart's beating sane for once, don't bully it," he sipped, the mint bitter water grounding, Rook nudged his knee as if to say good boy, and it should've been ridiculous but Elias felt the knot in his chest loosen anyway
"Name it," Lysera said suddenly, quiet and precise, "what you feel,"
He closed his eyes because it made the world louder, "Range," he said, "out to ten, maybe fifteen paces, like standing in a dark room and knowing where the furniture is without stubbing your toes, the fog carries threads here, they pull and push, the temple's different, steadier, the stones… hold the song, and your veils have seams, I can't see them but I can hear where one note goes sour," he opened his eyes, "and I can push a breath into someone else without tipping myself over,"
She nodded, filing it, "Environmental awareness, incipient weak point perception, and distributed pulse," she said, "small steps, but clean ones," then, almost an afterthought, "you're through your first gate, outsider,"
Noll's head snapped up, "His first"
"Adept," Lysera supplied, eyes still on Elias, "barely, but yes,"
Elias let out a breath he hadn't meant to hold, not elation, more like relief that the floor wouldn't shift every time he took a step, "Feels like getting boots that fit," he said, "not magic fireworks,"
"Fireworks," Thorek repeated, delighted, "tell me more of these fireworks,"
"Later," Hale cut in, though his mouth quirked, "for now, drills are done," he looked at Elias, measuring, "you'll hold at Adept if you don't get cocky, don't tug when a nudge will do,"
"Copy," Elias said automatically, then grimaced, "Old habit, means 'heard and understood,'"
"We'll train him not to talk like a barracks parrot," Elvi said, deadpan, and for a moment the temple felt almost like a barracks, a good one, the kind you miss after you leave because the cots were terrible and the coffee was worse but the people made you forget both
Elias smirked faintly, though a pang caught him off guard. Hell, even the worst barracks brew was better than nothing, and this world didn't have coffee at all. He missed it more than he'd admit out loud.
Rook moved then, a smooth unfurl, and padded to the doorway, ears pricked to the forest like he'd heard a question and was deciding whether to answer, the fog outside breathed its slow lung again, but Elias could hear the way it flowed along the temple threshold and didn't cross, as if the old place's threads told it not here, he didn't know how to name that yet, only that it felt like shelter
He went to the doorway and stood beside the wolf, shoulder to shoulder, the new height putting Rook's head near his chest, "Hell," he said softly, "you're going to make me look even shorter," Rook flicked an ear back, possibly offended, possibly amused
Lysera joined them, gaze on the dark line of trees, "Thornveil is quieter tonight," she said, "not safe, never that, but respectful,"
"Is that what we call it when everything with teeth decides to try us tomorrow instead," Elias said, but without real heat
"Call it a lull," Hale said behind them, settling onto a broken step with the relief of a man who'd earned the sit, "we use it,"
They did, in small ways, Thorek clanged at his makeshift forge until Tamsin threatened to deafen him with his own tongs, Elvi stripped and resealed fletchings with the care of a surgeon, Noll ran his ward until his hands stopped shaking and started shaping on command, Lysera rewove the temple's entrance veil to sit thinner but stronger across the arch, and Elias walked the perimeter with Rook, every dozen paces stopping to breathe and listen
The world answered differently now, not louder, just clearer, he could sense where the wind caught in a cracked frieze and made a tiny eddy of thread, where a stretch of floor would sag under weight because the resonance there felt tired, where Lysera's new veil sang a cleaner note than the last, and where the fog tugged at the forest line like a child testing a fence, and under it all, the temple's bones humming, old and stubborn, like men who refused to move their camp because the ground had held this long and would hold a little longer yet
When he circled back, Hale rose and gave him the kind of nod that meant we start earlier tomorrow, which in Hale language was affection, Tamsin gave Rook a look that said no bleeding on my linens, which in Tamsin language was also affection, Elvi yawned and hid it badly, Thorek winked like a man already designing three new disasters he'd call inventions, Noll hovered until Elias clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Good work, kid," and Lysera, passing close, said without looking at him, "Don't mistake steadier for safe,"
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said, and meant it
They doused half the fire and left the coals banked, the night pressed close, Rook settled across the doorway like a living bar, Elias laid his bedroll with the spear within reach and the ache in his body a background hum he could live with, he let his eyes close to the temple's low song, and just before sleep took him he thought, not to any god he trusted, but to the shape of the promise he felt forming, if we're climbing, we climb together, and somewhere in the dark Rook's tail thumped once, as if to say copy
The fire burned low, nothing left but red coals and the slow crack of wood giving up its last heat. Rook sprawled near the doorway, his chest rising with the measured breath of something that had burned itself clean and come out stronger. Every so often his silver lined fur flickered faintly in the dark, like embers hidden under ash.
Elias sat with his back to the temple wall, spear across his lap. His Resonance Sense thrummed steady now, not a wild tide but a rhythm that kept time with his pulse. He could feel the others in the room in ways he hadn't before, Hale's heartbeat, firm and controlled, Lysera's cool thread weave laced through the doorway veil, Thorek's hammer still humming faintly from where he'd dropped it beside his bedroll.
It wasn't sight or sound. It was awareness.
He muttered to himself, "Damn. World feels louder when it's not trying to kill you."
"Don't get used to it," Lysera said softly. She hadn't moved from her place across the fire. Her arms rested loose, but her eyes were sharp, reflecting the coals. "The Loom rarely sings gentle."
"Yeah, I noticed," Elias said. He leaned his head back against the stone and exhaled, the sound rough but steady. "But for once it's not throwing me into a wall."
Later, when most of the others drifted into sleep, Elias found himself awake, restless. The temple hummed low, steady, like a lullaby he couldn't quite trust. He rose, careful not to wake Rook, and stepped out into the fog choked courtyard.
The air outside was sharp, carrying the damp tang of Thornveil. The forest loomed beyond, its crooked silhouettes lost in mist. For a long while Elias just stood there, breathing. His Resonance Sense stretched, tentative. The fog wasn't empty. It pulsed faintly, a thousand tiny threads shifting and tugging in the night breeze. He could almost map the currents of air, the way the mist wrapped around stone, the subtle absence of movement where predators might wait.
He frowned. "Hell. I can hear the weather now."
"You're not wrong." Lysera's voice came quiet from behind him. She hadn't slept either. She stepped up beside him, cloak drawn close, her pale hair catching what little light there was. "That sense of yours is sharpening faster than it should."
"Blame him." Elias nodded toward the doorway, where Rook's silver glow still pulsed faintly. "Whatever he did, it steadied me."
Lysera tilted her head. "That bond is… dangerous. Not because it weakens you, but because it might tempt you. The Loom gives no gift without weight."
Elias barked a soft laugh without humor. "Story of my life. Every good thing's got a price tag stapled to it."
She didn't answer right away. Her gaze was fixed on the fog, distant. When she finally spoke, her voice carried an edge. "I've seen bonds turn men into tyrants. They convince themselves they are chosen, that every cruelty is justified because the Loom 'blessed' them. If the Church saw you now, they would parade you as proof of their dogma, before burning you when you failed to kneel."
Elias looked at her sidelong. "That sounds like experience talking."
Her lips tightened, but she gave no answer.
The silence stretched, filled with the soft breathing of the forest. And in that silence Elias felt it, something watching. Not a beast. Not human. A presence, faint, vast, like a ripple that didn't belong to this pool. His pulse quickened.
"You feel that?" he asked, voice low.
Lysera's head tilted, her eyes narrowing into the fog. She hesitated, then nodded once. "The forest has eyes. Older than us."
Elias swallowed, throat dry. It wasn't Threadbeasts. It wasn't the Church. It was… other. And whatever it was, it didn't strike, only observed, patient.
Rook stirred inside, a low growl rumbling from the doorway, ears flat but not lunging forward. A warning, not a challenge.
Elias exhaled slowly. "Guess we're not as alone as we thought."
"No one ever is," Lysera said. "Not in Thornveil."
Morning broke thin and gray. The fog didn't lift, only turned pale, and the temple's broken arches caught the weak light like bones against the sky.
Hale woke them with the discipline of a man who'd lived half his life in camps. "Up," he barked, voice gravel and steel. "Form up. Drills before food."
Groans answered him, but they rose. Elvi strung her bow with the resignation of someone who would never beat Hale's stubbornness. Thorek stretched his arms, joints cracking, then stomped toward his half built forge with a mutter about bellows. Tamsin shoved bread into hands whether they wanted it or not.
Elias rolled his shoulders, testing the ache. His body hummed like an engine warming instead of grinding. He wasn't whole, not yet, but the pulse was steady.
Rook padded at his side, taller, heavier, his presence impossible to ignore. When the wolf stretched, the squad all watched, as if still reminding themselves he was on their side.
"Still him," Elias said, scratching behind one ear. Rook leaned into it with a pleased rumble, which didn't help Elias's case.
Noll grinned despite himself. "He looks like a story. Like the kind the old folk told us to make us behave."
"Behave?" Thorek snorted, hammer in hand. "Looks like the kind that makes folk piss themselves."
Elias smirked. "Maybe both."
They drilled in the courtyard, Lysera weaving veils and wards, Hale calling cadence, Elvi loosing practice shots, Thorek swinging his hammer like every strike was a declaration. Noll's ward finally held steadier, his trembling settling into something closer to rhythm.
And Elias… Elias found the Loom moving with him, not against him. When he braced his spear, he could feel the lines of stress through the shaft, the angle where a thrust would slip instead of pierce. When he pushed a pulse into Noll's ward, it steadied cleanly, no backlash.
Hale noticed, of course. "You're keeping time for us," the captain said after one pass. "Didn't even know I was shifting my footing until you pushed it."
"Not me," Elias said. "The hum. I just… nudge it."
"That nudge," Hale said, "will keep us alive."
Elvi, wiping sweat from her brow, muttered, "Or get us all accused of heresy."
Lysera's eyes flicked toward Elias, unreadable. "Both can be true."
That night, after drills and a meager meal, they gathered by the fire again. The temple hummed low, steady, the fog pressing just beyond the veil Lysera had shaped at the doorway.
Elias sat with Rook beside him, the wolf's fur warm against his arm. He looked around the circle, Hale's scarred face lit by flame, Elvi cleaning her bowstring, Thorek sketching some mad design in soot with his thick fingers, Noll trying and failing not to fall asleep mid-bite, Tamsin humming under her breath as she packed herbs. Lysera, still and sharp eyed, staring into the flames like they were another puzzle.
For the first time since he'd woken in this world, Elias realized he wasn't just surviving anymore. He was part of something.
He cleared his throat. "Back home, they used to say… when a man climbs, he climbs on the shoulders of others. Alone, you fall faster. Together, you reach further." He looked down at Rook, who blinked back with silver eyes. "Guess I'm learning that here too."
No one answered right away, but the silence wasn't empty. It was agreement, unspoken.
The fire cracked, and somewhere deep in Thornveil, a howl rose, low, distant, too measured to be random. Not prey, not hunger. A call.
Rook lifted his head, ears pricked, but didn't rise. Elias felt it too, that steady note thrumming in the threads, carrying across the fog. A reminder. They were not alone. And the eyes in Thornveil had not looked away.
He rested a hand on Rook's neck, fingers brushing the glowing seam of fur. "Let them watch," he whispered. "We're not breaking."
The wolf's tail thumped once against the stone.
And the temple hummed on, old and stubborn, keeping its own silent watch.