The beast's ash still clung to the air when silence crushed the settlement.
The crimson thread-lanterns flickered weakly, their glow sputtering like dying embers. The golden nets that the Frayborn had woven lay in tatters across the dirt, unraveling strand by strand until only smoke remained. The only sound was the hiss of shadow motes dispersing into the night.
And Matthew's ragged breathing.
He stood at the center of the wreckage, chest heaving, the jagged spear of black-gold still burning faintly in his palm. His hands trembled. His veins glowed like molten wire, branching across his arms and neck in a lattice of hunger and light. The whispers purred through him, pleased, sated—for now.
When he raised his head, dozens of eyes were on him. Not wide with gratitude. Not burning with awe.
But sharpened with fear.
The Frayborn stepped back as though he carried the beast's corruption inside him, as though he had not slain it but become it. Some clutched children to their chests. Others tightened their grips on woven spears, the threads vibrating with the urge to strike.
Matthew staggered back a step, his hands curling into fists. The spear dissolved into shreds of gold and shadow, scattering into the mist. But the glow in his veins did not fade.
"I—" His voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again, softer. "I didn't mean—"
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Only the Seer did.
From the woven dais at the center of the square, she rose. Her robes, stitched from threads finer than any loom could craft, swayed as if alive. Her eyes caught the lantern light, reflecting it like a deep pool.
"Enough," she said, her voice neither raised nor strained, yet it carried through the night like a ripple.
The Frayborn lowered their weapons, though unease still carved their faces. They obeyed, not out of trust, but out of something heavier—reverence, or fear.
The Seer descended the steps slowly, her gaze fixed on Matthew. Each step she took made his chest constrict tighter, as though her very presence pressed against the filament lodged in him.
She stopped before him, close enough that he could see the faint web of scars at her wrists—burn marks, old but unmistakable. Weaving scars.
"You carry both," she murmured.
Matthew blinked, his breath uneven. "Both?"
"Light and shadow. The Loom's gift and the Hunger's bite. You are a vessel of contradiction." Her hand hovered an inch from his arm, not touching, but the air between them thrummed. "That spear you wove… it should not be possible."
The whispers inside him stirred, their laughter sharp as glass. See how she looks at you. As if you are her doom. As if you are her hope. Both are true.
Matthew clenched his jaw. He wanted to shove them down, to silence them—but the truth was written in the Seer's eyes. She saw what he feared most.
"I didn't have a choice," he said hoarsely. "If I hadn't used it, that thing would've torn through all of you."
"And yet," she said softly, "in saving us, you revealed what you are."
Her words were not accusation, nor praise. Just fact. And somehow, that cut deeper than either.
The crowd began to murmur again. Fear-slick whispers. He's one of them. He'll bring ruin. We should cast him out before it spreads further.
Matthew's chest tightened. The whispers inside him swelled, feeding on the village's fear, echoing it back into him until he could barely breathe.
The Seer raised her hand. Silence fell again.
"Leave us," she commanded.
The Frayborn hesitated, but none disobeyed. Slowly, they dispersed into the shadowed huts, though many glanced back, eyes filled with dread.
Soon only Matthew and the Seer remained in the square. The thread-lanterns buzzed faintly, painting their faces with unsteady crimson light.
The Seer studied him, her expression unreadable.
"You remind me," she said at last, "of the first who bore the Hunger."
Matthew froze. "The first?"
She nodded. "Long ago, before this settlement, before we knew how to weave. A child was born touched by both the Loom and the Shadow. He too carried veins of black-gold. He too was feared."
"What happened to him?" Matthew asked.
The Seer's gaze drifted toward the dark forest, her voice thinning like a frayed thread.
"He chose wrong."
The whispers pulsed hard in Matthew's chest, almost gleeful. See? The ending is already woven. You are not savior—you are repetition.
Matthew's nails bit his palms. "I'm not him."
The Seer's eyes returned to his, piercing. "Then prove it."
---
Matthew didn't sleep.
The hammock swayed beneath him, creaking with each restless turn. Outside, the Frayborn sang their strange songs—low, weaving melodies that sounded like prayers stitched together with mourning. The notes rose and fell like the rhythm of a loom, threads tightening and loosening.
And beneath it, the whispers hummed in perfect harmony, as though mocking him with their imitation.
When he did finally drift, sleep brought no peace.
Mira's face filled the darkness. Pale skin, veins black as ink. Her lips moved, forming words he already knew.
Don't unravel.
But this time her eyes opened, glowing gold and black at once, like molten suns swallowed by tar.
Matthew jerked awake, drenched in sweat, his chest searing. The filament pulsed violently, each beat sending jagged pain through his veins. His hands shook as he pressed them to his sternum, as though he could tear the thing out.
But it was him now.
And it was hungry.
---
The Seer summoned him at dawn.
The settlement was still repairing the broken barriers, weaving new nets across the square. Frayborn avoided his eyes, though their gazes tracked him from the corners of their vision. Mothers pulled children close as he passed.
The Seer waited inside a chamber woven entirely of light-threads. The walls pulsed faintly, alive. She stood at the center, her back straight, hands folded behind her.
"You draw them," she said as he entered. "The beasts. The corruption."
Matthew swallowed. "I know. They… they feel me. The same way I feel them."
The Seer nodded. "Then you are both weapon and beacon. As long as you remain, this place will not know peace."
The words struck like a blade. His throat tightened. "So what? You'll cast me out too?"
Her expression softened—not kind, but not cruel. "If exile was what I desired, I would have let the people decide last night. No. I would see if you can become something else."
"Something else?"
"Threadkeeper."
Matthew frowned. "I don't know what that means."
"You will," she said simply. "If you survive."
The whispers stirred eagerly. Yes. Survive. And in surviving, consume. Become more.
Matthew pressed his fists against his thighs, grounding himself. "And if I don't?"
"Then," the Seer said, her eyes dark as woven shadow, "you will finish what the first began."
---
That night, alone again in the swaying hammock, Matthew stared into the thread-lantern above him. Its crimson light wavered, casting his hands in black and gold. His veins glimmered faintly, the colors shifting with each breath.
He thought of Mira. Of Liora's fury. Of Bren's silence. Of the wolves, the stag, the beast.
And of the Seer's warning.
Threadkeeper.
Or destroyer.
The whispers slithered inside him, their voice sharper now, less a chorus, more a single tone—like someone finding their tongue.
Why fight us? We are not enemy. We are you. Together, we can weave not to mend or defend… but to rule. A loom of endings. A god of unraveling.
Matthew's fists clenched until his knuckles burned. "No," he whispered into the crimson dark. "I'll prove you wrong. I'm not your vessel."
The voice chuckled, low and knowing.
We'll see.
And for the first time, Matthew wondered if the voice wasn't the Hunger at all.
But himself.
Chapter 62(2) – The Threadkeeper Trials
The woven lanterns of the settlement burned low, their threads glowing faintly in the predawn hush. A silence hung over the clearing like breath held too long. The air itself felt expectant, as if the Loom of the world had paused its weaving to see what would happen next.
Matthew stood at the center of the ring of light, bare feet pressed into the cool weave of threadroot mats. His chest still throbbed faintly from last night's battle—the clash with the shadow-beast had left more than bruises. The whispers in his heart had been louder ever since, no longer just murmurs, but fragments of songs, promises, and hungers.
The Seer stepped forward, her staff humming as threads of gold and silver twisted lazily around its head. Her eyes were veiled, but her voice carried across the gathered Frayborn.
"Matthew," she intoned, "you have walked into a path none of us wove for you. The Loom tests you sooner than any threadborn should be tested. You are unclaimed, unanchored, yet the Hunger stirs within you. If you are to remain among us, you must prove your place."
The crowd shifted uneasily, whispers spilling through them like restless wind. Some looked on with curiosity, others with open fear. Children peered out from behind their mothers, clutching their woven charms against evil.
Matthew swallowed. "And if I fail?"
The Seer's lips curved, neither smile nor frown. "Then the Loom decides. Perhaps you unravel. Perhaps you are cast out. Or perhaps… you become something else entirely."
The words offered no comfort.
---
The First Weave
The Seer's staff struck the ground. Threads erupted in a circle around Matthew, weaving upward into a dome of pale light.
"This is the First Trial," she said. "The Trial of Memory. Every Threadkeeper must weave themselves anew—separating what is theirs from what is the Loom's echo. Enter, and face your past. If you falter, the Hunger will claim you."
Matthew's chest pulsed painfully at the word Hunger. The whispers inside him stirred like a tide. He stepped into the dome.
Light folded in on itself. The world blinked.
He was no longer standing in the settlement.
He was home.
---
The village lay before him exactly as he remembered it—the crooked rooftops, the dusty square, the smell of smoke and bread. He could almost hear Lauria's laughter echoing from the well, Ben's voice calling out as he carried a stack of firewood too big for him. For one dizzying moment, relief swelled inside him.
But then he saw Mira.
She stood by the river's edge, her back to him, hair flowing like dark silk. "Matthew," she whispered, though her lips did not move. Her hand lifted—black veins crawling up her arm, pulsing like living worms beneath her skin.
He froze. His throat constricted. "Mira…"
She turned. Her eyes were no longer hers. One glowed molten gold, the other ink-black, a terrible mirror of the spear he had woven in the battle last night.
"Don't unravel," she said, her voice shattering into echoes, multiplied into hundreds of whispers. "Don't unravel."
The whispers in his chest seized on the words. Weave with us. Unravel with us. She is thread. She is hunger. Take her. Take her.
Matthew staggered back. The illusion blurred—the houses sagging, the ground bleeding shadow. Mira stepped forward, her face flickering between kindness and hunger.
His fists clenched. "You're not real."
But I am what you remember, the dream-Mira breathed, reaching toward him. Her fingers elongated, strands of black thread writhing like snakes. If you cast me aside, who are you? Without me, what thread remains?
Pain seared through his chest. He dropped to his knees.
---
The whispers rose louder, pressing against his mind, urging him to surrender, to let them weave through his body. He felt their claws scratch at his heart, tugging at memories, promising power if he just gave in.
But then—another memory flickered.
Ben, standing stubbornly in the village square, declaring that no Fray would ever take his home.
Lauria, clutching her little satchel, whispering she wanted to see the sky one more time.
Mira—not corrupted, not veined—but laughing, bright-eyed, tugging Matthew's hand as they ran through the fields.
His breath steadied. His hands lifted, glowing with threads of gold.
"No," he whispered. "You're mine. The Mira I remember isn't this."
He wove, pulling the threads of memory apart—the true from the false, the gold from the shadow. His fingers sliced the black tendrils snaking from Mira's hand, unraveling them into ash. The image of her flickered, screamed, then dissolved into nothing.
The village collapsed with her, folding in on itself like paper set aflame.
---
Matthew gasped, the dome of light shattering around him. He was back in the settlement, kneeling on the woven mats. Sweat streamed down his face, but his eyes burned steady.
The Seer's voice floated over him. "You have passed the First Trial. You know what is yours and what is not."
The Frayborn murmured among themselves. Some nodded with approval, others still looked unsettled. They had seen his veins flare black-gold again, even in victory.
Matthew exhaled, chest aching. The whispers inside him had quieted—slightly. But not gone. Never gone.
--
The Seer raised her staff again. "Do not grow comfortable. The trials deepen with each weave. Next is the Trial of Burden. You will not only face yourself—you will face what others lay upon you."
The crowd pressed closer. For them, this was spectacle, but also judgment. If he failed, he confirmed their fears. If he succeeded… he became something stranger.
Matthew's jaw tightened. He could feel eyes on him, weighing him, measuring whether he was savior or curse.
He whispered under his breath, so low no one else could hear: "Mira… I'll hold on."
---
Origin Realm Interlude
Far away, in the silence of Kai's inner universe, the scene unfolded across a pool of golden water.
Ema stood with folded arms, her gaze fixed on Matthew. "He has chosen separation. That makes him different from most who touch the Hunger. They usually drown in it."
Kai's lips curved in a thoughtful smirk. "He's weaving gold and black together, even while trying to deny it. Dangerous. It means he isn't rejecting the Hunger… he's shaping it."
"Shaping it is the first step toward becoming it." Ema's voice was low. "Do you intend to let him?"
Kai's golden eyes gleamed. "For now. A blade is sharpest when it doesn't know it's cutting."
---