Sunspire woke slowly that morning, as if the whole continent had slept with one eye open. Wenrel felt it the moment he stepped onto the eastern terraces — the threads were firmer today, tighter, like a drum stretched a little too far. Not dangerous, not yet, but tense in a way that made his breath shorten.
Elaris joined him without a word. She didn't need one. The air already said enough.
"You feel it too," Wenrel murmured.
"Everyone with sense feels it," she replied. "The Court sent watchers to the lower bridges before dawn. They're spooked."
She paused, then added, "And Tavren's been awake since last night. Jumpy. Hearing echoes where there shouldn't be any."
Wenrel knelt beside the railing. The stone hummed lightly beneath his palm, threads running through it like veins. He pushed his awareness deeper, far enough to skim the distant layers where the weaker disturbances usually lived. But today… nothing felt weak. Everything throbbed with purpose, like Sunspire was inhaling for the first time.
"Something's trying to set a new rhythm," Wenrel said. "Not Kael alone. This feels… bigger."
Elaris didn't disagree. That said plenty.
They headed toward the western market, where the morning crowd moved strangely — quieter, eyes shifting, steps lighter than usual. People weren't nervous; they were listening. Not to sounds, but to pressures in the air they couldn't name.
Tavren sprinted toward them from the upper walkway, chest heaving. "You need to see this."
He led them into the granary district, where a single warehouse door stood open. Inside, the dust hung still, suspended mid-air. Not frozen, not illusions — real dust caught in an unnatural pause.
Wenrel stepped in slowly. His voice dropped to a whisper. "This isn't Kael's work."
"No," Elaris said. "It's too clean. Too exact."
At the center of the room, the dust formed a gentle spiral, suspended as though someone had blown on it and hit pause. Wenrel reached toward it, not to touch, but to feel. The threads here were cold. Too cold. Not dead, not severed — untouched by human hands.
Then they shifted. Only slightly. Barely enough to notice. But they shifted toward Wenrel, like the spiral had recognized him.
Tavren took a step back. "Wenrel… what's happening?"
"Something's watching the threads," Wenrel said. "Not pulling them. Not twisting them. Just watching."
Elaris frowned. "An Observer?"
"No." Wenrel swallowed hard. "Something older."
The dust spiral collapsed all at once, falling straight to the ground without drifting — every particle landing at the same moment, as if gravity had blinked and reset.
Wenrel steadied himself on a crate. His chest tightened with a strange pressure he'd never felt before.
Elaris touched his shoulder. "What did you sense?"
He searched for the right words, but the truth was uncomfortable.
"It wasn't directed at the city," Wenrel said. "It was directed at me."
Tavren paled. "Why you?"
"I don't know. But it's been watching longer than Kael. Maybe longer than the Court."
The warehouse creaked, a soft groan that made all three of them look up. Not because they feared collapse — but because the sound echoed with a faint, unfamiliar resonance. It wasn't from the structure. It came from the threads themselves, vibrating through them like a low note on a distant instrument.
Elaris spoke first. Quietly. "Wenrel… that wasn't Sunspire's rhythm."
"No," he said. "It wasn't."
The three of them stepped back into daylight, and Sunspire felt different — not darker, not brighter, just shifted a fraction to the side, as if the world had been nudged an inch and was pretending nothing had changed.
People went about their morning unaware that anything had happened. But Wenrel felt the subtle drag in the air, the way a faint echo still clung to the threads.
Something had arrived. Something that didn't twist, or manipulate, or disturb.
Something that simply watched.
And for the first time, Wenrel realized Kael Veyn might not be the most dangerous mind studying the threads.