The acrid smell of fever-sweat and desperation greeted Kael as consciousness clawed its way back to him. Dawn light filtered through the cracked window, casting sickly yellow streaks across their cramped apartment.
Lyra's breathing came in shallow, ragged gasps.
'Shit.'
He rolled off his makeshift bedroll, joints protesting after another night spent on the concrete floor. The medical supplies from yesterday's harrowing expedition sat arranged on their rickety table like a shrine to false hope. Antiseptic. Painkillers. Antibiotics that might have been effective a week ago.
Might have been.
Kael pressed the back of his hand against Lyra's forehead. Her skin burned like heated metal, and beneath his touch, he could feel her pulse racing with desperate, stuttering rhythm. The fever had spiked overnight, transforming her already pale complexion into something resembling wet parchment.
"Hey, Lyra." He shook her shoulder gently. "Time for your medicine."
Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes that seemed to stare through him into some distant realm. The irises, once a vibrant green like their mother's, had dulled to the color of stagnant water.
"The golden lights..." she whispered, voice barely audible above her labored breathing. "They're so beautiful, Kael. Like stars falling upward."
'Golden lights. Great. Hallucinations now.'
He helped her sit up, supporting her weight as he pressed two pills into her trembling hand. Water from their dwindling supply followed, most of it dribbling down her chin despite his careful efforts.
Through his thread-sight, the truth revealed itself in all its horrifying clarity. Red threads had multiplied overnight, spreading across her body like infected veins. What had been thin wisps yesterday now pulsed with dark crimson intensity, weaving through her flesh in patterns that made his stomach lurch.
"Where's mama?" Lyra asked suddenly, gripping his wrist with surprising strength. "She said she'd come back before the snow melted."
Kael's throat constricted. Their mother had been dead for three years.
The pills weren't working. Hell, they weren't even slowing it down.
He needed something more than salvaged scraps and expired medicine.
He needed a miracle.
The Lower Market reeked of desperation and rotting vegetables, a perfect match for Kael's mood. He found Mira hunched over a cup of something that barely qualified as tea, dark circles under her eyes suggesting she'd slept about as well as he had.
Which was to say, not at all.
"You look like hell," she said without looking up.
"Charming as always." He slumped into the opposite chair, the rickety thing groaning under his weight. "Any luck with your contacts?"
"Define luck." Mira's fingers drummed against the chipped ceramic. "I asked around about our mysterious healer. Got some... interesting reactions."
They started with the fruit vendor, an old man whose hands shook as he arranged bruised apples. His eyes went wide when Mira mentioned The Weaver.
"Don't know nothing about that," he muttered, suddenly very interested in his inventory. "And neither do you, if you're smart."
The bread seller was more talkative, leaning close with breath that could strip paint. "Heard stories. People go in sick, come out... different. But alive, mostly."
'Mostly. How reassuring.'
Three stalls down, an elderly woman selling wilted flowers grabbed Kael's sleeve with gnarled fingers. "The price isn't always what you think, boy," she whispered, eyes darting nervously. "Sometimes what you pay... it ain't coin."
They moved through the market like ghosts, collecting fragments of information and growing unease. Near the spice merchant's stall, two women huddled in conversation caught their attention.
"...haven't seen Marcus since he went to that healer..."
"Three weeks now. His wife's going mad with worry..."
"But the children who came back, they were cured..."
"Were they? Look at little Sara. She doesn't speak anymore. Just stares..."
Mira nudged him toward a vegetable vendor who seemed more forthcoming than most. The man glanced around nervously before leaning forward.
"You really want to know? Temple district. The old shrine to Aethon, been abandoned for decades." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "That's where they say The Weaver works."
Kael felt the red threads in his vision pulse with sudden intensity.
'Time to pay a visit.'
The checkpoint between the Outer and Middle Rings had always been a formality. A few bored guards, cursory glances at identification, maybe a halfhearted search if you looked particularly suspicious.
Not today.
Kael counted six guards instead of the usual three, their armor polished to an intimidating gleam. Steel barriers funneled the sparse foot traffic into a single inspection line, and every person ahead of them was being thoroughly questioned.
'Well, this is new.'
Captain Torres emerged from the guardhouse, his weathered face set in hard lines. The golden threads surrounding him writhed like angry serpents, more agitated than Kael had ever seen them. Whatever had the captain on edge, it was serious.
"Papers," Torres barked when they reached the front.
Mira produced their documentation with practiced ease, her smile perfectly calibrated between respectful and innocent. "Good morning, Captain. Beautiful day, isn't it?"
Torres ignored the pleasantries, studying their identification with suspicious intensity. "You two were involved in that tunnel incident yesterday. The one near the medical district."
It wasn't a question.
"Terrible business," Mira replied smoothly. "We were just trying to take shelter from the rain when we heard those awful sounds. Thank the gods your men arrived when they did."
'Thank the gods we got out before they arrived,' Kael thought, watching the golden threads pulse erratically around Torres.
"Unusual activity near the barriers lately," Torres continued, his eyes never leaving their faces. "Disappearances. Strange sounds in the night. People going where they shouldn't."
The captain stepped closer, his voice dropping to a growl. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
Mira's expression remained perfectly composed. "Of course not, Captain. We're simple traders, nothing more."
Torres held their gaze for several long seconds before stepping back. "Middle Ring only. Stay in the populated areas, avoid the old districts." He handed back their papers with deliberate slowness. "For your own safety."
As they passed through the checkpoint, Kael felt the weight of Torres' stare boring into his back.
The golden threads were definitely getting brighter.
The tavern reeked of stale ale and desperation, its patrons huddled over drinks that cost more than most Outer Ring families saw in a week. Kael followed Mira through the smoky interior, noting how conversations died as they passed.
'Just another cheerful Middle Ring establishment.'
Mira approached the bar where a grizzled man polished glasses with mechanical precision. His threads showed the dull copper of resignation mixed with something darker... fear?
"Hendricks," she said, sliding coins across the scarred wood. "We need information."
The tavern keeper's eyes flicked to the money, then to the other patrons. "Depends what kind."
"The Weaver."
Hendricks' hand stilled on the glass. Around them, the ambient chatter dropped to whispers.
"That's dangerous talk," he muttered, but the coins disappeared into his apron. "What I hear... the Weaver can cure anything. Any disease, any poison, any curse." His voice dropped further. "But the price ain't gold."
"What then?" Kael asked.
"Years. Years of service." Hendricks resumed polishing with renewed vigor. "People go seeking a cure, come back... different."
A patron at the far end of the bar spoke up, his words slurred with drink. "My brother went. Came back with his lungs clear as mountain air, but..." He gestured vaguely at his own eyes. "Empty. Like looking into a well at midnight."
Another voice chimed in from a corner booth. "Seen 'em working the old districts. Groups of people, moving like they're sleepwalking. All with those hollow eyes."
Kael's blood chilled. The description matched what he'd witnessed in his visions... people drained of their life force, reduced to shells.
'The Weaver isn't just manipulating threads. They're harvesting them.'
"Where?" he pressed. "Where do you find this Weaver?"
The tavern fell silent. Even Hendricks stopped pretending to work.
Finally, the drunk patron leaned forward, his threads pulsing with terror. "Old cathedral district. Where the barriers run thin." He took a shaky sip. "But if you're smart, you'll forget you ever heard that name."
Outside, thunder rumbled ominously.
The cathedral district stretched before them like a graveyard of broken dreams. Crumbling spires pierced the evening sky, their shadows stretching long fingers across rubble-strewn streets. Most of the temples had been abandoned after the Convergence, when the old gods proved powerless against reality's fracturing.
Kael crouched behind a collapsed wall, his enhanced sight scanning the ruins ahead. What he saw made his stomach clench.
Threads. Hundreds of them, weaving through the district in patterns that defied natural law. Black strands thick as rope coiled around shattered columns, while crimson filaments pulsed between the ruins like veins carrying poisoned blood.
'This isn't right. Threads don't behave like this.'
"See anything?" Mira whispered, adjusting her grip on the knife she'd drawn without conscious thought.
"Too much." Kael's voice carried a tremor he couldn't suppress. "The entire area is saturated with manipulated threads. Someone's been very busy here."
Movement caught their attention. Figures emerged from behind a partially collapsed shrine, walking with that same eerie synchronization they'd heard described in the tavern. Five people, moving in perfect unison, their footsteps creating an unsettling rhythm against the broken stone.
Mira pointed to the ground near their feet. Fresh bootprints crossed the dust, leading deeper into the district. Multiple sets, some overlapping... but all heading in the same direction.
Following the trail with his enhanced vision, Kael traced the convergence of threads to their source. At the district's heart stood a massive temple, its dome somehow intact despite the devastation surrounding it. Every thread, every manipulated strand of fate, led directly to its entrance.
"That's where we'll find our Weaver," he murmured.
The synchronized figures disappeared into an alley, their hollow footsteps fading into silence. In the growing darkness, more shapes moved between the ruins.
Mira tugged his sleeve. "We need to go. Plan this properly."
Kael nodded, but couldn't shake the feeling that they were already too late. The threads around the central temple pulsed like a heartbeat...
And something pulsed back.
The rooftop offered a clear view of the city's sprawl, but Kael found himself staring at the golden threads that had begun weaving between him and Mira instead. They sat in comfortable silence, legs dangling over the edge, processing everything they'd witnessed in the ruined district.
"I keep thinking about what The Weaver might want in return," Mira said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. "For Ava's cure, I mean. People like that... they don't do anything for free."
Kael's fingers tightened around the edge of the concrete. 'Tell her. Tell her about your own powers. About what you can really do.'
But the words stuck in his throat like broken glass.
"We'll figure it out," he said instead. "Together."
Mira turned to study his profile. "You're hiding something."
'Everything.' The admission burned behind his teeth, but he forced a casual shrug. "Aren't we all?"
She was quiet for a long moment, then nodded. "Fair enough." Her hand found his shoulder. "But whatever we decide about The Weaver, we investigate first. Together. No rushing into anything stupid."
"Deal."
The golden threads between them brightened, pulsing with shared resolve. Kael had never seen connections form so quickly, so naturally. Usually, the threads he manipulated were cold things, tools of necessity.
These felt... warm.
A sound drifted up from the streets below. Not the usual hum of city life, but something else. Something rhythmic.
Footsteps.
Synchronized footsteps, growing closer.
Mira tensed beside him. "That's not coming from inside the walls."
Kael's enhanced vision swept the darkness beyond the city's perimeter. Shapes moved in the wasteland, dozens of them, all walking with that same eerie unity they'd witnessed in the ruined district.
"They're heading straight for us," he breathed.
The golden threads connecting him to Mira suddenly flared brighter, as if responding to the approaching threat. Whatever was coming had noticed them too.
And it was accelerating.