Chapter Four: A Frayed Thread
776 Words
Lira didn’t stop walking until the market square had disappeared behind her.
She crossed the narrow stone bridge that led toward the eastern gardens, the cool breeze carrying the scent of lavender and damp earth. Normally, this path calmed her. Today, every step only made her thoughts louder.
“We’ve met before.”
The stranger’s voice refused to leave her mind.
“No,” she whispered to herself.
She had never seen him.
She would remember a face like his.
Wouldn’t she?
Her fingers unconsciously brushed the center of her chest, where the strange ache from her dreams still lingered.
No.
It wasn’t him she remembered.
It was the feeling.
She had felt it beneath the Seventh Moon.
The same warmth.
The same longing.
The same unbearable sadness.
Lira closed her eyes for only a moment.
When she opened them again, the Threads had changed.
A thin silver strand stretched across the garden path.
She frowned.
That wasn’t unusual.
But another appeared.
Then another.
Within seconds, dozens of Threads floated through the air, weaving together like ribbons caught in an invisible current.
They weren’t attached to anyone.
Lira’s heartbeat quickened.
Impossible.
Threads only existed between living souls.
They did not wander.
They did not move on their own.
She reached toward the nearest strand.
The instant her fingers touched it—
A voice echoed inside her mind.
“Find him.”
Lira jerked her hand away.
The Thread vanished.
Silence returned.
Her breathing became shallow.
“No…”
She looked around.
The garden was empty.
Only birdsong answered her.
Had she imagined it?
She had touched countless broken Threads before.
Never—not once—had one spoken.
A chill crept across her skin.
Something was changing.
Something old.
Something that frightened even the Threads themselves.
⸻
“Lira.”
The familiar voice made her jump.
She turned to find an elderly woman balancing a basket overflowing with herbs.
“Mara.”
Relief washed over her.
If there was anyone in Ardent Hollow who knew when Lira was hiding something, it was Mara.
The old herbalist smiled knowingly.
“You’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’ve seen a traveler.”
“Sometimes they’re the same thing.”
Lira couldn’t help laughing.
“You always answer questions with riddles.”
“And yet you always understand them.”
Mara continued walking, expecting Lira to follow.
She did.
They wandered between rows of lavender and moon lilies in comfortable silence.
Finally, Mara spoke.
“Tell me.”
Lira hesitated.
“There was a man in the square.”
“The dark-haired one?”
“You saw him?”
“I saw everyone looking at him.”
Lira stopped walking.
“No…”
“No one was looking at him.”
“They were looking around him.”
Mara nodded slowly.
“Exactly.”
Lira stared.
“What do you mean?”
“The horses grew restless.”
“The birds stopped singing.”
“Even old Brannon burned three loaves of bread.”
Lira blinked.
Brannon had never burned bread.
Not once.
“The village noticed something,” Mara said softly.
“They simply don’t know what.”
Lira swallowed.
She debated telling Mara everything.
About the missing Thread.
About the dream.
About the voice she had just heard.
Instead she asked the question that frightened her most.
“Have you ever heard of someone… without a Thread?”
Mara’s smile disappeared.
The color drained from her face.
For the first time since Lira had known her, the old woman looked genuinely afraid.
“Who did you see?”
The words came barely above a whisper.
Lira’s silence was answer enough.
Mara gripped the basket so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“Come.”
“Where?”
“The archives.”
Lira frowned.
“I thought they were sealed.”
“They are.”
Mara looked toward the mountains rising beyond the village.
“So why are we going there?”
The old woman met her eyes.
“Because if what you saw is real…”
She paused.
“…then the stories I prayed were only myths have finally come back.”
A distant rumble rolled beneath the earth.
Not thunder.
The ground itself.
Both women froze.
Far away, somewhere beneath the mountains surrounding Ardent Hollow, a single flock of black birds burst into the sky.
Then, just as suddenly…
The trembling stopped.
Lira looked toward the horizon.
For the first time in her life, she noticed something she had somehow never seen before.
High above the mountains—
Faint enough to disappear if she blinked—
A seventh moon hung silently in the daylight sky.
Watching.
Waiting.
- Writer
