The Thread

The hallway smelled of dry stone and old secrets.

Darian Valmorne walked with slow, measured steps, his boots barely making a sound against the faded crimson carpet. No one had set foot in this wing of the manor for years. The servants pretended it didn't exist. Even the Lord of the House—his father—had never spoken of it in Darian's memory.

And yet, here he was.

Key in hand.

Ordered to "make himself useful."

It was the Feast of Cinders, a grand occasion marking his half-brother's ascension to the Circle of Inheritance—a place Darian would never reach. Even now, the great hall was undoubtedly ablaze with gold and fire, banners raised high, goblets overflowing. Nobles toasting victories that had never been his.

Darian had not been invited.

He never was.

The east wing was cold. Older. Forgotten. The walls bore signs of neglect—cracks winding through the stone, ivy creeping through the edges of sealed windows. The chandeliers remained unlit, their iron chains rusted from years of silence.

He exhaled, watching his breath curl in the dim light.

No warmth lingered here.

Time had abandoned this place.

At the end of the corridor stood a door unlike the others—dark oak, carved with faded symbols, edges worn by neglect, hinges rusted.

His hand trembled slightly as he fit the key into the lock.

Click.

The door groaned as it opened, reluctant.

The air inside was dense, thick with parchment, aged wood… and something faintly sweet—like wilted flowers, like the lingering scent of someone long gone.

Darian stepped forward, his pulse steady but slow. His eyes adjusted to the gloom.

The chamber was modest. A bed, untouched for years. A writing desk, its surface layered with dust thick enough to blur the shape of forgotten objects. A wardrobe with iron handles, wax seals still intact, as if someone had locked it against time itself.

And against the far wall, half-hidden in the shadows—a mirror.

Tall. Oval. Its silver filigree tarnished, blackened with age.

He closed the door behind him, letting the silence settle like a second skin.

This had been his mother's room.

He remembered little of her. She had died when he was six.

Or disappeared.

Or something worse.

The other nobles never spoke of her. The servants avoided her name like a wound that refused to close.

But sometimes, in his dreams, he heard humming.

A song without melody.

A thread of sound.

A call.

He did not know why he had chosen this room. He was meant to clear out a storage chamber. But as soon as he had reached the east wing, something had guided him. A pull—not instinct, but something quieter than that.

The mirror called to him.

His feet moved before he could stop them.

He approached slowly. Dust motes drifted around him like pale insects. His breath was too loud in the silence.

He reached for the cloth covering the mirror.

Hesitated.

And pulled.

The velvet slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor with a whisper.

The mirror reflected nothing.

At least, not at first.

The silver was dark, uneven, rippling like mercury caught between states.

But it wasn't the mirror that made him freeze.

It was what hovered in front of it.

A single thread.

Thin. Pale. Suspended in the air, without anchor or weight. It hung vertically, trembling faintly—as though caught in a breeze that did not exist.

Darian blinked.

It did not disappear.

He stepped closer.

Nothing held it. No hooks. No strings. No cobwebs. Just… the thread. Hanging. Waiting.

He glanced back at the door. Silence.

Then back at the thread.

It should not have been there.

Yet it was.

His fingers twitched.

His mind screamed logic. Rationality. It's just dust. Just an old wire. Just a trick of the light.

But the instinct inside him whispered something else.

Look closer.

His hand moved forward.

Stopped.

Why?

There was no reason for the fear coiling in his lungs, for the tension settling in his spine, for the slow realization that he had crossed into something he could not undo.

His fingers brushed the thread.

And in that moment—

A pulse.

Not light. Not sound. Just a single, imperceptible pressure— Like being noticed.

Darian recoiled.

The thread did not vanish.

But something in the room felt… different.

He turned away from the mirror.

Breathed.

Once. Twice.

Nothing had happened.

Nothing he could explain.

He crouched, picked up the velvet cloth.

Covered the mirror again.

The thread was out of sight.

But not out of mind.

His gaze swept the room once more. On the desk, he found a leather-bound book, its spine cracked with age, its pages mostly empty.

Except for the last one.

Five words.

Faded ink, rust-colored.

"Look closely. Threads are patient."

No signature. No mark.

But he knew what it meant.

Even if he did not know why.

He closed the book.

When he stepped back into the corridor, the air felt heavier.

Not darker.

Just… thicker.

As though the world had shifted.

Just slightly.

Just enough to make him wonder if he had left something behind.

Or if something had followed him.

He locked the door behind him.

Did not look back.

That night, Darian lay in his cot in the servants' quarters, the wind scratching at the windowpane.

He did not sleep.

His fingers twitched.

Behind his eyelids, shapes shimmered—threads curling in the air, invisible lines weaving through shadows and silence.

It was nothing.

It was everything.

The thread had not spoken. Had not moved. Had not burned, nor bled, nor howled.

But it had been real.

And now, something in him had shifted.

He would not say it aloud.

He could barely think it.

But deep inside, a truth had taken root:

He had seen something he was never meant to see.

"They think I'm a ghost in this house. A stain. A thread that doesn't belong. But what if I'm the first to notice the seams?"