Dust and Names

"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?"

The thought lingered, hanging in his mind like dust caught in the back of his throat.

Darian lay still in his narrow cot beneath the sloped ceiling of the servants' tower. Thin moonlight pressed against the frostbitten glass of the window above him. Outside, the wind clawed at the shutters like a beggar too long denied.

He hadn't slept.

Not truly.

His body had shut down for an hour or two, but his mind—his mind—remained alight, humming softly in the dark, replaying the image again and again:

The thread. The shimmer. The silence that wasn't.

And that voice inside.

Look closely. Threads are patient.

Had it been in the book? Or in the thread itself? Or a dream, folded seamlessly into memory?

He sat up slowly.

The blanket fell from his shoulders like dry leaves, barely making a sound against the cold-stone floor. The chill bit into his skin, sharp and immediate. But even the physical discomfort felt distant—as though his senses were slightly misaligned, like poorly sewn seams pulling in opposite directions.

Something had changed.

He could feel it.

He dressed in silence. Pulled his collar tight. Wrapped his scarf twice around his neck.

Then, out of instinct—out of something quieter than instinct—he checked his fingers.

Nothing.

No mark. No lingering glow. No sign that he had touched something impossible.

But the sensation had not left him.

His gaze flicked toward the far corner of the room—where an old mirror had once hung, long since shattered.

For a fleeting second, he imagined a thread swaying there, just beyond vision. Just waiting to be seen.

Darian descended the narrow, spiraling stairwell, moving like a specter between stone and candlelight.

The other servants avoided him more than usual.

Perhaps it was the dark circles beneath his eyes. Or the way his movements had grown precise—too quiet, too focused, as though mimicking the invisible lines he could no longer see but could still feel.

He caught glimpses.

Tiny flickers in the corners of rooms. Lines along the edges of objects, shimmering too long before fading.

He said nothing. He wrote nothing. He only watched.

By late afternoon, he was sent to deliver a sealed bottle of Darenthor wine—aged, dust-covered, worth more than most servants earned in a year—to the upper halls. His path took him past the Grand Gallery, where lords and ladies often strolled in idle judgment beneath stained-glass saints.

As he neared a narrow archway, voices leaked from within.

"…And if the boy causes trouble, you know what to do."

A pause.

"You don't have to remind me. His mother was trouble enough. The last thing we need is another dreamwalker."

Darian froze.

Dreamwalker?

Another voice now—softer, clipped, older.

"He's a stain. An echo. He shouldn't even be here."

"And yet here he is," the first voice replied. "Which means someone must be watching."

Footsteps.

Darian slid back, pressing his back against the cold stone just as two noblemen exited. Tall. Robed. Faces he had seen but never been allowed to name.

They did not notice him.

But the word followed him, tightening around his throat.

Dreamwalker.

Spoken with disgust. Spoken with fear.

That evening, he returned to the room.

His mother's chamber.

The door resisted him, as though the wood had swollen with memory.

It groaned as he forced it open.

A breath of must and shadow spilled into his face.

He stepped inside.

The air remained heavy. Charged. Unspoken.

The mirror remained covered.

He did not uncover it.

He did not need to.

Instead, he went to the wardrobe—the one sealed with wax.

His fingers hovered above the sigil imprinted in red.

A spiral. Again.

He pressed gently.

The wax cracked.

The doors opened.

Inside, carefully folded:

Robes of black and silver.

A velvet sash embroidered with patterns so fine they looked like they moved.

Gloves, unstitched at the fingertips.

And beneath them all—

A box.

Wooden. Locked. No key in sight.

He picked it up.

It was too light.

But the weight of what it held pressed into his chest nonetheless.

He returned it to the shelf and stepped back.

Suddenly—a sound behind him.

A breath.

He turned.

Nothing.

But the candle beside him had dimmed.

Just slightly.

And for a moment—just a flicker—he thought he saw a shape in the mirror beneath the cloth.

He did not check.

He backed out slowly.

And shut the door.

This time, the lock clicked on its own.

That night, the dreams came heavier.

Not visions. Not nightmares.

Just a sensation of falling—

Not through space, but through layers of cloth.

Velvet. Silk. Bone. Thought.

Each layer whispering as it passed:

"Unpick. Undo. Unravel."

He woke before dawn, sweating despite the cold.

The air shimmered faintly around him.

He sat up.

Slowly.

And there—on the far wall—

A thread.

Pale. Vertical. Still.

He stared.

It did not vanish.

And then—

It bent.

Just slightly.

Toward him.

He did not breathe.

It bent again.

As though drawn by something inside his ribs.

He stood.

It retreated.

Not vanished—just moved, sliding along the wall until it disappeared behind the bookshelf.

He traced its path.

Found nothing.

But behind the lowest shelfboard, the wood had warped—ever so slightly.

A gap no one would have seen.

He pried it loose.

Inside: a folded slip of parchment, brittle with age.

Five words. Again.

Written in the same hand.

"Follow the ones no one sees."

The day passed in a haze.

Darian saw people, but not faces.

He walked halls, but not destinations.

His world had narrowed to lines. Angles. Threads that weren't there—until they were.

He no longer questioned their appearance.

He only followed.