Threads Unseen

The workshop was quiet.

Not in the comforting way of a place at peace—but in the breathless stillness that came before something unexplainable. Dust hung unmoving in the lanternlight, and every breath Silas took felt like it might disturb something sacred. Or something dangerous.

He set the Veilpiercer amulet down on the worktable.

It didn't look like much. A dull iron loop with a cracked gemstone in its center, threadlike etchings curling around it like veins. But the moment Silas touched it—really touched it—he'd felt something stir behind his eyes.

He wasn't sure what path it belonged to. No priest had announced it. No scholar had recognized it. But when he held it, he felt like the world held still… just a moment longer than it should have.

That was enough.

He'd already decided.

His effigy stood in the corner—stoic, unmoving, still bearing the scars from the spell experiment that had left its limbs scorched and misshapen. He would fix that later. For now, something deeper called him.

Silas drew the necessary circle—nothing elaborate. No soul beasts this time, no ceremony. Just him, the effigy, and the amulet placed gently in the smaller circle between them. He felt for the thread of connection between his soul and the effigy and pulled.

The amulet didn't resist.

It dissolved like ash in water, its pieces unraveling into lines of ink-light and sinking into the effigy's chest.

His vision blurred.

There was no pain this time—just a rush. Like falling, but in every direction at once.

Then, silence.

---

The effect wasn't dramatic. No glow. No rumble. But he knew something had changed.

He approached the effigy. Its face, so close to his own, tilted downward slightly—as if looking past him.

Silas reached out, touched the effigy's chest.

And felt it.

A thread. A faint line. Not physical, not magical in the conventional sense. But there. Stretching between his effigy and something unseen.

He focused on it.

And for a split second—barely a heartbeat—his vision sharpened unnaturally. The workshop bent and swam, and his eye began to burn. But he saw it. A thin silver thread, shining through the air, pointing toward the door as if tracing a decision that hadn't been made yet.

Then blood filled his right eye, and he gasped, staggering back.

He pressed his sleeve to his face, heart racing.

It had worked.

The first ability—the silver thread of a possible fate. It let him glimpse a decision before it fully formed. Not just foresight—trespass.

He sat down hard on the floor, letting the rush fade.

---

Later that night, after resting, he went to the back field where the training stones were still half-buried in dirt.

His eye was still sore. But the other ability—he needed to understand it. To test its limits.

He instructed the effigy to stand before him. Then, after a moment of internal stillness, he muttered, "Steal."

Nothing happened at first. But then his effigy's posture shifted subtly—tense, reactive. Silas picked up a rock and threw it to the side, a feint.

And the effigy didn't flinch.

Instead, it mirrored his intention. Not the movement. Not the action.

Just the thought behind it.

The effigy's hand lifted, mimicking the motion of casting. But no spell followed. He hadn't cast anything.

Then he tried again—this time, forming the first syllables of Ashpiercer Bolt.

Before he finished, the effigy's hand shot forward, a weak but precise flicker of darklight tearing through the nearest training stone.

Silas's eyes widened.

"That wasn't even a full cast…"

It hadn't stolen the spell—it had stolen his intent to cast it. Then mimicked it in an altered form. Weaker. Rough. But real.

His effigy couldn't hold the stolen intent for long. He tested again with a sidestep feint, and the effigy locked up—clearly already storing a previous thread. One at a time, then.

He nodded slowly.

---

By the time he returned home, the sky was still dim as ever. But something in Silas had shifted.

This wasn't just mimicry.

It was adaptation. A new way of thinking about power—one not bound by pure talent or training. One that blurred the line between self and servant, thought and action, fate and defiance.

And for the first time in a long while, Silas smiled.

He was learning to play this world's game.

Not by its rules.

But by his own.