The Threadless March

The child who called me Mother-Who-Burns moved like smoke through the trees, and we followed because the alternative was admitting I'd already lost control.

Her bare feet found paths that shouldn't exist, leading us deeper into the forest's throat where even rogues feared to hunt. Behind us came the others—I could hear them now, small bodies moving with the silence of those who'd learned that sound meant death. Dozens, the shard whispered. Maybe more.

Your children, it crooned. Come home at last.

"They're not mine," I said aloud, not caring if he thought me mad for arguing with my chest. "I didn't call them."

But hadn't I? In the nights when the silver fire burned too bright, when my dreams bled into the space between worlds, hadn't I reached out for something—someone—who might understand this hollow ache of severing?

The child stopped at what looked like solid stone, then simply walked through it.

Illusion. Old magic. The kind that predated pack law and divine decree. I followed, felt the ward recognize my marks and part like water. Behind me, he cursed softly—he'd had to force his way through, the magic testing him, tasting him, finding him wanting.

The hollow beyond defied geography.

It should have been small—the cliff face allowed no room for vastness. Instead, we stood at the edge of a natural amphitheater carved from living rock, old as the first howl that ever split the night. Phosphorescent moss traced patterns on the walls that hurt to follow, symbols that predated language but spoke directly to the blood.

And there, arranged in perfect crescents like rounds of a broken moon, waited the threadless.

Children. All of them children. The oldest couldn't have seen more than twelve summers, the youngest barely walking. Each bore the mark—my mark, the shard's mark, our mark—glowing faintly in the hollow's strange light. They sat in perfect stillness, faces turned up like flowers following sun.

Watching me.

Waiting.

The silence was a living thing, heavy with expectation I didn't know how to meet. I stood at the threshold, unable to move forward or back, while behind my ribs the shard pulsed its satisfaction.

See how they remember you, it whispered. Even flesh-new, they know their mother.

One of them—a boy with hair white as bone—tilted his head and spoke in a voice like autumn leaves:

"Miralys. You came back."

The name hit like a physical blow. Not because it was wrong, but because it was right in ways that made my teeth ache. Every child nodded at the sound, as if confirming something they'd always known while I was still stumbling toward truth.

"I'm not—" The words caught, tangled with memory-not-memory. "My name is Aria."

"Now," a girl agreed, missing an eye but seeing too much with the one remaining. "But you were Miralys when you taught us the first howl. And Selvanna when you broke the chains. And—"

"Stop." I moved without meaning to, stepping into the hollow proper. The children rippled like water disturbed, maintaining their crescents but orienting toward me with an instinct that transcended individual will. "I don't know those names. Those stories. I'm just—"

What? A rejected Omega? A threadless exile? A girl wearing power she didn't understand?

All true. None of it mattering to these broken children who looked at me like I was salvation wrapped in flesh.

I reached for the nearest—a girl so small her mark covered half her neck. Just to touch, to offer comfort that didn't taste of divinity. But she flinched back. Not from fear. I could smell that wasn't it. She pulled away like a believer afraid that touching their goddess might burn them alive.

Or burn the goddess. Hard to tell which she feared more.

"Please," I whispered. "I'm not what you think. I'm not your mother. I'm not a god."

But even as I spoke, the silver fire stirred beneath my skin. Not threatening—welcoming. Like it recognized them as surely as they recognized me. The marks pulsed in unison, creating a rhythm that sounded like the world's first heartbeat.

You are exactly what they need, the shard hummed. What you've always been, beneath the names and flesh and forgetting.

He stood at the hollow's entrance, unable or unwilling to enter fully. I could feel his presence like a wound, sharp and necessary and slowly bleeding distance between us. He watched me with wolf-eyes, cataloguing the changes, measuring the space where Aria ended and something else began.

The shard noticed too. Heat crawled beneath my ribs like laughter held just too long. He still thinks you're salvageable. Still believes you can be small enough to love.

"Shut up," I breathed, and the children stirred—thinking I meant them. "No, not—I wasn't—"

One of them started copying me.

A boy, maybe seven summers, with burn scars covering half his face. When I gestured, he gestured. When I shifted weight, he shifted. Perfect mimicry, like he was trying to learn how to be by watching how I moved.

It should have been unnerving. It was unnerving. But underneath that, something else bloomed. A warmth that had nothing to do with divine fire. He was trying so hard, tongue poking out in concentration, determined to get it right.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

He blinked, surprised. Looked to the others for guidance, then back to me. "We don't have names. Not anymore. The threads took them when they broke."

Of course. Names were tied to bonds, to the selves they'd been before severing. Without threads, who were they? What were they?

The shard warmed—not in comfort but in hunger. As if it saw a field waiting to be named.

Before I could respond—to it, to them, to the weight of expectation crushing my ribs—one of the children collapsed.

She hit the stone hard, limbs seizing, eyes rolled back to show only white. The others didn't panic. They just watched, like this was expected. Normal. The price of being threadless and small.

I was beside her before thought formed. My hands found her temples, and without meaning to, I let the silver fire creep forward. Not to heal—I'd learned that lesson in blood. Just to see. To understand.

The vision hit like thunder.

An Inquisitor. Ash for armor. Smoke for motion. Where his thread should be, a living brand writhed—not severed but burned away and replaced with something worse. Divine fire turned weapon. Turned leash.

He wasn't alone.

Behind him, shapes in the mist. Not wolves. Not anymore. Things remade into hunters of soul-stuff.

The child gasped back to consciousness, clawing at my arms. "He's not alone," she whispered. "There's something older with him. Something that remembers when the moon had different names."

I held her while she shook.

"Two nights," he said, finally entering. "Maybe less."

Two nights until the Trial Moon. Two nights until these broken children faced things that made their severing seem like mercy.

Unless.

I stood, still cradling the trembling girl. They watched, always watching. Always waiting for something I didn't know how to give.

"Can you run?"

They nodded.

"Can you hide?"

More nods.

"Can you survive?"

Hesitation.

They have you, the shard murmured. If you're brave enough to be had.

"I can't be your mother," I said. "I can't be your goddess. But—"

I thought of him. Of silver fire. Of surviving.

"But I can teach you how to burn without being consumed. How to be threadless without being lost."

The boy with burn scars stood first. Then the girl with one eye. Then the others, rising like a tide.

They didn't kneel.

"What do we call you?" the white-haired boy asked.

I thought of all the names I'd worn.

"Aria," I said. "It's the only name I know is mine."

They tested it. Whispered it. A few murmured "Miralys," and maybe that was true too.

The shard pulsed, pleased.

"Come," I said.

And they came.

Even he followed, the weight of what I was becoming heavy in his steps.

Even if the shard whispered it wouldn't matter in the end.

Even if part of me was starting to believe it.