Chapter 4 - Fractured Threads

Chapter 4: Fractured Threads

The forest around Kareth was deceptively calm. Sunlight filtered through the canopy in broken shafts, tracing light over dirt paths worn by time and quiet footsteps. Birds chirped overhead, indifferent to the unrest festering within the city walls.

Rael stood just beyond the southern gate, staring at the horizon as if it held answers. His coat fluttered in the breeze, hiding the still-healing scar from the shard's rejection. He could still feel the phantom pressure behind his eyes—the weight of too many threads converging, diverging, snapping.

[System Sync: 49%]

[Stabilizer Link: Active]

[ThreadSight Lv.1]

[Echo Rewrite Lv.1]

[Thread Echo Lv.1]

Elira sat on a nearby rock, quiet. Her presence soothed the tension in Rael's chest, as if her proximity wove a thread around his chaotic system and gently held it still.

"You didn't have to come with me," Rael said softly.

"If I left you alone, you'd probably try to talk down a noble assassination plot using metaphors and fate."

A smile tugged at Rael's lips. "I was thinking more... strategic compromise."

She arched an eyebrow. "That got you nearly executed yesterday."

They walked for hours without speaking much more. The silence was companionable—not awkward, but reflective. Rael kept glancing at the glowing threads that looped through trees, tangled in roots, stretching ahead like fate's veins. Each time his gaze lingered too long, he felt the system stir, threads tightening in his mind.

He didn't need a battlefield to feel like he was already fighting.

When they reached the edge of a cliff overlooking Kareth, Rael finally stopped. From here, the spires of the city looked small, distant, almost unreal. Smoke still lingered faintly in the sky.

"There were children in that crowd," Rael said. "Watching as their fathers cheered for blood."

Elira didn't speak immediately. She knelt and picked up a thin white flower, its petals frayed at the edge. "That city taught them what power looks like."

Rael's hand clenched. "Then we need to teach them something else."

She looked at him, expression unreadable. "That's going to cost you. People don't change their gods without a fight."

"Then we fight differently."

Elira turned back toward the path. "Just make sure you don't become one of them trying to win."

Rael said nothing, but the words stuck in him like a splinter. He wasn't sure if he was walking away from something, or toward it.

They arrived at an abandoned watchtower by dusk. It leaned precariously, but the walls still held. Rael had chosen it deliberately—a halfway point between city and wild. It had once been a listening post, he guessed, back when the kingdom still bothered to watch its own borders.

The air smelled of moss and old wood. Birds had nested in the rafters. A broken banner still hung above the fireplace, the emblem worn beyond recognition.

Inside, dust blanketed everything. Cobwebs laced the corners, and the fireplace had long since collapsed inward. But it was shelter. And for now, that was enough.

As they settled in, Elira began preparing a fire. Rael sat near the stone table and opened his system interface again. The display flickered.

[Thread Echo: Active - Caution Advised]

[Stability Margin: Low]

He closed his eyes, slowing his breath. Focusing. Letting Elira's quiet steadiness ripple into him.

[Stabilizer Resonance: +6%]

[System Sync: 50%]

Something shifted.

Not violently, but as if a door had opened a crack.

He saw more threads now. Thinner ones. Emotions, moments, near-decisions. Even Elira's silhouette shimmered with possibilities. Her presence was now a web of shared moments: the time she had silently stood beside him, the day she almost walked away, the night she watched him sleep to be sure he was still breathing.

He let the system breathe with him, not command it. That was the difference.

When he opened his eyes, Elira was watching him.

"It's getting clearer, isn't it?"

Rael nodded. "Too clear sometimes. Like I'm about to see something I'm not ready for."

"That's what it feels like to wake up."

Rael leaned back, letting the warmth of the fire seep into his bones. "How do you stand it? Being awake like this."

"You learn to stop flinching at the truth. Eventually."

They trained over the next few days. Elira drilled him in short, efficient sword forms between system pulses. She corrected his footwork, his breathing, his posture—always precise, always silent unless he asked. Rael, in turn, began testing Thread Echo deliberately—rewinding responses, adjusting his timing, even retesting facial expressions during simulated negotiations.

Each use added strain.

Each success taught him more.

He learned that too much awareness could paralyze him. That not every wrong word could—or should—be reversed. That Echo, even in its minor form, demanded cost.

Some nights, he dreamed of standing in the plaza again—execution blade raised, Thread Echo humming in his ears. But in the dream, no matter what path he chose, someone still screamed.

He never told Elira about the dreams.

But she seemed to know.

One evening, after a particularly long session, she handed him a canteen of water and said, "You're carrying too many ghosts. That's why your threads are twitching."

Rael stared at her. "What do you see when you look at me?"

Elira was quiet for a long time. Then, "Someone trying to hold a broken future together with shaking hands."

He looked away.

But one morning, as he adjusted a strike mid-flow, time stuttered.

[Warning: Sync Fluctuation Detected]

[Thread Echo Integrity: 76%]

His vision blurred. Threads began unspooling wildly. His system buzzed with overlapping timelines, flickering between possibilities he couldn't hold.

Elira caught him before he hit the ground.

"No more today," she whispered, lowering him against the tower wall.

He wanted to protest, but she pressed two fingers against his lips.

"Rest. Just this once."

He nodded.

And for the first time since awakening, he let himself sleep without fear.

Far to the east, in a marble chamber beneath the High Tribunal, a lone figure watched a report flicker across her console.

[Subject 014-B: Thread Divergence Confirmed]

[Unauthorized Echo Signature: Class Undefined]

She narrowed her eyes beneath the silver-trimmed helm.

"So the anomaly survived."

The figure turned, her blade humming faintly as she left the chamber.

"Let the Warden Corps prepare. We will correct this in due time."