The hallway smelled of dry stone and old secrets.
Darian Valmorne walked with slow, deliberate steps, the soles of his boots barely making a sound against the faded crimson carpet. No one had set foot in this wing of the manor for years. Most of the servants pretended it didn't exist. Even the Lord of the house—his father—had never once mentioned it since Darian could remember.
And yet, here he was, key in hand, sent to "make himself useful."
It was the day of the Feast of Cinders, a noble celebration in honor of his half-brother's ascension to the Circle of Inheritance. The great hall was no doubt blazing with gold and fire, banners high and wine spilling. Darian had not been invited.
He never was.
The east wing was cold. The shutters remained shut, the chandeliers unlit. Cobwebs stretched like lazy ghosts between beams and corners. Dust layered every surface like time itself had settled here to die.
At the end of the hall stood a door unlike the others—dark oak carved with faded symbols, edges weathered, hinges rusted.
His hand trembled slightly as he fit the key into the lock.
A click.
The door opened with a long, reluctant groan.
Stale air spilled into his face, thick with the scent of parchment, aged wood, and something faintly sweet—like wilted flowers. He stepped inside, eyes adjusting to the gloom.
It was not a grand chamber. Modest, really. A bed, a writing desk, a wardrobe with iron handles. Shelves sagging under the weight of unopened books. And by the far wall, covered in black velvet and dust—
—a mirror.
Darian closed the door behind him and stood still for a long moment.
This had been his mother's room.
He remembered very little of her. She had died when he was six. Or disappeared. Or something else that no one would explain.
The other nobles never spoke of her. The servants avoided her name like it burned.
But sometimes, in his dreams, he would hear a voice humming a song without melody. A thread of sound. A call.
He didn't know why he'd chosen this room. He was told to clear a storage chamber. He had followed instinct—or something quieter than that.
The mirror called to him.
He approached slowly. Dust motes floated around him like pale insects. His breath was the loudest sound in the room.
He reached for the cloth.
Hesitated.
And pulled.
The velvet fell to the floor with a whisper.
The mirror was tall and oval, framed in tarnished silver filigree, its surface dark and uneven, like mercury rippling in place. But it wasn't the mirror that made him freeze.
It was what floated 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 go away.
He stepped closer.
No strings held it. No hooks. No cobwebs or wires. Just… the thread. Hanging. Waiting.
He glanced back at the door. Silence.
Then back at the thread.
It should not have been there.
And yet it was.
He reached out.
Hesitated again.
Why?
There was no reason for the fear rising in his chest. No logic. No sound. Only a tightening in the lungs, a chill at the base of the spine.
His fingers brushed the thread.
And in that moment——a pulse.
Not light.Not sound.Just a single, almost imperceptible pressure—like being noticed.
Darian jerked his hand back.
The thread didn't vanish.
But something in the room felt… different.
The shadows looked the same. The dust remained. But he had the uncanny sensation that he had left something behind, or perhaps picked something up.
He turned away from the mirror. Took a deep breath. Then another.
Nothing had happened.
Nothing he could explain.
He crouched and picked up the velvet cloth. Covered the mirror again. The thread was out of sight, but not out of mind.
He looked around the room once more. On the desk, he found a leather-bound book, cracked and unlabeled. Inside, empty pages. All blank—except the last one.
There, in ink faded to rust, were five words:
"Look closely. Threads are patient."
He stared at the message. No signature. No mark.
He didn't remember learning to read. But somehow, he knew what it said.
He closed the book and left it where it was.
When he stepped out into the corridor, he noticed the air felt heavier. Not darker. Just… thicker. As though the world around him had been rewoven slightly differently, by hands he could not see.
He locked the door behind him and didn't look back.
That night, Darian lay on his cot in the servants' quarter tower, beneath a thin wool blanket, listening to the wind scratch at the windowpanes.
He did not sleep.
His fingers twitched.
Behind his eyelids, shapes shimmered—threads curling in the air, invisible lines connecting shadows to doors, lights to silence.
It was nothing.
It was everything.
The thread had not spoken.It had not moved.It had not burned or bled or 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?"