The market's air held a strange comfort to it.
Silas walked between the rows of cluttered stalls, the stone beneath his boots damp from recent mist. Velira trailed beside him with arms tucked behind her back, occasionally pointing at odd trinkets—a copper finger, a half-burned compass, a bottle of humming moss. Cass had darted off already, promising to find a shop that sold candied rootfruit before Silas could stop him.
It had been days since their return from the abandoned city. The festival's warmth still lingered in their memories, but the rhythm of life had resumed. The cathedral remained distant. No new missions. No summons.
And so, Silas found himself here again, standing beneath the same ragged canopy of stitched cloth that had once hidden the amulet.
The vendor was gone.
Just a blank spot now, as if the space had never existed at all.
"You're doing that thing again," Velira said, her voice teasing. "The brooding look. The 'I'm remembering something important and mysterious' expression."
Silas blinked, turning to her. "Am I?"
She raised a brow. "You really think I wouldn't notice after all this time?"
He offered no answer. Instead, his hand brushed his coat pocket, feeling the faint weight of the amulet within. Ever since he'd refined it, it hadn't made a sound—but something about it never let him forget it was there.
A ripple passed through him—an urge.
He stopped walking.
Velira noticed immediately. "What is it?"
Silas didn't answer. His eye was already burning.
He knew it hadn't cooled down enough since the last time. The mark beneath his eye ached—a dull pressure that throbbed like a headache just behind the skin.
But still, he called upon it.
His vision shimmered. The market blurred. Colors shifted into threads—silver, muted, fading. He turned his gaze forward.
One thread shimmered. Pulled taut.
It didn't show danger. It didn't scream catastrophe. But it twitched—as if resisting something. It led him forward… toward a squat shop near the edge of the market, its windows fogged, its display of trinkets unimpressive.
He stared at it for too long.
When he blinked again, the future-thread had relaxed. The vision faded, leaving behind a stabbing pain just beneath his eyebrow. Blood didn't leak this time—but it would, if he kept this up.
Velira had stopped talking. She looked at him, uncertain. "Was it the thread again?"
He nodded faintly.
Cass returned before she could press him. "I swear, I turned the entire market inside out and still couldn't find candied rootfruit. Either it's illegal now or you both owe me a refund."
Silas gave him a distracted smile.
They left the market soon after. Silas never stepped inside that fogged shop. He told himself there was no reason to—not yet.
But the thread had twitched. And the Fate Path never moved without meaning.