I woke to the sound of weaving.
Not the rhythmic click-clack of an ordinary loom, but something deeper — like the shifting of continents, like a thousand taut strings vibrating under an unseen hand. Each note burrowed into my skull until I thought my bones would hum apart.
I opened my eyes.
The world was wrong.
Threads hung everywhere. Thick as ship's ropes, thin as hair, they stretched into an endless darkness in every direction. Some glowed faintly, some shimmered with colors I didn't know existed, and some pulsed like veins carrying light instead of blood.
And I… was tied.
A single black thread wound around my right wrist, leading off into the void. When I tugged at it, it didn't move — but the entire space seemed to notice. Threads shifted, brushing against each other like whispering voices.
"Not yet."
The words weren't spoken aloud. They vibrated through the black thread and straight into my mind. My heartbeat quickened.
"Where am I?" My voice vanished into the dark. No echo.
"The Loom."
It wasn't an answer I understood.
A figure stepped out from behind a curtain of golden threads. At first, I thought it was a woman — tall, robed in strands that shifted color as she moved. But her face was smooth and featureless, like uncut cloth.
She extended one finger, and a dozen thin threads unspooled from it, hovering toward me.
"You have been chosen. Not born. Not made. Chosen."
I tried to step back, but my feet wouldn't obey. The black thread around my wrist tightened.
"What happens if I refuse?"
A long pause. The threads around her shifted, revealing glimpses of faces — countless, blurred, all watching me from behind the strands.
"You already refused. That is why you died."
I froze. Memories surged — rain, cold stone under my palms, the taste of blood, and the crack of something breaking inside my chest. My last breath in another world.
Before I could speak, she touched my forehead with one of her threads.
The Loom collapsed around me.
Light stabbed my eyes. Smells rushed in — woodsmoke, damp wool, the faint tang of dye. I was lying on a rough bed in a small, dimly lit room. Outside the open window, unfamiliar stars glimmered.
And my hands… were not my hands.
The skin was paler, the fingers longer, the nails neatly trimmed. I sat up, heart hammering, and caught sight of a basin of water on the table.
A stranger's face stared back.
Young. Seventeen, maybe. Sharp cheekbones, dark eyes, and a streak of white running through black hair. His — no, my — gaze looked both wary and exhausted.
That's when I saw it: the faint mark around my right wrist. Not a bruise. A thread-thin black ring that didn't break no matter how I rubbed it.
The door creaked open.
A girl, maybe fifteen, peeked in. Her hair was bound in a messy knot, her sleeves rolled to the elbows. She frowned at me. "You're awake."
I swallowed. "Where… is this?"
"East Wall district. The Guild found you in an alley, half-frozen." Her eyes flicked to my wrist, lingered for a moment, then quickly looked away. "You're lucky Master Callen took you in."
"The Guild?" I asked.
She hesitated, then shrugged. "You'll find out soon enough. Breakfast's in ten minutes." And she left.
I sat there for a while, staring at the black ring on my wrist.
The Loom's voice echoed in my head.
"Not yet."
I didn't know what it meant, or why I'd been chosen. But I knew one thing:
This wasn't my first life.
And whoever — or whatever — had rewoven me… wasn't done.