The first thing Kael learned about fate after exile was that it was everywhere.
It clung to trees. Drifted through dust. Wrapped around animals, people, and insects. Even the wind had threads — thin and translucent, weaving currents together like the sky itself was stitched into place.
And it was loud.
Not in sound, but in pressure. Movement. Meaning. Every thread whispered something. Rage. Hunger. Hope. Grief. Some pulsed gently. Others screamed like wire dragged across bone.
By the time the sun set, Kael was crawling through the underbrush, sweat dripping into his eyes.
Too many. Too fast.
He shut his eyes, but the threads didn't disappear. They burned behind his lids, swaying with every heartbeat.
He finally collapsed in the middle of a grove — silent, untouched. The wind here was still. The threads around him shimmered faintly but didn't twist. They simply existed.
Kael let out a ragged breath and whispered, "Stop."
The world didn't listen.
But something else did.
[Loom Interface Online]
Fatebound Executioner – Access Confirmed
Identity Thread: Kael Varion
Corruption Load: 4%
Anchor Bonds: None
Stability: Nominal
Kael's eyes widened.
The grove darkened. Or perhaps the sky had turned to thread. He saw nothing but a vast black expanse, crisscrossed by glowing lines — fate threads stretching in every direction. At the center, a silver knot: his own soul. It pulsed gently, dimming slightly with each breath.
Floating around him were symbols — shifting like ancient runes etched into silk.
[Soul Weave Parameters]
Empathy: +2
Resolve: +4
Trust: +1
Scheming: 0
Dominance: +1
Mercy: +3
Clarity: +5
Kael reached out instinctively. A second menu unfurled like a scroll woven from light.
[Fragment Ledger]
Active Fragments: 1
Halren Theris – Ruthless Preemption
"Strike before struck. Threats do not wait to bloom."
Effect: +2 Resolve, -2 Empathy
He felt it again — that moment. The ease with which he'd cut Halren's thread. How obvious it had felt. How satisfying.
Kael closed the interface with a thought. The world slowly returned.
He continued walking.
At the edge of a roadside camp, he passed a group of travelers. A woman cradled her coughing daughter by a dying fire.
Kael's gaze flicked toward them. The child's fate thread was fraying. Pale and unraveling at the edges. Death was hours away.
His hand twitched.
Could I cut the sickness? Sever the illness and not the girl?
But the threads were tangled — illness and soul knotted too tightly. One misstep, and he'd kill her instead.
Kael stepped back. The mother didn't even see him.
Neither did the system.
He moved on. By dusk, the road turned to rock and split near a cliffside pass.
Then came the scream.
A caravan was under attack — three raiders with rusted axes and crude leather, dragging a merchant from his cart.
Kael saw it in slow motion.
The bandit's thread: bright red, vibrating with greed.
The merchant's thread: quivering, moments from snapping.
Kael raised a hand.
Cut.
The bandit fell mid-charge. No wound. No cry. Just stillness.
[Fate Severed: Unnamed Raider – Thread of Blood Greed]
Fragment Acquired: Urgent Violence
Effect: +1 Dominance, +1 Scheming
Corruption Load: 7%
"The urge to act before the wound begins. The need to strike first, always."
Fragment Ledger Updated.
Kael's breathing shifted.
Shallow. Tight.
Another raider turned toward him. Kael didn't move. He simply stared — and the man dropped his weapon and fled.
The merchant crawled away without a word.
Later, Kael found an abandoned roadside shack and locked the door behind him. It was falling apart. The roof leaked.
But it was quiet.
He opened the Loom Interface again.
[Soul Weave Parameters Updated]
Empathy: +1
Resolve: +4
Trust: +1
Scheming: +1
Dominance: +2
Mercy: +3
Clarity: +5
He felt the change. Not dramatic. Just… pressure. A pull toward motion. Toward action. A hunger to cut.
No warnings.
No guidance.
Just numbers and threads.
He stared at his hands.
Are they still mine?
And then, through the windowless gap in the wall, he saw it: a space on the horizon with no threads at all. A hole in the weave. Quiet. Still.
Kael had no idea what it meant.
But something inside him moved.
He stood. And walked toward it.