The stars had faded.
Aiden sat beneath the Vale's quiet sky, the black thread still dancing between his fingers — no longer resisting, no longer hiding.
Then Lyra stepped beside him.
She didn't speak at first. Just watched.
Then softly, she said:
> "I used to be afraid of the dark too.
Until I saw what it was hiding."
---
✦ The Thread-Seer
Aiden turned to her. "You're not just another apprentice, are you?"
She smiled faintly. "No."
Then, she raised her palm — and for a moment, a golden thread appeared in the air.
But it wasn't magic. It didn't move like Spirit, Light, or Time.
It moved like a memory waiting to happen.
Lyra whispered:
> "I'm a Thread-Seer.
One of the last.
I don't cast magic…
I read what's already woven into fate."
Aiden stared. "So… you saw me?"
She nodded. "Before you ever arrived. I saw your threads… unraveling, burning, bleeding.
But still standing."
---
✦ Visions of the Future
Lyra stepped closer.
"When I was ten, I had a vision so strong it nearly broke me," she said. "A star fell. A boy rose. And around him… threads tore apart."
She hesitated.
"It was you, Aiden. I saw you holding both the light and the void.
And I saw two endings."
Aiden's voice was barely a whisper. "What were they?"
Lyra looked him straight in the eyes.
> "In one… you save this world.
In the other… you rewrite it — and everyone dies."
---
✦ Aiden's Fear
The silence felt heavier than stone.
Aiden clutched the thread between his fingers — his hand trembling.
"I never asked for this. I didn't even believe in magic before all this."
Lyra knelt beside him.
"No hero ever does."
She reached into her cloak and pulled something out — a small charm of silver thread knotted around a piece of burned wood.
"This was my brother's. He was a Seer too. Stronger than me."
"What happened to him?"
"He tried to change a vision. He died instead."
---
✦ Trust and Warning
Lyra placed the charm into Aiden's hand.
"I'm telling you this because the others will fear you. Even Torian. Even the Order. But I won't. Because I've already seen the worst version of you."
She smiled.
> "And I still stayed."
Aiden's heart ached — not from pain, but from weight.
The weight of destiny. The weight of being seen.
---
✦ The Star Threads Stir
Just then, above them, the sky shifted — faintly.
One of the stars pulsed.
Lyra looked up.
"No," she whispered. "Not already…"
"What is it?"
"Something just changed in your thread, Aiden.
Something that wasn't in the vision."
---