"Cooperation?" Sylas asked.
Lina affirmed with a nod. Sylas eyed her carefully. From the very beginning, this woman felt suspicious—too calm, too precise, and she knew far more about him than she should.
How does she know me? Why appear now? What is she after?
Lina seemed to sense the sharp edge of his distrust. She smiled lightly. "You don't need to be so vigilant around me. We're aiming for the same thing."
Sylas didn't relax. "Then tell me," he said, "what cooperation do you want?"
Lina folded her arms, her expression turning serious. "I want us to enter a place neither of us can access alone."
Sylas narrowed his eyes. "And what place is that?"
"The Black Threader Market," she said quietly. "Tonight."
Her words struck him like a cold wind. He had heard whispers—underground auctions, forbidden weaving-arts, threads that couldn't be bought anywhere else. And dangers that swallowed people whole.
Sylas kept his voice steady. "Why me?"
"Because you can sense distortions," Lina replied. "And because they already know your name in the Market. Whether you like it or not, you're involved."
***
Lina exhaled softly, as if deciding something.
"Fine. I'll tell you."
She lowered her voice.
"There's an item in the black market. A rare artifact. A Thread Core."
Sylas frowned. "A Core? Those come from dead Thread weavers."
A Thread Core is a crystallized remnant formed when a Threadweaver dies under extreme emotional or spiritual pressure, causing their Threads to collapse inward and compress into a small, glowing nucleus. This core holds residual power, fragments of the weaver's final thoughts, a faint emotional imprint of their last moments, and a unique resonance signature that makes it unmistakably theirs. Some cores lie dormant like silent hearts refusing to fully die, while others react to specific people or energies as if recognizing something familiar. Because they contain memory, power, and truth, Thread Cores are considered forbidden artifacts—publicly denied, privately coveted, and traded only in the hidden depths of the Threader Blackmarket.
"Exactly," Lina continued. "And this one… reacts to you."
Sylas's pupils tightened. A faint red glow shimmered at their edges.
Lina stepped back slightly but held her ground.
"The Core was recovered from a massacre seventeen years ago. The same night your parents were killed."
Silence fell between them.
"The Core contains a Memory Echo — the last thing its owner saw before dying." She took a careful breath. "If you touch it, you may witness the moment your parents were attacked. You may see the killers."
Sylas's jaw clenched.
"The problem," Lina said, "is that the Core is locked behind a resonance ward. Only someone sharing its signature can enter the vault."
Her eyes met his.
"That someone is you."
She straightened, seriousness replacing her smile.
"I want your help getting to the Core. And in return… you get the truth you've been searching for your entire life."
Sylas clenched his fists.
Finally… a clue.
Mom, Dad — I will avenge you. No matter what it takes!
Sylas let his eyes fall shut for a few seconds, steadying the storm rising in his chest. When he opened them again, a fierce light burned behind his pupils.
"I'll cooperate with you," he said, voice low but resolute.
Lina's lips curved into a satisfied smile. She extended her hand toward him.
"Pleasure doing business with you."
***
The Threader Blackmarket was not a single marketplace, nor a fixed location. It breathed beneath Dreknhal like a hidden pulse, shifting and rearranging itself through the forgotten underlevels of the old port district. To the ordinary eye, its entrances were nothing but sealed alleys, rusted maintenance doors, or broken stairwells that led nowhere. But once touched with the faint hum of thread energy, these dead ends stirred alive, revealing narrow descents into a world the government pretended didn't exist.
Inside, the air thickened with smoke and incense, laced with the metallic scent of active threads. Dim lanterns infused with low-grade sigil energy painted the walls in murky blues and purples, their light bending oddly, as if refusing to illuminate anything clearly. The ground was uneven—patches of cracked concrete, damp stone, old tiles swallowed by moss—and every footstep echoed like the whisper of someone unseen following just a little too closely.
Stalls rose from the shadows, carved into the stone or assembled from scavenged metal, each pulsing faintly with sigil marks. Cloaked figures drifted between them: rogue threaders, smugglers, lone hunters who wore their power like a second skin. Some carried crimson glows around their hands, some cold golden sparks along their arms, and others hid their colors entirely beneath masks and layered robes. No law operated here; only strength, reputation, and the silent authority of the Black Vendors—the shadowy owners of the market whose presence could be felt even if no one ever saw them.
Despite the chaos, the market functioned with unsettling precision. Red-lined stalls sold illegal sigils and weaponized seals. Blue-lit corners whispered intelligence—names, locations, forgotten maps, truths people died to conceal. Gold vendors traded in rare materials harvested from beasts or dungeons. And the darkest stalls, unmarked and silent, dealt in things that could not be named—contracts, curses, memories stolen from the dying.
Security was everywhere yet nowhere. Hidden thread formations watched every soul that entered, sensing intent, measuring danger, testing the limits of one's resolve. Those who broke the rules simply ceased to exist; only a scorch mark or a faint crackle of burned energy remained behind.
It was a place of opportunity wrapped in danger, a cradle of secrets, a nest of shadows where death and knowledge walked hand in hand.
The night deepened with every passing heartbeat. Darkness pressed gently against the world, swallowing the last scattered chirps of birds and the fading hum of insects. A cold wind threaded through the lonely stony path where two hooded figures walked—shadows moving within shadows.
Rocks jutted from both sides of the narrow trail, their rough edges catching faint slivers of moonlight. The ground beneath them was uneven, crunching softly under their boots. The air here felt heavier, as though the land itself were holding its breath.
Sylas and Lina stopped before a massive boulder half-buried in the earth. It loomed taller than both of them, black as obsidian, its surface unnaturally smooth except for the faint, intricate markings carved across it. The symbols twisted and spiraled like ancient script, but the darkness hid their full shape, revealing only hints—sharp curves, fractured lines, a sense of coiled power waiting to stir.
Sylas narrowed his eyes behind the mask, studying every detail he could perceive. Tonight, both he and Lina wore identical black robes, their hoods drawn deep. Black gloves covered their hands; black masks concealed their faces. They looked like specters rather than travelers.
Lina stepped slightly closer, her voice a soft whisper carried by the wind.
"This is the entrance to the Threader Blackmarket," she said.
Her words seemed to vibrate faintly in the air, as if the boulder itself reacted to the name.
Lina stepped forward and placed her gloved palm gently against the boulder's surface. For a moment, nothing happened. The night held still, silent enough for Sylas to hear the faint rhythm of his own heartbeat.
Then—like a breath drawn by stone—the carved symbols began to stir.
A faint glow seeped from the grooves, at first no brighter than dying embers. Lines awakened one after another, spreading outward in a delicate web of cold blue light until the entire pattern pulsed with life. The boulder trembled under Lina's touch, a low hum rising from deep within its core—a resonance Sylas felt in his bones.
Lina lifted her other hand and traced a quick, fluid gesture in the air. Blue threads flickered briefly around her fingertips, responding to her will. The glowing symbols on the rock shifted, rotating like pieces of an invisible mechanism until they aligned in a perfect circle.
A sharp crack echoed.
The center of the boulder split open—not like stone breaking, but like space itself parting. The fracture widened smoothly, revealing a vertical slit of swirling darkness. Mist spilled from the opening like cold breath escaping a tomb. Inside, faint lights shimmered—vague shapes drifting as if suspended in another world.
Sylas felt a chill crawl up his spine.
Lina stepped back slightly and turned to him.
"Don't lose focus once we're inside," she said. "The Blackmarket isn't a place that welcomes hesitation."
The slit widened further, becoming a doorway of shadowed light.
Without another word, Lina stepped through.
Sylas adjusted his mask, tightened his gloves, and followed her into the hidden world beneath the continent.