The artificial sunrise bled through the energy panels above Loom Hall, casting long amber lines across the metal floor. Each beam shimmered as it passed through the suspended strands—thin, luminous filaments drifting like living veins in midair. They pulsed in slow waves, breathing with the rhythm of the facility.
Altharion leaned on the railing of the observation deck, watching the strands shift and hum like the world's quiet heartbeat.
Ryvaris' words from the previous night echoed in his skull:
You're a fracture in the design… a thread that shouldn't exist.
He didn't know whether that was a warning, a prophecy, or a test. Either way, it chased sleep from his bones.
He took a breath.
Steady. Controlled. Measured.
The way he'd trained himself to stand—so no one saw the storm inside.
A quiet beep sounded behind him.
Altharion turned—
—and a holographic breakfast machine blinked awake.
"Nutrition cycle activated," it chirped.
Before he could stop it, the machine fired a glowing blue cube that exploded midair, showering him with warm nutrient slurry that smelled like citrus and regret.
He wiped his face.
"…I didn't even touch you."
The machine whirred apologetically.
---
Footsteps echoed down the deck. Two trainees approached, the kind of stride that carried arrogance like a shadow.
At the front walked a tall boy with dark hair slashed by two silver streaks. His violet eyes glinted with challenge even before he opened his mouth.
Kaithor.
He carried himself like someone who had never known failure—only inconvenience.
"First day and you're already fighting breakfast?" Kaithor smirked. "Effective strategy. Starve the enemy before it attacks."
Altharion ignored him, flicking slurry off his sleeve.
Kaithor lifted a hand and threads of Nullweave swirled around his fingers—inky-black filaments that distorted the air slightly.
"You see this?" Kaithor gestured, voice dripping with pride. "This is what real control looks like. Any questions, orphan?"
Altharion blinked slowly.
"No. But I do have one for the breakfast machine. It has better aim than you."
Kaithor choked.
Somewhere behind him, a girl snorted.
She stepped forward—Lyria. Crimson hair in a rough braid, eyes sharp like a predator who'd learned to smile only after deciding not to bite. Tribal ink markings glowed along her arms, ebbing with her breath.
Her gaze swept Altharion up and down.
"Thin. Quiet. Smells like orange goop."
She tilted her head.
"I like him."
Kaithor scowled. "We're not collecting strays, Lyria."
Lyria shrugged. "You were one last week."
He turned red; she grinned.
---
A metallic chime rang out.
Training Simulation Chamber: Active.
Platforms shifted inside Loom Hall. The ground rippled, breaking apart into floating disks that rose and rotated like pieces of a giant, mechanical puzzle.
Ryvaris stepped onto the lower deck, clasping his hands behind his back, his eyes unreadable.
"Pair evaluations begin now," he announced. His voice was calm, but the air tightened around it like thread pulled taut. "Altharion. Kaithor."
Kaithor cracked his knuckles.
"Try to keep up, breakfast boy."
Lyria let out a low whistle. "This'll be fun."
Altharion descended the metal stairs silently. The chamber door slid open. Warm light flooded his vision as the simulation prepared itself.
Gravity tilted. Platforms floated at different heights. Strands pulsed in patterns, forming temporary bridges and walls that vanished and reformed.
Ryvaris watched every second.
Focus, Altharion told himself. Study. Move. Survive.
He stepped onto the first platform.
---
Kaithor attacked instantly.
Nullweave threads shot forward like black lightning, bending the platform under Altharion's feet. The metal groaned, threatening to flip.
Altharion pivoted, catching himself on a rising disk.
Kaithor smirked. "Too slow."
Another burst of Nullweave snapped across the air, warping the strand-patterns. Altharion read the distortion, jumped—and Kaithor's own platform lurched unexpectedly, nearly launching him backward.
Kaithor windmilled his arms, barely regaining balance.
Lyria laughed from outside the chamber. "Elegant!"
Altharion kept a straight face, though a tiny smirk tugged at his lip.
Kaithor's eyes narrowed.
That smirk lit a fire in him.
He surged forward, pulling more Nullweave. Altharion matched him—not perfectly, not confidently, but instinctively. His feet touched threads that shouldn't have held weight. His hands felt pulses that he shouldn't have been able to sense.
Kaithor froze.
"What—how are you reading my distortions?"
"I'm not," Altharion said, breath steady. "You're just loud."
It enraged Kaithor more than a direct insult.
He unleashed a full force wave—
—and the entire chamber dimmed for a second.
A faint flash rippled through the air behind Altharion.
A pulse.
Wrong.
Impossible.
Alien.
A thin strand—colorless yet shimmering with every color—sparked beside his hand, then vanished instantly.
Altharion stiffened.
Kaithor didn't notice.
Ryvaris… did.
His eyes widened almost imperceptibly.
---
Gravity shifted again. Lyria dropped into the chamber from a rotating platform, joining the simulation.
"Two-on-one reinforcement scenario," the system intoned.
"Perfect," Lyria grinned, landing beside Kaithor.
"You? With me?" Kaithor groaned.
"You need me," she replied. "You almost fell earlier."
"I did not—"
"You did," Altharion said.
Kaithor's glare could have ignited steel.
Lyria lunged first, moving with feral grace. Her Primabone strands carved ghostly arcs behind her like skeletal wings. Altharion dodged one swipe, ducked another, then used Kaithor's distorted platform edge as leverage to flip backward.
The fight turned vertical—disks rising and falling, strands forming midair footholds. They clashed across layers of shifting gravity, every movement painted in color and light.
Lyria swept in low; Kaithor aimed high.
Altharion moved between them, reading rhythm, pattern, instinct.
He wasn't fast.
He wasn't trained like they were.
But he adapted.
Every strike made him sharper.
Every miss taught him something.
Every thread he touched hummed back, like it knew him.
The colorless flicker appeared once more—just for a heartbeat.
Then vanished.
---
The simulation ended with a chime. Platforms locked back into place.
Kaithor dropped onto a knee, panting. Lyria braced against a pillar, breathing hard.
Altharion stood, chest rising steeply, but gaze calm.
Ryvaris approached them quietly.
"A thread may be broken," he said, "but its purpose is never lost."
His eyes flicked to Altharion.
"And strength without clarity collapses on itself. Chaos reveals truth. Today, all three of you have seen something you cannot yet name."
Kaithor straightened, jaw tense. Lyria looked between them, sensing something unspoken.
Ryvaris folded his hands behind his back.
"Altharion," he said softly.
"You're close. Closer than you realize."
Altharion didn't answer. He didn't trust his voice not to betray the panic trembling beneath his ribs.
Something inside him had moved today.
Something that didn't belong.
Something that remembered a different kind of power.
---
Later, alone, he climbed the highest platform left active after training. The strands below looked like rivers of light.
Kaithor and Lyria were arguing faintly in the corridors. Ryvaris stood farther away, watching Altharion silently.
The mentor whispered to himself, "This broken thread… has begun weaving itself into something none of them are prepared for."
Altharion gazed at the dancing strands.
He felt the flicker again—soft, warm, infinite.
What am I?
Not noble.
Not bloodborne.
Not ordinary.
Just a fracture.
A mistake.
An anomaly—
—trying to understand the thread inside him that should not exist.
The thread that had no name.
Yet.