Dessa Keth dismounted in a single fluid motion, her boots barely making a sound on the
packed earth.
Up close, she was more intimidating than she'd appeared from a distance. The scar on her
face was old but deep—a wound that had nearly taken her eye and left a permanent
reminder of whatever fight had put it there. Her eyes were dark and sharp, missing nothing,
calculating everything.
"Killing," she said, the word rolling off her tongue like she was tasting it. "There's been quite
a bit of that lately. An Imperial soldier in Ashford. A warehouse fire in Seawatch. Three dead
merchants in Goldharbor. All in the past week. All connected to a certain package."
The sphere. Roen felt its weight against his ribs, a constant presence that had grown heavier
with each mile.
"I didn't kill anyone."
"No. But you're carrying what got them killed." She stepped closer, and Roen could see the
threads around her hands more clearly now—red and gold intertwining like serpents, pulsing
with inner light. "The woman who gave you that package. Sable. She's not what she
appears."
"She killed an Imperial soldier in broad daylight. I'm not under any illusions about what she
is."
"That's not what I mean." Dessa's voice dropped, becoming almost intimate. "Sable is a
Gray Weaver. One of maybe fifteen in all of Aeterra who've reached that level of mastery. Do
you know what that means?"
"She can manipulate fate."
"She can shape destiny." Dessa's eyes locked onto his. "The difference matters. A lucky coin
flip is manipulation. A peasant becoming a king is destiny. Sable doesn't just tip the odds.
She writes the ending."
Roen thought about the way fire had bent around Sable in the Ashford square. The way the
Gold Weaver had stumbled on a stone that shouldn't have been there. The way she'd looked
at him—not through him, not past him, but *at* him. Like she'd been waiting for him
specifically.
"What does she want with me?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" Dessa tilted her head, studying him like a specimen. "You're
thread-blind. Completely ordinary. No power, no connections, no value. Yet a Sovereign-rank
Weaver chose you for a task that could determine the fate of nations. Why?"
"I was convenient."
"No." Her eyes narrowed. "There are no coincidences with Gray Weavers. Everything is
threads. Everything is fate. You were chosen. The question is whether you were chosen to
succeed or chosen to fall."
Behind Dessa, the older man spoke for the first time. His voice was gravel and old smoke,
the sound of a throat that had swallowed too much dust over too many years.
"Enough philosophy. We have a job to do. The boy has something that doesn't belong to
him. We're here to take it."
"Take it?" Roen's grip tightened on his knife. "You think I'll just hand it over?"
"I think you're thread-blind." The man's voice was patient, almost gentle, like he was
explaining something obvious to a slow child. "You have no idea what you're carrying. No
idea who wants it. No idea what it can do. You think this is about money? About a delivery
job?" He shook his head slowly. "This is about power. The kind that reshapes the world. And
you, boy, are a leaf in a storm."
"Then why haven't you taken it?" Roen's heart was pounding, but his voice stayed steady.
"You're Weavers. I'm nothing. You could burn me where I stand."
"We could." Dessa spread her hands, and the threads around them brightened. "But then
we'd have to explain the body. And the package. And why a simple retrieval turned into a
bloodbath." She smiled, and it wasn't a nice smile. "My client prefers discretion."
"Your client."
"Has resources. Patience. And very specific instructions." She took another step forward,
close enough now that Roen could smell leather and weapon oil. "Give us the package, and
you walk away with your life. Your friend too. No debts. No grudges. Just a clean break."
Roen's mind raced. The sphere was his payment, his ticket to something better than the
streets of Ashford. But it was also a target painted on his back. Every moment he kept it,
someone else would come. Someone else would try to take it.
How long before one of them succeeded?
But something else gnawed at him. Sable had chosen him. A Sovereign-rank Gray Weaver
had looked at him—thread-blind and insignificant—and decided he was the one. Why? What
did she see that he didn't?
"No," he said.
Dessa's smile faltered. For a moment, genuine surprise flickered across her face.
"No?"
"I made a deal. I deliver the package, I get paid. I don't break deals." He met her eyes,
unflinching. "You want the sphere? Talk to Sable. She's the one who gave it to me."
"Sable is gone. Disappeared after Ashford. No trace. No threads." Dessa's voice hardened.
"You're the only lead we have."
"Then you're out of luck." Roen spread his hands. "I'm not giving it up."
For a long moment, no one moved. The fog swirled around them, gray and formless.
Somewhere in the distance, a crow called out—the first sound Roen had heard in hours
besides their own voices.
Then Dessa sighed.
"I was hoping you'd be smart." The threads around her hands blazed bright, red and gold
mixing together in a dangerous dance. "I really was."
The air around her began to shimmer with heat.