The attack came two days later, on a narrow road that wound through a dense forest.
Roen was walking at the front of the group, his hand resting on the sword at his hip, when
Tor held up his fist. Everyone froze. The forest was quiet around them—unnaturally so. No
birds called. No insects buzzed. Just the wind through the trees and the pounding of Roen's
heart.
"Something's wrong," Braken said quietly. His hand moved to his own sword. "Tor?"
"Ahead. Multiple figures. Hiding in the trees." The big man tilted his head, his eyes
unfocused as he sensed things beyond normal perception. "Someone's been manipulating
the wood. Changing its structure. I can feel the distortion."
"Iron Weaver?" Senna asked, her voice tight.
"Maybe. Or someone using Iron threads on organic matter. It's..." Tor frowned deeply.
"Unnatural. The trees don't like it. They're in pain."
"Can we go around?" Mirelle asked.
"Too slow." Braken scanned the forest, his gray-threaded eyes searching for threats. "If
they've set a trap here, they know we're coming. Going around just gives them time to
reposition."
"Then we go through," Roen said. His heart was pounding, but his voice was steady. "But
carefully. Together."
They moved forward in formation—Tor in front, Braken and Roen on the flanks, Senna and
Mirelle in the center. The forest pressed around them, branches reaching like clawed fingers.
Roen kept his sword drawn, his eyes moving constantly.
The attack came from above.
Figures dropped from the trees—six of them, clad in dark leather and armed with curved
blades. They moved in perfect synchronization, a trained unit. And around their hands,
threads shimmered. Gold and red and silver—Fire Weavers, Flesh Weavers, Mind Weavers.
"Weavers!" Braken shouted. "Defensive formation!"
The first attacker reached Roen before he could react. The blade came down in a sweeping
arc, aimed at his head. He raised his sword in a desperate parry, steel meeting steel with a
ringing clash. The impact nearly tore the weapon from his grip.
His opponent was a woman, perhaps thirty, with cropped hair and a scarred face. She
moved like a predator, each strike precise and powerful. Roen had trained with knives, with
improvised weapons, with his fists. But this was different. This was a soldier's fight, and he
was hopelessly outmatched.
He retreated, parrying desperately, trying to find an opening. The woman pressed her
advantage, her blade a blur. One slip. That's all it would take. One slip and he'd be dead.
Then she made a mistake.
It was small—a slight overextension on a thrust. Roen saw it, didn't think, just reacted. He
stepped inside her guard, his left hand grabbing her wrist, his right bringing the sword up in a
short, brutal slash. The blade caught her across the ribs.
Not deep. Not fatal. But enough to make her gasp, to break her rhythm. Roen twisted her
arm, forced her to drop her sword, drove his knee into her stomach. She crumpled.
He didn't have time to celebrate. Another attacker was already coming—a man with gold
threads flickering around his hands. Fire bloomed in his palm.
"Down!" Roen threw himself to the ground as a firebolt seared the air where his head had
been. Heat washed over him, singeing his hair. He rolled, came up with his sword, and saw
Tor intercept the Gold Weaver.
The big man moved like water despite his size. His axe swept in a low arc, forcing the
Weaver to retreat. But the Weaver was fast—fire sprouting from his fingers like bloody
flowers. One bolt caught Tor in the shoulder, another in the chest.
Tor didn't slow down. He took the hits, his flesh sizzling, and kept moving. The axe came
around in a vicious backhand that the Weaver barely dodged. But the dodge put him off
balance, and Tor's follow-up was a brutal punch that caught the man in the jaw.
The Weaver went down. Tor finished it with the axe.
Roen looked for Mirelle. She was pressed against a tree, an arrow nocked, her eyes wide
but her hands steady. Senna crouched beside her, hands glowing with red threads, ready to
heal. Braken was engaged with two attackers, his sword moving in efficient patterns.
Another attacker came at Roen. This one was a Silver Weaver—threads shimmering around
his head like a halo. Roen felt a pressure in his mind, a pushing sensation, as if someone
was trying to insert thoughts that weren't his.
Drop your sword. Run. Flee. You can't win.
The commands were insidious, sliding through his consciousness like oil on water. Roen's
grip loosened. His feet twitched, wanting to obey. This was Silver-thread magic—the
manipulation of mind and emotion. And he was completely vulnerable to it.
But then something shifted.
A gray thread, thin and barely visible, flickered to life somewhere deep inside him. It
wrapped around the foreign thoughts, not pushing them away but... observing them.
Analyzing. And then, slowly, unwinding them.
Roen blinked. The pressure receded. His grip tightened on his sword.
The Silver Weaver's eyes widened. "That's not possible. You're thread-blind."
"Apparently not." Roen lunged