There's something funny about being reborn into a dark, eerie world ruled by secretly evil gods and still being absolutely down bad for a pretty face. That's me. Keal Veyr. Baby edition. Tucked into a creepy wooden crib like I'm the chosen one, which—okay, technically, maybe I am.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. Not horror-movie quiet, but more like "our neighbors are probably cultists" quiet.
I stared up at the wooden beams of the ceiling. They were stitched together with actual thread. Who stitches houses? These people do. And honestly, it's kind of a vibe.
"Keal, are you awake?"
Nylessa's voice floated in from the other room, calm as moonlight.
"I never sleep. I just pretend for tax purposes," I muttered mentally.
She chuckled, entering the room like a shadow wrapped in silk.
"You're chipper tonight."
"Always. Especially when I'm questioning the moral framework of reality."
She rolled her eyes, sat down beside me, and adjusted a glowing blue thread hanging near the cradle.
"I have to go meet someone in the village," she said. "Can I trust you to not rewrite the laws of reality while I'm gone?"
"No promises."
---
The moment she left, I got bored.
So I activated Emotion Vision. Because what else is a thread-seeing baby gonna do?
The air shimmered. Threads bloomed around me like ghostly jellyfish, each one pulsing with emotional color. Yellow for joy, red for anger, green for affection… and of course, my least favorite: anxiety beige.
Then I spotted it—a familiar, shivering gray thread.
"Oh no. You again."
I reached up. Just to poke it. I swear.
The thread recoiled, vibrating violently, then zipped into the ceiling like it had somewhere to be.
Seconds later, the door creaked open.
But Nylessa didn't walk in.
Instead, a woman did.
She was tall. Elegant. White hair braided like it had studied at a university. Her skin shimmered faintly, and her eyes—golden and unreadable—settled on me.
My brain short-circuited.
> "Damn. She's so beautiful I might need to cry in lowercase."
She stepped forward, her smile polite.
"Oh, little one. So this is the child Nylessa saved."
Okay, spooky. But also? Compliment accepted.
"You got a name, lady?" I asked in my head.
She looked around, confused.
"You're… awake?"
Mentally I whispered, "Can you hear me?"
She blinked. "No," she murmured. "Must be the wind."
I almost cackled.
She approached, peering into the crib like I was some kind of mystery to solve. But there was no sign—none—that she saw the threads.
That's when it hit me.
Only Nylessa and I can see them.
The threads. The tethers. The emotions. The lifelines. The divine lies.
This whole world walks blindly through its web.
---
Back at the cottage, Nylessa returned, visibly tense.
"You saw her, didn't you?"
"Yup. Gorgeous, terrifying. Would simp again."
She sighed deeply.
"That was Lady Seralyn. She works with the veil. But she doesn't see it."
"She doesn't?"
"No one does," Nylessa said, her voice suddenly low, serious. "Only you. Only us."
That made my tiny spine tingle.
"Why?"
"Because we broke free," she said. "We see the lie."
I looked at my tiny, thread-clutching hand and grinned. "So we're rebels in diapers."
Nylessa gave a soft laugh, but her eyes remained cautious.
"Keal," she said, kneeling beside me, "you must be careful. If you start to tamper too much, too soon…"
"They'll find me?"
She nodded. "But not yet. Not for years, if we're careful."
"Then we better make it a long, boring childhood."
She gave me a knowing smile. "Somehow, I doubt that."
---