The ruin had no name.
Or if it did, the wind had stolen it long ago.
Stone walls stood half-sunken into the earth, devoured by time. Once grand pillars now leaned like drunkards into the scorched sky. The air here didn't move. It waited.
I stepped through the archway of what might once have been a temple - or a keep - or something older still. Every footfall sent dust spiraling. The floor beneath me cracked and whispered as if remembering the weight of different boots, different people. People long gone.
But the Threads hadn't forgotten.
They rose slowly as I entered.
Dozens - maybe hundreds - of them, flickering into view like the shimmer of heat above a fire. Gold. Emerald. Rust-red. Pale blue. Some swayed lazily, others pulsed in place like hearts beating just beneath the surface of the world. They hovered at varying heights, curling through the ruins like strands of silk in water.
My breath caught.
I'd seen Threads before - flickers, whispers, even one that claimed me. But this? This was a field of ghosts.
I stepped forward. Carefully.
The Threads moved away, coiling just out of reach. All except one.
Rust-colored. Hanging low. Almost waiting.
I hesitated, but my hand rose before I could second guess it.
The instant my fingers touched it, everything changed.
I stood in a different body.
Not a dream. Not a vision.
Possession.
My arms were heavier. Muscled. Scarred. My chest rose with breath that wasn't mine. The air smelled of iron and blood.
All around me - fire. Screams. The sky roared above a battlefield where hundreds clashed in a madness of blade and Thread.
And I was in it.
My fists were wrapped in glowing cords - copper-orange, buzzing like hornets. They wove through the air as i moved, lashing out, striking like serpents of energy. Each swing tore men from their feet, shattered shields, broke stone.
But more than the power was the rage.
It pulsed beneath my borrowed skin like molten lava.
"You killed her!"
The words burst from my mouth - his mouth - and I charged into a line of armored soldiers. They barely stood a chance.
A blade pierced my side, but the thread surged and sealed the wound before I fell. I roared. Not in pain.
In grief.
The man I'd become was a monster - but not because he wanted to be.
Because someone had made him into one.
He stood atop the broken hill, bloodied and roaring, his enemies fleeing.
"I am Veyne!" he screamed. "And the Thread remembers!"
And then-
It ended.
I fell backward, gasping.
The ruin was silent again. My body was my own.
My palm burned.
The rust-colored Thread vanished.
But the name remained.
Veyne.
I knew it before I understood it. The Thread hadn't just shown me a battle. It had shown me him. The first.
The one who spilt the Threads open like veins in the earth and let the world bleed memory into power.
He had been real.
And now a part of him lived in me.
I staggered back, shaking. My hands trembled - not with fear, but with weight. Like I'd touched the foundation of something ancient and it had decided to anchor itself in my chest.
"You touched the old blood."
The voice came from behind.
I spun.
A child stood at the edge of the ruin.
Or what looked like a child.
White hair, falling straight to the shoulders. Skin pale as ash. Eyes - one blue, one gold. No dust on him. No signs he'd walked through the Wastes. Just standing there, like he'd always been.
"You're not real," I said.
He smiled. "Neither are you. Not yet."
I stared at him. "Who are you?"
"A witness. That's all."
"To what?"
He stepped forward. His feet didn't disturb the dust. "To legacy. To weight. To consequence."
The Threads didn't rise around him. They bowed. Even the ones that had recoiled from me before now seemed to dip in his presence.
"How did you know about Veyne?"
"I didn't know. You did."
"I - no. I'd never heard his name before."
"But the Thread had," he said. "And now it's in you."
He stepped closer, head tilted. "You think they're just power. Tools. Weapons. They're not. They're stories."
"Stories don't kill armies."
"No," he said quietly. "But they make people willing to."
I exhaled slowly. "Why are you showing me this?"
"I'm not. The Threads are. I'm just here to see how much of you survives the remembering."
He turned then, started to walk back into the ruin.
"Wait!" I called.
But he didn't stop.
Just before he vanished behind a crumbled pillar, he said, "When the Threads first opened, they chose him. Veyne. Not because he was good. Not because he was strong. But because he was necessary."
I swallowed.
"And me?"
The boy paused.
"They haven't decided yet."
The he was gone.
And I was alone again.
Except I wasn't. The Threads still watched. Not like they had before. There was something heavier in their motion now. Like they knew what I'd seen.
What I'd inherited.
I knelt slowly in the dust. The ash stained my gloves. My breath steamed in the cold.
I thought of Veyne standing in the fire, shouting that the Thread remembers.
If that was true - if memory really lived inside the Threads - then the war wasn't over.
It had just learned how to wait.
And I had just stepped into its memory.