The market streets were quieter in the morning — before the fires started, before the shouting began. Leia liked it that way.
She moved past the stalls with her hood up, the reinforced cloak brushing lightly against her ankles. Her threadwork was hidden today. She wasn't looking for trouble. Just more scraps.
And books, if she got lucky.
Selene always said old paper held things steel couldn't.
---
She paused at a forgotten corner of the trade square — a cloth-draped stall wedged between a bootmaker and a spice cart. A bent sign overhead read: "Scrolls & Salvage – 3 coppers per mystery."
Leia knelt to examine the stack of battered books and loose parchment rolls beneath the stall's table. Most were water-damaged or burned at the edges.
But one caught her eye.
It wasn't just stitched — it was hand-bound with black thread, tied in a spiral that reminded her of her mark.
She reached for it.
"You've got precise fingers," came a voice from behind the curtain.
Leia froze.
The curtain twitched, and a man appeared. Thin, wiry, with gloves despite the heat and thick lenses over pale eyes.
He studied her wrist — not the thread mark, but her grip.
"Not many kids your age check the bindings," he added. "Most go straight for the pictures."
Leia tensed. "I just… fix things sometimes."
The man nodded as if she'd said something important.
---
He stepped out fully, brushing off his apron. "I'm called Moth. You looking for a book that teaches you to fly? Or just one that teaches you to fall with style?"
Leia blinked.
"I don't have much," she replied honestly.
Moth leaned in. "Neither did I. That's why I started trading knowledge instead of food."
He looked down at the black-thread book she still held. "That one's not a mystery. That one's stitched with meaning."
Leia turned it over. The cover was blank.
"Runic stitchwork," he said. "Old stuff. Before the academies ruined it with rankings and noise."
She looked up sharply.
"What do you mean ruined it?"
Moth's smile was brief. "You ever notice how people stopped learning their abilities once the rankings became law? They just measured them instead. C-Class. A-Class. It's all a distraction."
Leia's throat tightened.
He saw it.
She could tell.
"I'll give it to you for free," Moth said, pulling down his goggles. "But only if you promise not to waste it on sewing shoes."
Leia hesitated, then nodded. "I won't."
---
She turned to leave, book hugged tightly to her chest.
"Wait," Moth called after her.
She turned.
He pointed to the edge of her cloak — the hem she had stitched three nights ago, reinforced to stop tearing.
"That's triple-weave tension stitching. Self-learned?"
Leia nodded slowly.
Moth grinned.
"Good. The old threads are waking up again."
---
Back in her room, Leia sat cross-legged and opened the book carefully.
The first page was hand-inked, rough and faint:
"Stitch what you are. Thread carries intention. Cloth carries truth."
Below it, a crude diagram of thread layering — but it pulsed faintly with something more.
She reached for her own thread.
As it brushed the page… the ink shimmered.
The book responded.
---
That night, Leia didn't train with brute repetition.
She read.
She traced symbols. Studied stitch angles. Learned about binding pressure and how thread could act as a seal — not just on fabric, but on space, energy, even emotion.
The page didn't glow again.
But Leia did.