The frost had not melted by morning.
Lumen sat on the same crooked fence he had repaired twice already, watching breath spiral like smoke from his lips. His hands were still dirty from the fields, but he didn't mind. It made him feel real.
The village was quiet. Too quiet.
Two names were missing from the daily call for bread. No one asked why.
No one ever asked.
He caught the little girl staring at him again — the one who had once shared her bread and laughter and called him sad. Now she flinched when he looked back.
And still… he smiled.
That night, he didn't return to the hut the villagers let him sleep in.
Instead, he went back to the chapel.
The sigils on the wall had cooled, the air no longer humming with unseen tension. But Lumen could still feel something — like a pulse beneath stone.
He knelt.
He placed his hand over the center sigil — the one marked with a candle and string: [Threadbinder]
Nothing happened.
No window. No words. No burst of power.
Just silence.
"Figures," he muttered.
He turned to leave.
But the second he took a step—
[System: Passive Interface Activated]
"You are not ready."
Lumen froze.
Another line flickered beneath the text:
Observer Noted: Engagement Proximity Breached
And below that, in smaller symbols that shimmered like ash:
The Puppet smiles in strings. The Clown dances in silence. The boy forgets what he is. But the Scarecrow watches.
Then it vanished.
The wind outside had teeth.
He walked back under its breath, sack mask loose in one hand, the chill settling on him like judgment.
Not ready…
"Ready for what?" he whispered aloud, just to feel his voice.
The wind didn't answer.
But a crow cawed above him.
Lumen looked up.
Hundreds of them lined the rooftops — black shapes against the stars, watching in perfect silence.
One blinked.
And in that moment, he remembered a flash of something:
A white room. A metal ceiling. A man in a lab coat whispering, "Too volatile. Shut it down."
Then nothing.
The dreams got worse.
Not the nightmares — those had been manageable. But the memories.
They came like shards of broken glass.
A fire in a dark alley. A machine screaming names in an ancient language. The feeling of being… split.
By the fourth morning, Lumen had stopped pretending.
He didn't till the field. He didn't trade his labor for bread. He just walked.
To the woods. To the mirror. To the sigils.
Looking for something. Anything.
Even the villagers seemed to avoid his path now.
Except for one.
An old man with clouded eyes and a limp.
"You walk too far for a man with no destination," the man rasped as Lumen passed.
Lumen paused. "I'm trying to remember where I'm going."
The man tapped his temple. "Some places are better forgotten, scarecrow."
He shuffled away before Lumen could answer.
Lumen almost turned back. Almost.
But an oil lamp flickered behind warped glass — the apothecary's hut. One of the few places in the village that didn't pretend to be asleep.
He knocked.
No answer.
Then a voice rasped from within: "If you're bleeding or haunted, come in. If you're both, bring tea."
He stepped inside. Dust and old herbs weighed down the air. The woman behind the table didn't look up — just kept grinding dried roots into powder.
"You've got questions," she said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have to. You've got the look." She sniffed. "Like you saw a sigil breathe."
He hesitated, then raised his hand. The mark on his skin — the looped thread and needle — pulsed faintly in the candlelight.
She didn't move. "Threadbinder. Haven't seen that one in a long time."
"It's common, isn't it?"
She laughed once — dry, bitter. "Common just means people think they understand it. Doesn't mean they're right."
Lumen glanced past her, eyes landing on a cracked scroll pinned open behind vials of dried herbs and rusted needles. Six faded symbols were inked there, each one strange in its simplicity:
A crooked flame: Surnis
A spiral wave: Kavreth
A lost candle: Velraye
A half-buried gear: Droskai
A cracked eye in wind: Erenhaal
A torn web: Veln
"They're not just symbols," the old woman said, seeing him stare. "They're what's left of the First War — if you believe the older stories. Marks burned into the world when it tried to stitch itself back together."
"Are they… real?" Lumen asked softly.
"They were once. Maybe they still are. Some say those six were never meant for people. That they're echoes. Remnants of something too large to be forgotten… but too dangerous to name."
She turned toward him now, voice quieter.
"Most folk get a Common-tier sigil. Nothing fancy. Just strong enough to move a plow or keep a forge burning. Uncommon gives clarity. Precision. Reflex. Rare might grant you waterwalking, or flame, or storm-swings. Super Rare — well, that's when the world starts twisting back. Gravity. Silence. Forgotten time."
Lumen asked, "And Legendary?"
Her voice dropped like dusk. "I've only seen two. One broke the sky over Vaelin. The other carved a city out of ash and left it standing. The kind that make history forget who started the war."
Lumen didn't answer.
[System Alert: Cognitive Lock Weakening]
Emotion Echo Detected: "Doubt. Pattern divergence."
Initiating passive adaptation…
[Hidden Trait: Adaptive Anomaly] — Status: Flickering
Threads bending…
System Error: ████████
System Error: ████████
Lumen left the apothecary with more silence than answers. The world outside felt heavier — like her words had stitched themselves into the air. He didn't head back to the village. He walked the edge of the woods instead, not looking for something… just waiting to find it.
Twilight bled slowly into the trees. And then, he saw it again.
Another mark.
This one not hidden behind glass or stone — but carved into an old tree. Burned deep.
It was not one of the six sigils from the chapel.
It was older.
Rougher.
Two vertical lines with a broken circle between them.
He reached to touch it.
But the bark moved.
Just slightly.
The shape retracted into the tree like it was breathing. Then…
A whisper. Not from the wind. Not from within.
From behind him.
"You're out of place."
Lumen turned.
No one.
He turned back.
The mark was gone.
In its place, just raw bark.
And silence.
That night, he dreamt again.
This time, it wasn't flashes or glitches or static. It was clear.
He stood in a stone circle under a red sky. Six pillars. Each one carved with sigils he couldn't read. Something immense circled above — a shape too large to describe.
He looked down at his own hands.
Thread. Wound into skin.
His fingers moved like puppets.
He wanted to scream.
But when he opened his mouth, laughter came out.
Not his.
The Clown's.
[System Log: High-Risk Memory Leak]
Host Integrity Failing. Thread contamination rising.
Emergency Stasis Advised
Override Denied. Monitoring.
When he awoke, the village was on fire.
Or at least, it looked like fire.
Bright lights. Screams. Shadows darting between homes.
He pulled on the sack-mask, instinct rising from somewhere deep.
Run.
But he didn't.
Instead, he walked toward the chapel.
Toward the pulsing sigils.
By the time he arrived, it was quiet again.
Too quiet.
And there — inside the chapel — stood the little girl.
Alone.
Her eyes wide. Her hands shaking.
She pointed behind him.
Lumen turned—
And saw nothing.
Just shadows and stone.
But when he looked back…
She was gone.
A note remained where she stood, scrawled in chalk on the chapel floor:
"If they find you… remember the strings."
Lumen didn't understand.
Not yet.
But something inside him did.
He knelt, pressing a hand to the stone floor. The sigils flared. Not bright — but responsive.
A pulse answered.
A whisper in the system's tongue:
[Authorization Fragment Detected]
Access Level: Bound Thread — Rank: Common
New Entry Unlocked:
Sigil 1/6: Threadbinder (Common)
"He who feels the threads may tug gently… or tear the whole web."
Lumen's body shuddered.
It wasn't power.
It wasn't strength.
It was sensation — the sudden awareness of how tangled everything was.
The threads that connected people. The fate-lines that crossed like spiderwebs.
And somewhere among them…
One thread ran straight from him…
To something buried deep beneath this world.
Waiting.
Watching.
Smiling.
[System Notice: Subject "Scarecrow" Status Updated]
Trait: Harmless Anomaly → Potential Divergence
Observer Note Logged
Clown:"He tugged it. He actually tugged it."
Puppet:"Not yet. But soon."
And far away — in a place between places — crows scattered.
And the smile of the Scarecrow widened.