Threads of Fate

In the kingdom of Valrieth, where the stars whispered secrets and the wind carried forgotten songs, it was said that every soul was born with a thread — invisible, yet unbreakable — woven by the Loom of Fate itself.

Line, a weaver’s daughter, had always seen the threads others could not. While children played in the village square, she sat in the shade of her mother’s loom, eyes closed, fingers dancing across the air as if feeling something no one else could. Her gift was secret — even dangerous — for in Valrieth, those who could touch the threads were believed cursed, or worse: destined to tear the weave apart.

Far across the kingdom, in a coastal city carved into cliffs and fog, lived Jakle, a thief and a shadow. Raised in alleys and sharpened by hunger, Jakle never believed in fate. He believed in blade and coin, in whispers passed under lanterns, and the weight of secrets. But fate, as it often does, paid no heed to his disbelief.

Their meeting was foretold in the stars long before they were born.

Line first saw Jakle’s thread in a dream. It shimmered silver, but twisted violently — torn and frayed, yet still connected to hers by a fine crimson strand. When she awoke, her hands trembled. The threads never lied.

She left her village before dawn, guided only by the pull of that thread. Every step she took tugged at her soul. Her path crossed forests that murmured her name and rivers that refused to reflect her face. She was not just walking toward Jakle — she was walking toward something ancient, something waiting.

Jakle, meanwhile, had stolen something he shouldn’t have: a coin carved with runes older than the kingdom, from the vault of the Silent Order. Since then, shadows followed him that didn’t belong to anyone, and his sleep grew thin and fevered. One night, as he fled through the marketplace, he collided with a girl with wild hair and eyes that glowed faintly in the moonlight.

“You’re bleeding thread,” she whispered.

He tried to run. She followed.

In the days that followed, Line stayed near, drawn by the pull between them. Jakle tried to shake her, to disappear into the cracks of the city. But no matter where he fled — rooftops, tunnels, storms — she found him.

Eventually, he stopped running.

“Why me?” he asked, once.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Only that if we don’t follow the thread, it frays. And when it frays… the weave breaks.”

He didn’t understand. But he believed her.

Together, they journeyed beyond the edge of Valrieth, to the place where the Loom of Fate was hidden — an ancient temple of suspended silk, floating above a sea of stars. It was there Line revealed the truth: the threads of fate were unraveling. The world itself was coming undone.

The coin Jakle stole had not been a treasure, but a key. A forgotten god had slept beneath the threads, and now stirred. And only by weaving their threads into one — truly, irreversibly — could the god be bound again.

But it came at a cost. A full weaving meant one of them would vanish from the world — lost within the Loom, living on only as thread and memory.

Jakle laughed bitterly. “Fate is cruel.”

Line smiled sadly. “Fate is choice.”

That night, under a sky filled with falling stars, they held each other’s hands. Their threads glowed, crimson and silver, then gold. The weave accepted their bond. The Loom spun once more.

Only one returned from the temple.

Line sat alone beneath her mother’s loom, now restored. Jakle’s thread shimmered faintly in her hands, wrapped around her wrist like a promise. The world did not end.

But she would forever feel the pull of a thread tied to a name only she remembered.