The Seer did not blink.
She hadn't in years.
There was no need to.
In the shivering stillness of the Eclipse Hunter camp, time crawled like something wounded. The men and women around her moved with practiced efficiency—silent, solemn, terrifyingly synchronized.
None of them spoke unless the Weave allowed it.
And tonight, the Weave screamed.
"Ashborn. Confirmed."
The Seer's voice rang out across the black ridge like a death knell. Hollow and certain.
No one flinched. They had been trained too long to fear that word.
Ashborn.
A title, not a name.
A mistake the world wasn't supposed to make again.
Below her veil of gold thread and inked skin, the Seer's eyes burned white—pupils erased, replaced by swirling glyphs that moved with every breath of the world. Her tongue had been severed in ceremony. Her voice was Threadcast, not spoken.
Behind her, Commander Vocht stirred.
He was less a man than a machine of resolve: black armor etched with anti-thread runes, his chest bare despite the cold. His entire body was scarred with ceremonial burn lines. He'd killed two heirs in his lifetime.
He knew what they were.
He feared what they could become.
"Where?" he asked.
The Seer tilted her head sharply, like a bird hearing something distant. Her jaw moved. The glyphs behind her eyes spun.
"Dusk fracture. Seal touched. Echo stirred."
Vocht's eyes narrowed. "The Unmade?"
No answer. The Seer's silence was the answer.
Vocht turned to the others.
"Mobilize. Squad One, flank through the western ridge. Two and Three, secure the fracture. Four, with me."
He stared into the dusk beyond the ridge, where ash still lingered in the air.
"He's already bleeding into the Thread. The Ashweave's waking him too fast."
They had been told this would happen.
That one of the seven would awaken prematurely. Without guidance. Without containment.
Without a chain.
And when it did, it would burn the order of the world with it.
Vocht remembered the last time he saw that kind of power.
A boy of thirteen. Eyes like boiling ink. Entire platoon gone in ten breaths. His friend Jareen, skin turned inside out.
It's not power. It's madness disguised as fate.
That boy was dead now. Vocht had killed him himself. Knife to the throat. Still had the twitch in his fingers to prove it.
This one wouldn't be harder.
Just messier.
In the silence between orders, a young Hunter approached. Bare-faced. No scars yet.
"Sir… permission to speak?"
Vocht looked at him. "Speak."
"…If the Ashborn touches the Unmade fully—if the fracture grows—should we extract the Seer?"
Vocht didn't respond right away.
He turned toward the Seer.
She was kneeling now, hands outstretched over a slab of black stone that vibrated faintly. The Weave thrummed around her like a storm held at bay. Glyphs crawled over her skin like insects. She was listening.
Not to them.
To it.
"No," Vocht said finally.
"If the seal breaks, she dies with it."
The young Hunter swallowed. "Understood."
Vocht exhaled. Not a sigh. A ritual breath. A death breath.
"Prepare the containment glyphs. He's not just some rogue heir anymore."
He stared toward the trees, and the thing hiding behind them.
"He's Ashborn."
"And we burn the Ash."
‹ Eclipse Protocol ›
Target: Unknown Ashborn HeirWeave Compatibility: Ashweave (Confirmed)Threat Level: Omega-BreachDirective: Contain. Dissect. Erase.
Somewhere, the Weave shifted.
And from the fractured seal in the Dusklands, something laughed.