Kael slept little. When dawn broke, the violet light of the thread still lingered, curling around his wrist like smoke. It pulsed faintly—hungry, restless. He sat up in the dark, rubbing sleep from his eyes. His body ached, his skin felt scorched where the thread had touched him, and his breath came in shallow, measured draws. But the pain didn't matter. It never did. Pain was memory. A reminder that he still had time. Time to change everything. He rose and followed the thread. It moved on its own accord, slithering through the morning light, thin as hair, yet more real than the dirt beneath his feet. It led him not to the woods, but to the center of the village—toward the well. The well looked the same in every cycle: moss-covered stones, a wooden bucket, rope coiled beside it. But Kael knew better. In life six, a boy had drowned here. That single event had unraveled into three more deaths—grief, guilt, and a revenge gone wrong. A chain of consequence stretching years. Not this time. Kael stood at the edge, gazing into the dark water below. He could feel it, just beneath the surface—a discarded thread. A regret not yet born. He took the ceremonial knife and pressed its flat edge to his palm. The scar from yesterday's binding pulsed as if in answer. Then he whispered. The words came from an older tongue, one he'd learned from a dying Pathkeeper two lifetimes ago. It was not a language meant for mortal throats, and the sound tore slightly as it passed his lips. But it worked. The air shimmered. The surface of the water rippled. Kael leaned in closer. Reflections danced and twisted. For a moment, he didn't see his own face but the image of a young boy—hair slick with well water, lips parted in a scream that hadn't happened yet. Then came the glimmer. A tiny thread floated up like a vein of silver, writhing as if sensing it didn't belong. A discarded possibility. A mistake prevented, if someone acted in time. Kael reached out. The moment his fingers closed around it, pain lanced up his arm. His heart staggered. His vision went white. Time fractured—flashes of what could be and what might never come again. In one image, the boy drowned. In another, he stayed home that day. In a third, Kael himself was blamed. He gasped and fell to his knees. Still, he held on. "I bind you," he whispered. "To hollow, to will, to me." The thread stiffened. Then dissolved into smoke and sank into his palm. The scar widened. Kael's breath was ragged. His body trembled. But the world had changed. Just slightly. Enough to ripple outward. He opened his eyes. The thread that had led him here was gone, consumed. The boy wouldn't drown. Not today. Kael stumbled back, collapsing against the well's edge. Each thread he bound hurt more than the last. The price was real. But so was the power. His network was growing. A web of stolen regrets, broken promises, unrealized fates. He didn't need a Thread gifted from the heavens. He would make his own. And when the Pathkeepers came looking—as they always did—Kael would be ready. He was no longer just a failure. He was the Hollowbinder. And he had begun to unravel the world.
