The morning after the kill was not quiet.
Silence had taught him obedience in Drav'nar.
But now — now the air hissed. Whispered. Shifted.
The Weeper's corpse was still steaming beneath the frost. And the boy — threadless, exiled, unknown — stared at his own hands.
They were shaking.
Not from cold.
Not from guilt.
From something else.
A burn, not of flame, but of change.
Yren said nothing at first. She simply crouched beside the creature's body and carved a crescent from its neckbone — a hunter's rite. The shard pulsed once before fading to bone white.
"That one remembered you," she said eventually. "Weepers don't usually flinch from silence unless it hurts them."
He didn't respond.
She didn't expect him to.
Instead, she stood, kicked snow over the blood, and gestured for him to follow.
"Come. You're not done being unmade yet."
They walked for hours. Not towards civilization — away from it. Past frozen rivers. Past broken statues. Past the bones of towers that had once whispered prayers into the sky.
Eventually, they reached a cliffside — jagged, like teeth buried in snow — where a broken shrine lay half-buried in frost.
"This," Yren said, tapping the moss-covered stone, "used to be a Drav'nari outpost. Before the First Splintering."
She brushed snow from an old carving — a spiral, flanked by four rings.
"Back when the 14 Kingdoms were still dreaming about unity."
The boy glanced around.
"No one's been here in years," she continued. "That's why I train here."
"You're training me?"
His voice surprised them both.
Yren smiled — not kindly more like someone who'd just remembered what humor tasted like.
"No. I'm teaching you not to die."
She began with basics. Movement. Posture. Stance.
But not like any training Drav'nar's Seers would've approved of.
There was no discipline. No mantras.
Just instinct. Pain. Repetition.
She threw him against frozen bark. Made him fight blindfolded. Fed him bitter moss to test his gut.
"You're not a soldier," she hissed. "You're a wound. A rip in the spiral. You don't need to fight clean. You need to fight real."
And he did.
Every cut became a question.
Every bruise, an answer.
Until, 3 weeks in, she gave him a firestone.
"Try to light it."
He held it, unsure. The sigil on his palm flickered — faint, like breath on cold glass.
Nothing happened.
"Not ready," Yren muttered. "Emotion's still buried too deep."
That night, by firelight, she began to speak.
Not like a teacher. Like a survivor.
"There are 14 kingdoms," she said. "Each one born from a broken part of the human soul."
She drew in the snow:
Drav'nar Solmir Thren — Land of Emotion. Your home. Chained flame, where the feeling is sin.
Kasveth-Ra — Land of Regret. My home. Ash that remembers.
Velmorith — Land of Pride. Where names are worth more than lives.
Arundel — Land of Hunger. Constant craving, spiritual and literal.
Sel'vaan — Land of Grief. Everything is mourning there.
Hevrath-Kael — Land of Wrath. Fire-walkers. Emotion is combustion.
Mirith Vale — Land of Memory. Where the past is worshipped more than gods.
Thir'vakar — Land of Pain. Not just physical — existential pain.
Cyrine Hollow — Land of Beauty. Dangerous. Everything perfect is poisoned.
Vorthmere — Land of Lies. Truth bends in its air.
Zho'Mar — Land of Silence. No absence of sound. Erasure.
Eirdin-Wynne — Land of Bloom. Nature sings, but its songs bite.
Ryneth'ul — Land of Ice. Where logic froze the heart.
Gyrhae Threnas — Land of Worship. Everything is divine, including madness.
"Each land births its sigil," she continued. "But not all receive it. Only the chosen. And only in their youth."
She stared at his palm again.
"But yours… that thingis no kingdom's heir."
Later that night, as the fire began to die, she handed him the book.
It looked old enough to have bones for a spine. The leather was stitched from something that had once breathed. The lock? Missing.
"Keep it hidden," she warned. "If any of the Orders learn you have this, they'll kill you. Or worse… they'll try to thread you."
He took it with both hands.
And for the first time since exile, he felt weight in his grip.
Not burden. Not doom.
Just… importance.
When he opened it, words appeared.
In the strange tongue of Veresh:
"Nur-veth eln solmir vaern."
"The hollow thread remembers the flame it once feared."
The fire burned low.
He read the book again, the ink shifting. One phrase stayed longer than the rest:
"Those without thread are not broken. They are the unravelers."
He looked at his palm.
And for the first time since he was cast out, he didn't feel empty.
Just... unfinished.
But becoming.