Part 1: Stillness in the Currents
Aera stood at the edge of a rope bridge, arms crossed over the railing, watching skywater fall in silence.
It wasn't really falling, though.
The stream of glowing azure that should have flowed like a ribbon of light between the cliffs hung midair, trembling. Droplets wavered in place, glistening, suspended in a moment that refused to end.
"…That's not right," he murmured.
Around him, Whisperfall bustled as usual. Merchants called out their wares. Children ran across floating platforms chasing wind-gliders. The wind carried laughter, but none of it reached this corner — not the gusts, not the sounds, not even the sky itself.
His fans stirred at his sides. Not from wind. From something else.
Something watching.
He leaned farther out, squinting. The skywater shimmered faintly, pulses of light moving against the flow. A single drop floated toward him, not falling — rising. It hovered in front of his face before quivering and snapping back into the stream.
Aera blinked. "Okay, that's new."
He took a cautious step back. The air felt… disconnected. Not heavy, like a storm. More like the current had been cut, like a string pulled too tight.
As he walked, the bridge beneath him creaked louder than usual. A breeze caught his cloak, fluttering it like a flag. But it came from behind, against the natural current. Backwards.
By the time he reached the lower terrace, the wind had shifted three more times.
He wasn't imagining it. Something in the air was wrong.
A soft voice broke through the silence, not from any throat, but from the wind itself — swirling around him in a circular draft only he could feel:
"One thread unravels… another tightens…"
Aera froze.
"…Hello?"
The breeze passed, and the world returned to normal.
Later that evening, he sat on his rooftop again, the tallest point of his small cottage, watching the sky shimmer over Whisperfall. He couldn't shake the unease.
His fingers traced the edges of his fans. They were carved from skyglass and softened cloudbone — gifts from his father before the accident. The fans had never done anything strange before, but lately they felt like they knew when something was coming before he did.
He sighed and looked down at the cliffs where the skywater flowed again — though not as smoothly as before. The rhythm was off. It was like watching someone breathe wrong.
Behind him, a breeze lifted, cool and steady. But he didn't turn. He didn't need to. The voice came again, clearer this time, soft but firm:
"Your thread is not the first to bind."
Aera's eyes widened.
"The one who wields frost — he was guided by sorrow. He may not remember the rite, but it shaped him all the same."
He stood slowly, scanning the rooftops, the bridges, the skies. But there was no one. Only wind. Only sky.
And a lingering sense that someone — or something — was waiting.
Part 2: Scales in the Sky
The next morning, Aera was already wide awake before the first sunlight kissed the towers of Skyheart Spire. He sat cross-legged atop his roof, fans resting beside him, eyes locked on the horizon. The wind had returned, but it felt… off. Uneven. Like a tune played on an instrument with one string tuned too tight.
Naeli met him halfway across the terrace, her boots skimming over a low-hanging bridge woven from moonvine and skybark. "You're doing that thing again," she said, hands on her hips.
"What thing?"
"That brooding, silent, staring-at-the-sky-like-it-hurt-your-feelings thing."
Aera cracked a grin, but it didn't last. "Have you noticed the skywater lately? Or how the wind keeps pushing the wrong way?"
Naeli's teasing softened. "A little. The elders say it's just the season turning."
"It's not."
He stood and looked toward the eastern ridge, where the wind routes always carried Sky Serpents on their morning glides. "Something's happening."
The whistle of alarm horns broke through the calm before she could reply.
Three sharp blasts. Unmistakable. A call from the high guards.
They turned toward the edge of the island, where a dozen villagers now crowded the cliff path. Aera rushed to join them, weaving past startled workers and children peeking from behind carts.
And then he saw it.
Far above, across the break between islands, a Sky Serpent—long, scaled, and silver-blue like twilight mist—thrashed wildly midair.
Its body twisted as if tangled in unseen strings. Its wings, usually elegant and slow, beat in chaotic pulses. One moment, it plummeted, the next, it jerked violently back up. A storm of wind surrounded it — but none of it natural.
It shrieked.
A deafening, aching sound. Then—
A crack of air.
The wind split, and the Serpent vanished in a spiral of vapor, leaving behind only a scattering of glowing scales drifting down like embers.
Gasps rose from the crowd. One elder dropped his staff.
"Wind-torn," someone whispered.
"No," Aera said under his breath. "Thread-torn…"
That night, Aera couldn't sleep.
The winds wouldn't stop whispering.
He sat by the skywater pool near the edge of the terrace, watching it shift unnaturally in ripples that defied gravity — circles flowing outward, then inward, as though the stream itself couldn't decide which way time moved.
That's when he saw them — etched faintly into the smooth cliff wall above the pool:
Glyphs.
Perfectly circular, woven like thread in a loom. Three at first. Then more. Patterns within patterns. Some pulsed faintly, reacting to his breath, or heartbeat, or maybe his thoughts.
His fans glowed faintly.
"The Loom remembers…" the wind whispered.
He reached forward, fingers grazing one glyph.
And the world fell away.
Part 3: Threads Unseen
The fall was silent.
No wind. No scream. Just a slow descent through colorless sky, as if time had slipped loose from its rhythm.
Aera's body floated downward—not pulled, not falling—but unraveling, like a kite with its string snipped. He opened his mouth to speak, to cry out, to ask where, but no sound came. Only silence, and the growing sense of wrongness.
Above him: Whisperfall.
But not as it should be.
The sky islands twisted midair, rotating slowly, their bridges stretching like melting wax. The Skyheart Spire tilted at an impossible angle, its crystal peak shattering, scattering fragments into the void.
Skywater flowed up, not down—cascading in reverse streams like silver lightning splitting the heavens.
Then the ground trembled.
A ripple passed through the entire sky. Not just the land, but the air itself. Threads of light—fine as hair—split from the clouds and snapped back, vanishing into the dark.
Aera landed softly on one of the floating platforms, but his feet made no sound. The world was drained of color, painted in shades of violet and gray. Skyflowers withered at his touch. A stone bridge ahead fractured, pieces spinning slowly into the void.
And then… he saw a figure.
Standing across the broken span, someone cloaked in muted grays and deep violet, their cloak shifting unnaturally in the air, as though the wind obeyed them. Their hood shadowed most of their face, but what little was visible appeared human — pale skin, faintly marked by glowing glyphs that faded as soon as they appeared.
His eyes shimmered with threads of glowing white — not light, not emotion — just emptiness.
He raised a hand.
The wind around Aera stilled.
"Do you feel it now?" the figure whispered. His voice wasn't cruel. Just tired. "The stitching coming undone?"
The sky shattered.
Aera awoke gasping.
He sat bolt upright on the floor beside the glyph wall. His hands trembled. The fans beside him vibrated softly, not from wind—but from the memory of it.
The skywater nearby had frozen. Literally frozen midair. Thin ribbons of it hovered in place, like icy threads waiting to be pulled.
He looked around.
And at the far edge of the cliffs, near the bridge to the Spire, he saw something—or someone—watching.
A tall figure, cloak caught in the wind. The breeze moved around them differently, like the island recognized them. And though their face was obscured by distance and a faint shimmer of light, Aera felt the weight of their gaze.
The wind stirred once more.
"Soon," the breeze whispered.
Then the figure was gone.
And Aera knew — everything was about to change.