The air carried the tang of rust and unspoken vows. Li Xuanji awoke in darkness, his chest heavy, as if burdened by the weight of countless unwritten tales. His fingers stirred, grazing cold stone. No heartbeat stirred within him. No breath warmed the air. Only a deep hum, ancient and alive, pulsed beneath the earth.
Where am I?
His thoughts were fragments, jagged and fleeting. He reached for a memory—any memory—but grasped only shadows. A name surfaced. Xuanji. His, he was certain. But beyond that? A void, vast as a sky without stars.
He pushed himself upright, muscles protesting as if untouched for centuries. The ground was rough, strewn with sharp edges that pricked his palms. His eyes adjusted to a faint, sickly green glow emanating from the walls. Swords—hundreds of them—jutted from the stone like the fangs of a buried beast. Their blades shimmered, not with polish, but with a living essence, as if they wept forgotten memories.
The Sword Tomb, a voice whispered, not his own.
Xuanji froze. The voice came from his right hand, where his fingers curled around the hilt of a blade he hadn't noticed. It was light, almost weightless, its edge glinting with a frost-like sheen. Memory's Fang, it named itself, though he couldn't fathom how he knew.
"Who speaks?" His voice rasped, raw from disuse. The tomb devoured the sound, leaving only the hum.
No reply came. Only the swords watched, their glowing edges like eyes in the dark. He staggered to his feet, the blade still in his grip. Each step echoed, too loud in the silence. The air grew colder, sharper, as if the tomb resented his presence. His hand traced the wall, feeling carvings—symbols of threads weaving and unraveling, a tapestry torn apart.
You do not belong here, a faint whisper hissed, in a tongue he somehow understood.
Xuanji's grip tightened on the sword. "Then where do I belong?" he muttered, his voice laced with a defiance he didn't fully feel.
The tomb offered no answer. Instead, the ground trembled. A low growl rumbled from the shadows, and the green glow dimmed. Xuanji spun, sword raised, as a shape emerged—a beast woven of smoke and light, its body a tangle of threads pulsing red, blue, and gold. Its eyes were hollow voids, leaking memories like tears.
"Threadless," it snarled, the word a condemnation. "Error."
Xuanji's heart—or whatever passed for it—lurched. Threadless. The word sparked a flicker of meaning. Images flashed: a city aglow with vibrant threads, people kneeling before a machine that hummed like the tomb, and a single thread—his thread—snapping into nothingness.
The beast lunged. Xuanji dove, instinct outpacing memory. Memory's Fang sliced through the air, meeting the creature's form. No blood spilled. Instead, a scream—a woman's scream—erupted from the wound, and a memory flooded Xuanji's mind: A child's hand slipping from his grasp. A lullaby, fading into silence.
He stumbled, the vision searing his skull. The beast recoiled, its threads fraying like ash. "What… are you?" Xuanji gasped, but the creature was already dissolving, its essence scattering. The sword pulsed, warmer now, as if it had drunk the beast's memories.
Footsteps echoed behind him—real, deliberate steps. Xuanji turned, blade raised, to see two figures emerge from the shadows. A woman with eyes like shattered glass, her hands glowing with faint orbs of light. A man, blindfolded, his fingers tracing the air as if reading invisible patterns.
"Threadless," the woman said, her voice sharp but tinged with curiosity. "You're alive. That's unexpected."
"Who are you?" Xuanji demanded, his sword still poised. The woman's orbs flickered, and for a moment, he felt a tug at his mind, as if a memory were trying to slip away.
"I'm Mira," she said, a faint smirk curling her lips. "Memory thief. This is Kael, who sees what others forget." The blind man nodded, his face unreadable beneath the blindfold.
"Why am I here?" Xuanji's voice steadied, though his mind churned.
Kael tilted his head, as if listening to a distant song. "Because you're an Error. And Errors have no place in the Loom's world."
The ground shook again, harder now. The swords in the walls glowed brighter, their hum rising to a scream. Mira cursed softly. "They're coming," she said, glancing at Kael. "The Enforcers. They've marked you, Threadless."
Xuanji's grip on Memory's Fang tightened. "Marked me? For what?"
Mira's smirk faded. "For erasure."
Before he could press further, the tomb's ceiling cracked, and a beam of golden light pierced the darkness. Figures descended, their threads blazing—red, blue, gold—like living constellations. Their eyes locked on Xuanji, cold and unyielding.
"Li Xuanji," one intoned, voice sharp as a blade. "You were never meant to wake."
The sword in his hand pulsed, whispering a single word: Remember.
End of chapter 1