But he knew—it meant something.
The mark stitched into the glove pulsed once beneath the flickering candlelight—a subtle, silent beat. A perfect loop of white thread, delicate as a hair yet heavy with meaning.
Darian stared at the mark as he sat on his cot, the glove resting in his palm like a long-awaited secret finally revealed. Time seemed to slow; minutes stretched into an eternity as the dying candle's flame leaned toward the glove, as if drawn by curiosity.
He reached out and lightly touched the loop. It was warm—warm not from the fire, nor from the glove itself, but from something deep within. It meant something. He did not know what—but a certainty nestled in his chest like a second heartbeat.
Slowly, he rose. With measured, almost ritualistic movements, Darian carefully replaced the glove into the cloth that had once wrapped it, folded the cloth twice, and slid it beneath the floorboard where the old parchment had been kept. He paused, hand still resting on the cool wood, and then pressed the board closed.
The silence in the room grew denser than before—not hostile, but full, as if the space itself had been filled with something invisible and alert.
He chose not to light another candle. He did not sleep. Instead, he sat by the window for hours, watching the darkness meld into the quiet.
When dawn finally crept over the horizon, the fog outside was thick and pale—veiling the grounds in a cold, indistinct blur.
Darian dressed with slow, deliberate movements, acutely aware of every thread in his tunic and every crease in the fabric. He no longer chose where to go. He simply followed the weight in his chest—the subtle tugs and gentle nudges—allowing them to guide him.
That day, they led him beyond the servants' quarters, past the east hallway, and through the cracked door of the neglected storage room. He moved like a shadow—quiet, unnoticed—passing dusty crates, collapsed tapestries, until he reached another door.
This one was different: newer, made of clean wood without the layered dust of forgotten places. At its center, a symbol was carved:
A thread, pierced by a needle, split cleanly down the middle.
He had never seen such a mark before. It did not belong to any House. Nor to the Church. It belonged to no known order.
Darian pressed his hand against the carved symbol. The door opened smoothly, revealing an interior that felt unexpectedly warm—not humid, but imbued with a lived-in presence, as if someone had only just stepped out. The walls were smooth stone, unmarked, and the ambient light was soft, as if dusk itself had been captured within the room. There were no windows, no flames, no sound—only silence and an immaculate stillness.
In the center of that room stood a massive loom with an iron frame. The threads hanging from it shimmered with a hue beyond any color Darian could name. They did not simply reflect light; they bent it, imbuing the space with an ethereal glow. Unlike the linear strands he had seen before, these threads seemed to float—suspended in shifting patterns that changed imperceptibly when held in a lingering gaze, like a slow, rhythmic pulse.
He raised his hand, then hesitated. One solitary thread moved toward him—not all of them, just one—as if it recognized him, as if it knew him. It did not come to rest upon his skin, but hovered mere inches from his palm, swaying gently.
Darian said nothing. He found himself at a loss for words. Instead, a thought drifted through his mind—a whisper as delicate as thread sliding through cloth:
"We are not pulled. We pull."
He blinked. The thread retracted, and the loom's faint glow dimmed as if it had never truly been there. Darian turned, and the door vanished. Yet he did not panic. He did not shout. The silence accepted him, as though he had always belonged to this hidden realm.
He walked to the far side of the room, past the loom and the impossibly suspended threads, until he came upon a wall. On it hung a mirror—cracked, yet not shattered. Its surface offered no clear reflection, only the image of colorless threads: some still, others vibrating slowly like plucked strings. Amid these, barely discernible, were shapes—figures in constant motion, as if sewing. They had no distinct faces, no discernible hands—only shifting outlines that bent over a fabric which itself seemed to warp the very space around it.
Darian leaned in, and in that fractured mirror, he saw only his own lonely reflection—alone, with a single thread still curling gently above his shoulder. He turned away, and as if summoned, the door reappeared once more—open, welcoming.
Quietly, he returned to his cot before anyone could notice his absence. The candle remained unlit. The glove lay hidden beneath the board. Yet he could feel the mark in his chest—a second heartbeat that was not his.
Days passed. Or what felt like days. He worked when summoned, ate when permitted, and slept only when exhausted. But Darian no longer felt entirely anchored in the manor—nor entirely part of the physical world.
The threads were changing.
They no longer simply appeared; they responded.
If he moved too quickly, the threads would twitch. If he brushed against one, another would shift nearby. If he whispered... One would curl further, as if listening.
He tested it once—just a single time.
"Why me?"
A thread stretched taut in response.
Then snapped.
Silently.
Leaving only absence in its wake.
The next morning, a faint mark appeared on his wrist—thin, delicate, like a thread pressed against his skin for too long. It faded by nightfall, but Darian knew it had been real.
He donned the glove once more, and this time a red thread emerged.
It did not curl.
It simply waited.
When he touched it, it moved—not away, nor toward him—but turned, like an eye narrowing in on a secret. In his mind, there was no voice, only a shift in weight—a whisper of meaning:
"The ones who sew do not speak.But they see."
That evening, Darian did not write.
Instead, he drew.
On a scrap of parchment, carefully folded and tucked into his coat, he sketched a figure—not quite a person, but something bent over a loom, with limbs overly long, shoulders stitched into its back, and eyes made entirely of thread.
He showed the drawing to no one.
For who could believe something so surreal?
Later that night, as he passed a mirror in the corridor—
His reflection blinked before he did.
"I thought I was learning how to see.But now I wonder—Am I being taught how to be seen?"