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CHAPTER 18

LILY

The room was thick with expectation, the air humming with something unspoken. The silver-haired woman—Ysella, as I had come to know—watched me, waiting for something I wasn’t sure I could give.

Someone tried to sever you from your thread.

Her words rattled through me, unsettling something deep in my bones.

I had spent my whole life thinking I was just another ordinary person, just another girl trying to make sense of the world. My family wasn’t special.

My grandmother had told me stories. Legends of strong women, of fate and power, but that was all they had been.

Stories.

Not history. Not truth.

And yet, the threads I had seen in the woods told me otherwise.

“That’s not possible. No one in my family has magic.”

Ysella’s gaze didn’t waver. “Perhaps not anymore.”

A shiver traced down my spine. “What does that mean?”

She exchanged a glance with Syra before stepping closer. “Some bloodlines were severed. Some were unraveled, their remaining lines hidden away so they would not suffer the fate of the others.” Her expression darkened. “So they would not be hunted.”

The implications settled into my bones, but before I could dwell on them, Ysella nodded toward a figure I hadn’t noticed before.

A young woman stepped forward, no older than me, her warm brown eyes carrying a kindness that eased the tension in the room. Her dark curls were pulled back loosely, a few strands escaping to frame her face. She looked at me not with suspicion, but with something else entirely—understanding.

“This is Lorien,” Ysella said. “She’s a Mender. If anyone can help you, it’s her.”

Lorien smiled, gentle but sure. “I can untangle your threads. If you’ll let me.”

My throat tightened. If you’ll let me. So simple. So much trust given to a stranger.

I nodded. “Okay.”

She gestured for me to sit, and I hesitated before lowering myself onto the worn rug covering the rocky floor. The others stepped back, giving us space, but I could feel their eyes on me. Watching. Waiting.

Lorien knelt in front of me, resting her hands on her lap. “This might feel. . . strange.”

I exhaled shakily. “Define strange.”

Her lips twitched. “Like you’re being unraveled. But don’t worry, i’ll put you back together.”

I didn’t know why, but I believed her.

She reached forward, fingers hovering just above my forearm. A warmth flickered at the edges of my skin, like sunlight filtering through glass. Then the air shifted—and I saw them. Golden threads. So many it stole my breath. They were tangled and knotted as if someone had tried to bury me inside time itself.

An audible inhale from Lorien made the circle rustle.

I looked at her, my pulse hammering. “What?”

Her fingers barely brushed over one of the threads, and something shifted inside me, like a door creaking open. “Your weave is. . . vast. Strong. More than it should be for someone who has never trained.”

Syra stepped closer, with flint-bright eyes. “She comes from an old line.”