I lay on my bed, my eyes fixed on the threads dancing between my fingers.
Thin, glistening strands of luminous blue strings were floating as if they were weightless, as if gravity didn't dare touch them. They slipped over my knuckles and wove across my palms like silk caught in a breeze. I willed them to curve and they obeyed. I thought of circles and they spun.
I imagined them tightening and they hardened, straining against the air like coiled steel. The glow pulsed like the beat of a heartbeat I didn't know I missed until now.
Stringweave.
That was the name I had chosen. Not because it sounded fancy or elegant, but because it was honest. Because it represented what I wanted to do. I wanted to weave connections, memories, maybe even fate itself. I didn't want power for domination. I wanted it so that I could hold everything together. Maybe even myself.
The possibilities with Stringweave were endless. I could feel it. If I mastered this, I could tether things that were otherwise separate.
It was unlike my last life. That life had been desperation and violence wrapped in steel. That life had given me Metal Manipulation, an Alteration Flux, born from agony and teeth-gritting defiance. I had unlocked it when I was eighteen, scouring trash cans for dinner on the side alleys of Amsterdam.
It was supposed to be a normal night until the sirens screamed.
That week, the Marimus Faction had announced their arrival in Europe. They were scouting locations, moving through capital cities. Amsterdam had to look "clean" for their little PR parade. And I was part of the "unclean." Orders had gone out to eliminate the homeless. Not jail them.
Eliminate.
The cops didn't wear badges that night. Just dark clothes and rifles with silencers. They didn't even shout. They just opened fire.
I remember ducking behind a dumpster, my fingers numb from cold and hunger. I remember the metallic taste in my mouth, the fear that choked my throat shut. And I remember the feeling. A pull, maybe a scream from my soul that said no.
And the metal moved.
The trash lids lifted. The rusted cars screeched and bent to my will. Bullets shattered mid-air. I'd never screamed so loud in my life, not from fear but rage. I crushed police vans like they were tin cans. I threw steel like spears. I became a ghost after that. A monster in the newspapers.
A "public threat."
I ran for two years. Mercenary work became my bread and butter. I lived like a shadow until a team picked me up. Said I had potential. Said I could be something. And they were right. They trained me, taught me and brought me into the fold.
And we became the Seven.
That's where I met him.
Thales.
He didn't give me a second glance when we first met, and I hated that. Then he gave me all his attention when I didn't want it, and I hated that even more. He was annoying, too kind, always trying to make jokes when all I wanted was silence. But he wore me down. Piece by piece. Brick by brick.
He took me to museums after missions. Made me taste coffee from every continent. And when I got nightmares, he sat with me and told me about stars. He said we were made of them. That the universe didn't make mistakes.
One night, after a mission went south, he brought me to the rooftop of a broken-down library. There were gunshots in the distance. We sat there, backs to a wall, and he said, "I think I've been looking for you all my life."
I'd never loved someone like that before.
He chose the name Thales because he hated his real one. Said he wanted to start over. To be a new man. He taught me what love felt like when it wasn't survival. He taught me laughter.
And then… the Fourth Thauma hit.
I remembered it too clearly. Screams, collapse. people turning to ash in seconds and death...
He was beside me, always, until he wasn't. An attack came straight for me, one I couldn't dodge. And he—damn him—he pushed me out of the way.
I held his body in my arms, blood on my fingers and the blank look in his eyes as his soul left him. That was the moment I broke. I became nothing after that.
And now I was back in this life and this... younger body.
And he wasn't.
He might be alive somewhere in this world, sure. But… would he know me? Would he even remember? Or would he walk past me like a stranger?
I gripped the threads tighter, but they couldn't hold the pain. Tears slipped down my cheeks before I could stop them. I curled up, my back to the wall, sobbing into my sleeve like a child.
All those memories, all that love was gone.
It didn't exist in this world anymore. Only in my head. Only in this soul of mine that remembered too much.
I loved him. Gods, I still loved him. Every breath felt like a betrayal. Every heartbeat was a reminder that he wasn't here to share it with me.
I had awakened Stringweave but what good was weaving the world when the one person I wanted to share it with wasn't woven into this reality with me?
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know if I should try to find him, or let go. All I knew was that I missed him.
And for the first time since I came back…
I wished I hadn't.