He came to the village of Caerrin on a windless morning, when the smoke of cookfires curled unnaturally still in the air.
He did not knock. He did not ask.
He arrived.
Draped in ash-grey robes, eyes glowing faintly crimson, the boy they once knew as Jash now carried himself with stillness too precise to be natural.
He smiled without warmth.
Spoke without hesitation.
And when he opened his mouth, his voice was no longer his own.
"You do not have to wonder who you are," he told them.
"I already know."
The First Conversion
The village elder, a once-proud Flamebearer whose threads had frayed with age, stepped forward to challenge the stranger.
"No story owns us," she said firmly. "We shape ourselves."
Jash—no, Nareon—tilted his head.
"And has that brought you peace?"
He gestured to her trembling hands, to the broken thread around her neck, to the flickering lantern barely lit by breath.
"Choice breeds confusion. Memory fades."
"Let me carry it for you."
She hesitated.
Just a second.
But it was enough.
His hand brushed her brow.
And her lantern went dark.
In its place, a single red thread coiled behind her ear—quiet, firm, complete.
She exhaled.
And smiled.
"Yes," she said. "That's better."
The Cult of the Known
Within three days, Caerrin was silent.
No weavers sang in the threadhalls.
No children shaped their own names in flame.
Every lantern burned red.
And when Kaelen arrived, he found a village that bowed not from reverence, but from relief.
"He freed us," a child said. "We don't have to decide anymore."
"We are already written."
Kaelen's stomach twisted.
He found no trace of the gray thread's breath here.
Only echoes.
Only obedience.
Rien's Fury
When Kaelen returned to Ashlight Vale, Rien listened in silence.
Not a word.
Not a breath.
Until he finished.
Then she stood.
"He's twisting the deepest hope," she said. "The hope that someone might see us—fully—and still love what they find."
Tessen, standing nearby, whispered, "He offers certainty. That's harder to fight than fear."
"Then we don't fight it," Rien said. "We outshine it."
The Flame of Becoming
That night, at the peak of Dawnspire, the Weavekeepers gathered.
Rien held the second gray thread aloft—no longer flickering, but steady and warm.
"We teach them not what to be," she said.
"But how to walk the path of becoming."
One by one, the children stepped forward—each given no name, no thread, no prophecy.
Only a moment to speak what stirred within them.
"I am not ready," one whispered.
"But I want to be."
"I don't know who I am," said another.
"But I want to find out."
And the gray thread shimmered.
Not stronger.
Just truer.
Mireon's Triumph
Back in the ruins of Talanre, Mireon watched the conversion of Caerrin from behind Nareon's eyes.
He had no need to speak anymore.
The boy spoke for him.
The people listened.
And for the first time in centuries, he felt something like pleasure.
"They want to be chosen," he mused. "They want to be sure."
He turned to the glass, where his reflection—faceless and vast—began to smile.
"Then let them believe I am their truth."
A New Flamebearer Rises
In the village of Nareya, far from Caerrin's shadow, a girl named Thera stood at the edge of her first choosing.
She had no thread.
No lantern.
Only a voice.
"I am not a name yet," she said. "But I am not yours, Mireon."
The gray thread whispered beneath her feet.
And she lit a small breath of flame.
Unwritten.
Unforced.
And the sky shimmered with the color of possibility.