It seeped through the dark behind her eyes, not the harsh, buzzing white of office fluorescents, but a soft, shifting silver—like moonlight passing through water. Something cool and fragrant brushed her cheek, and fabric whispered when she moved.

She opened her eyes.

A canopy arched above her, not the plain plaster ceiling of her old apartment but a dome of pale stone ribbed with veins of light. Threads of silver and pearl chased one another across it in slow, spiraling patterns, like constellations caught mid‑dance. The canopy itself seemed to breathe, dimming and brightening in time with some distant, steady pulse.

Her first thought was that someone had left a projector on. Her second was that her chest rose and fell in a way that felt… right.

She lay in a bed big enough to lose herself in, sheets of something softer than cotton and smoother than silk pooling around her waist. The duvet was a deep dusk blue, embroidered with tiny, beaded moons that caught the shifting light. When she pushed herself up on her elbows, the beads slid and shimmered, sending scattered moons rolling over the walls.

Her hands—small, pale, with slender fingers that ended in neatly shaped nails—pressed into the mattress. Her arms trembled, not from weakness, but from the unfamiliar weight distribution of a body that was not the one she’d known for twenty‑nine years.

The scent that had brushed her cheek came from nearby: a cluster of flowers in a carved crystal vase on a nightstand. Their petals were long and narrow, glowing from within like captured starlight, each bloom cupping a tiny drop of liquid radiance in its center. Moonflowers, some part of her supplied. Of course.

She sat up, and the world rearranged itself around that movement.

Her hair slid over her shoulders in a copper curtain, the silky weight of it startling. It brushed the tops of her arms—bare, smooth. A nightgown shifted against her skin: soft white fabric with a faint silver sheen, sleeveless, the bodice smocked in small, delicate gathers that suggested curves she had never needed to pad. The hem brushed just below her knees, edged in lace so fine it might have been woven from spiderwebs and fog.

Jamie’s old T‑shirts and thrift‑store skirts felt like clothes someone else had worn in a school play.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet met a rug, but not the rough, shedding rectangle from her studio. This one was thick and plush, woven in overlapping circles of gray and white. Threads of light ran through it in spirals, tickling her skin through the nightgown’s thin fabric.

When she stood, she didn’t tower.

Her center of gravity had dropped, as if someone had gently pressed on her shoulders and hips until she compacted into a smaller, balanced frame. Her knees looked… right. Her hands vanished when she rested them on her hips, instead of hovering awkwardly above them. The nightgown fell from a chest that rose in a way that made every breath feel like stepping into warm water.

A sound like a held breath being released left her lips.

On the far wall, opposite the bed, hung a mirror framed in pearlescent stone. The frame curved like crescent moons entwined, their tips almost meeting at the top. Tiny flecks of light drifted inside the stone, like fireflies trapped in marble.

She walked toward it on bare feet, the rug’s threads glowing faintly around her toes with each step. The air was cool against her arms, but the room itself seemed to hold a gentle warmth, as if the stone remembered the heat of many suns.

The girl in the mirror stopped her halfway across the room.

Copper hair spilled over narrow shoulders, falling in a loose wave down to the middle of her back. It caught the silver light and threw it back with a rose‑gold glint. Her face, framed by that hair, had the soft lines of youth—cheeks that still held the last traces of childhood roundness, a jaw that tapered into a delicate chin, a nose that was neither too sharp nor too flat, simply there.

Eyes the color of twilight, not quite blue, not quite gray, watched her. They were too big for the face, in the way that made artists reach for their pencils, irises ringed with a darker halo. Her lashes cast fine shadows on her cheeks.

The nightgown’s bodice hugged a modest swell of breasts. Not the flat plane she’d known, not the strange in‑between months of hormone changes, but a natural curve that belonged there without argument. Her shoulders sloped gently into arms that looked like they had never carried more than a stack of books.

She lifted her hand. The girl did too. When she turned her wrist, the delicate bones shifted under smooth skin in perfect sync.

A laugh broke out of her—sharp and bright, like a cork popping from a bottle. It echoed in the vaulted chamber, bounced off the carved stone, and came back to her ears sounding like someone she had once tried to imagine through a filter.

Her hand flew to her mouth. Her reflection’s eyes shone.

The laugh faded, but the trembling in her shoulders didn’t. It was not the shake of fear. It was something she had never had the vocabulary for, because she had never experienced it fully: a release, a loosening, a sudden absence of an ache so constant she’d stopped noticing it.

Jamie’s memories flickered in front of this new image like film projected on glass.

Her old bathroom’s cracked mirror, the yellowed light showing a man’s jaw where she wanted curves, the way she’d tilted her head to find herself at the right angle and then quickly looked away.

The locker room at work, the too‑broad shoulders reflected twice in metal, the deliberate way she’d avoided eye contact with herself.

The first time she’d buttoned a blouse over the soft swell hormones had started to give her, the wild hope and sharp fear tangled in her chest like barbed wire.

Those moments felt now like scenes from someone else’s life.

“I look…” She didn’t finish.

There was no word that didn’t feel either too small or too sentimental. She let the unfinished thought sit in the air between her and the mirror, in the space where her old reflection used to mock her.

She reached up, fingers searching her ears. No cheap gold hoops here. Instead, small studs nestled against her lobes, each a tiny crescent moon carved out of opalescent stone. When she brushed them, they warmed slightly, as if responding to her touch.

“Welcome home, daughter.”

The voice came from behind her. Warm. Familiar, even though she had heard it only once in the mist.

Lyria—she realized the name fit here, as if thinking “Jamie” now caused a faint echo instead of a direct answer—turned.

Daya stood by the foot of the bed.

The goddess looked different in this room, more grounded. The starlight gown remained, constellations shifting slowly along its folds, but she had set aside the towering aura of incomprehensibility. Here, she seemed only slightly too bright for the space, as if the room itself worked to contain her.

She had no crown, no scepter. Her hair fell loose down her back. When she smiled, fine lines appeared at the corners of her eyes—the marks of someone who had laughed many times, and also watched many endings.

“How do you feel?” Daya asked.

Lyria’s answer caught in the fabric of her throat.

She turned back toward the mirror and lifted a handful of her hair, letting it slip between her fingers. The strands shone like copper wire in the silver light. She touched the curve of her own shoulder, then pressed a palm flat against her chest, feeling the heartbeat there. Steady. Not too fast. Not a rabbit’s panicked thrum.

She did not speak.

Instead, she walked the last step to the mirror and pressed her forehead against the cool glass, eyes closing. Her breath fogged it for a moment, leaving a small, imperfect circle. When it cleared, her reflection stared back, unchanged.

Her shoulders rose and fell. The sound that came from her this time was quieter than laughter, but just as sharp. A small exhale that sagged her whole frame, as if someone had untied a knot at the base of her skull.

Daya’s reflection came into view beside her own. Their eyes met in the glass.

Daya’s hand settled on Lyria’s shoulder. The weight was gentle, but it anchored more than just flesh.

“For the first time,” Lyria whispered, voice rough, “I don’t feel… like I’m wearing someone else’s life.”

Daya’s grip tightened, once. Her eyes in the mirror softened in that way they had in the mist when she’d spoken of Penelope and Agape Duro.

“This form was woven with you in mind,” Daya said. “Not as perfection, but as alignment.”

The word soothed some raw place.

Lyria pulled back from the mirror, turning to face Daya fully. “There’s no going back,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“No.” Daya’s expression did not flinch. “Earth’s tapestry continues without you. I cannot reinsert your thread there without shattering laws that hold the universes apart. Whatever happens in that realm now happens beyond our touch.”

Images flickered—Elaine’s laugh, the group chat blinking on a screen that would never light up for her again, HR memos sitting in an inbox no one would have reason to open.

Lyria’s fingers curled around the nightgown’s fabric at her sides.

“Do they know?” she asked. “Anyone? Penelope?”

“Penelope knows your thread was cut under Alus’s influence,” Daya said. “She knows I intervened. She does not know what form that intervention took. She does not know you as Lyria. It would be cruel to bind her to grief and hope both when she cannot reach you.”

Lyria looked down at her hands. The nails were glossy and unchipped, as if someone had taken care with them. Someone had. The thought that she had slept while a goddess prepared her new body’s details made her ears warm.

“So everything I had there is gone,” she said.

“Gone from your reach,” Daya corrected. “Not erased. Earth’s tapestry remembers you as Jamie. Your courage is woven into its fabric. It may inspire others. You, however, have been moved to another loom.”

A second chance. Not a continuation.

Lyria nodded once. The motion felt decisive.

“What constraints?” she asked, surprising herself. “You said there would be rules. Limits. I’d rather know now than be… blindsided later.”

Daya’s smile flickered, approving. She moved toward the room’s far wall, where a section of stone was carved into an archway without a door. With a flick of her fingers, the arch filled with light, then cleared into a view of the world outside.

Lyria stepped up beside her.

Beyond the arch lay a balcony and, beyond that, the realm itself: the crystalline city she’d glimpsed in the mist, now vivid and sharp. Towers of pale stone and glass rose in elegant curves, their surfaces shot through with veins of light that pulsed like the rug’s threads. Bridges arched between them, lined with lanterns that burned with steady, silvery flames. The sky above was an endless indigo, strewn with more stars than she’d ever seen from any Earth city, the moon hanging low and large, casting everything in gentle radiance.

People walked along the streets far below. Some wore robes that trailed threads of light behind them, others simpler tunics. No cars, no buses. The air even from this distance seemed… quieter.

“In this realm,” Daya said, “I can intervene more freely. But not without cost. And not without boundary. I have shaped its laws around love and consent. You will share that burden.”

Lyria watched a trio of children—she thought they were children; their silhouettes were small, their laughter carried faintly—run along a balcony farther down, their threads trailing like comets.

“You will, in time, see threads as I do,” Daya continued. “Where they fray, where they are stained by fear, where they are knotted by trauma or twisted by another’s direct violation. You will be able to mend some of them. Not all.”

“Not my own,” Lyria said, recalling the warning from the mist.

“Not your own,” Daya confirmed. “You may never use your power to alter your own fate. You may not override another’s will where it is truly present. You may not erase history. You may only offer new paths, gently redirect, or strengthen bonds that were already there.”

“And if I try to… force things?” Lyria asked. “To act out of resentment?”

“The magic will fail.” Daya’s tone turned firmer. “Thread‑weaving here runs on lifeforce magnified by unconditional love. If hatred, revenge, or petty jealousy dominate your heart, you will not be able to weave. If you attempt to push past that, you risk fraying your own thread. And there is no power in this realm—not mine, not yours—that can mend your own soul once damaged.”

The city’s beauty took on a faint edge at that. All this grace balanced on rules.

Lyria swallowed, feeling the shape of that boundary. “So I can’t use this to hurt people. Even if they… deserve it.”

“You can shield,” Daya said. “You can protect, redirect, heal. You can expose truth. But you cannot turn their will into your puppet’s strings. Not even for ‘good’ ends.”

Her hand moved through the air.

A small crescent‑moon charm appeared above Lyria’s open palm, as if dropping into it from nowhere. It was the size of a coin, carved from the same opalescent stone as her earrings, attached to a fine chain that shimmered like spun frost.

The charm warmed immediately upon contact.

“Take this,” Daya said. “It will help you learn.”

Before Lyria could respond, the charm pulsed.

A tiny projection burst from it, hovering in front of Lyria’s face—a floating crescent moon made of light, with a cartoonishly smug expression etched onto its surface.

“Divine Thread System initializing!” a voice chimed.

If laughter could be made into sound, into a person, into a chime bouncing off crystal, this was it. The tone was bright, a little too loud for the quiet room.

“Hiya, bestie!” the moon chirped. “I’m Selene—your guide, quest‑log, and future partner in palace gossip!”

Lyria blinked.

Selene wiggled, her projected form bobbing up and down. “Ooh, your vitals look good! New body, who this?”

A small bar appeared at the edge of Lyria’s vision, hovering like a HUD: a thin silver line, full, with a tiny heart icon pulsing at the end. Underneath it, faint text read: Lifeforce Reserve: Stable.

Daya’s mouth quirked. “Selene will assist you in navigating the palace and my realm,” she said. “She has access to information, not to threads. She sees what I allow her to see. She cannot compel you, nor can she perform magic herself.”

Selene threw her tiny arms wide. “Think of me as your cosmic BFF who knows where the bathroom is and which fork to use, but absolutely cannot, like, fix your love life for you. Much as I might want to.”

“You want a lot of things,” Daya murmured dryly.

Selene huffed. “I want what’s best for our girl here. Also, I want more wardrobe options. We’ll get to that.”

Lyria stared at the little moon. “You’re… an AI?” she asked, the Earth term slipping out.

“A‑ish,” Selene said. “Semi‑autonomous interface. Magical user experience overlay. U.I., if we’re being fancy. But you can call me Selene. And you, my dear, are overdue for a tutorial.”

A glowing text box popped into existence beside the floating moon:

Tutorial Quest: Moonlit Beginnings
Objective: Explore the Lunar Palace and meet key residents.
Reward: Unlock Thread Sight (basic perception only).

Lyria’s lips parted. “You sound like a game,” she said.

“Gamification improves user adherence,” Selene said primly. Then she ruined the effect by doing a little spin. “Also, it’s more fun this way.”

Daya stepped back from the arch, letting the view of the city narrow. “This palace is full of threads tangled by prejudice and fear,” she said. “Some will welcome you. Some will see you as an experiment. Learn who is who before you begin to mend anything. Observe. Listen. Remember: no weaving until your heart is steady.”

Lyria’s fingers closed around the pendant’s cool edge. The chain slid against her skin like water when she lifted it to fasten around her neck. It settled against her collarbone with a small, satisfying weight, as if it had always been meant to sit there.

She looked at Daya. “I’ll try,” she said.

“I know.” Daya’s hand brushed her cheek. “I cannot walk these halls with you every moment. But I will watch. And I will be there when you need me to be a goddess, and when you only need me to be your mother.”

The word landed different here.

Mother.

Heat pricked behind Lyria’s eyes. She dropped her gaze, not ready to let Daya see that much, not yet. But her shoulders drew back slightly, as if something invisible had slotted into place behind her spine.

“Shall we begin the tour?” Selene squealed, already zipping toward the chamber door, leaving a faint trail of pixel‑like sparks. “Fashion, politics, people who will definitely side‑eye you—we’ve got it all!”

Daya laughed softly. “Go,” she said to Lyria. “Learn what this world is, before you start changing it.”

The corridor outside Lyria’s room curved gently, following the shape of the tower. The walls were made of the same pale stone as the canopy, veined with slow‑moving light. Alcoves held carved niches where silver flames burned without smoke, casting a cool, even glow.

Large windows punctuated the corridor, their panes not glass but thin, translucent crystal etched with lunar motifs. Beyond them, the city stretched in crystalline terraces, bridges weaving between towers, waterfalls of light spilling from some unseen source down into a central plaza.

Lyria’s nightgown felt suddenly too intimate for hallway exploration.

As if sensing the thought, Selene spun around mid‑air, tiny hands on her nonexistent hips. “Okay, wardrobe first. Daya’s sense of drama is great, but you can’t meet the nobility in your sleepwear, babe.”

Lyria glanced down at herself, cheeks warming. “Is there… something else I’m supposed to wear?”

“Already queued up! Check the armoire to your left.”

A tall wardrobe stood recessed into the wall beside her door, its double doors carved with a relief of intertwined vines and crescent moons. When she touched the cool metal of the handle, it sprang open noiselessly.

Inside, gowns hung in a neat row, each on a carved hanger: shades of midnight blue, lavender, soft gray, and one daring crimson. Fabrics ranged from heavy brocades embroidered with constellations to light, gauzy layers that looked like fog caught in fabric form.

Her hand drifted toward the crimson, then paused. It was beautiful—fitted bodice, off‑the‑shoulder sleeves that would leave her collarbones bare, skirt cascading in dramatic folds. It also screamed, Look at me.

She wasn’t ready for that yet.

Selene’s moon face appeared above her shoulder. “Bold choice,” she whispered. “But maybe save the red for when we’re ready to make the court collectively choke.”

Lyria’s fingers moved to a gown three hangers over: soft dove gray, with long, fitted sleeves and a skirt that flared in gentle panels rather than dramatic swoops. Tiny silver threads had been embroidered along the hem in a pattern of overlapping arcs, like ripples on a pond under starlight.

She lifted it down.

The fabric was cool and smooth in her hands, heavier than it looked. When she slipped it over her head, it slid into place like water pouring into a vessel designed for it. The bodice hugged her torso without pinching, the waistline settling at a point that made her feel—together. Balanced. The skirt fell to just above her ankles, enough to move easily but still drape.

A full‑length mirror on the inside of the armoire door showed her the effect: a sixteen‑year‑old girl staring back, hair falling loose over the pale gray, the crescent pendant glinting at her throat.

Her hands smoothed the bodice reflexively. The gesture was unfamiliar and deeply, deeply satisfying.

Selene made a soft noise. “Yep,” she said. “That’s it. Soft power. Understated fatalism. We love to see it.”

“You cannot love,” Lyria said automatically, then felt ridiculous.

“Functionally accurate,” Selene conceded. “But I can appreciate aesthetics.”

Lyria turned slowly, watching how the skirt moved. It swayed around her calves, whispering against her skin. No shifting waistband digging into the wrong place. No pockets gaping weirdly. No hateful, too‑masculine line.

She stepped into the corridor, bare feet silent on the smooth stone.

Selene floated ahead, projecting a small, semi‑transparent map into the upper corner of Lyria’s vision: a simplified layout of the palace tower, with a tiny silver dot labeled You Are Here.

“First stop: staff corridor,” Selene narrated. “Because nobility is all well and good, but the people who know what’s actually happening around here are the ones hauling linens at ungodly hours.”

“Is that… allowed?” Lyria asked. “Just wandering?”

“They’ve been warned,” Selene said. “Daya likes her children curious. And you’re not the only one living here, you know.”

They rounded a curve.

A woman came toward them, arms loaded with folded linens that glowed faintly along their edges—moon‑infused, Lyria guessed. She wore a practical dress of deep blue, apron tied snugly around her waist, hair pinned back in a bun streaked with silver. Fine lines bracketed her mouth, the kind carved by years of tight‑smiled patience.

When she saw Lyria, she stopped so abruptly one of the folded sheets slid sideways.

“Princess,” she said, bowing quickly. Her voice was low and hoarse, as if she’d been awake since before dawn. “Forgive me—I did not hear you leave your chambers.”

Lyria’s stomach clenched. The word “Princess” landed like a borrowed coat—still too big in the shoulders. Her first instinct was to wave it away, to apologize for existing in the hallway.

She opened her mouth.

Selene’s tiny form zipped into her peripheral vision, flashing a red exclamation mark.

“Palace Tip #1,” the AI whispered. “Royals don’t apologize for existing. Try: ‘Your dedication honors the court.’”

Lyria closed her mouth, swallowed the “sorry.”

“Your dedication honors the court,” she said instead, the phrase feeling strange and formal on her tongue.

The servant’s shoulders loosened, ever so slightly. The corners of her mouth tipped up. “You are kind, Highness,” she said. “Shall I escort you to the Sunless Garden? The night‑blooms are still open.”

Lyria glanced at Selene, who waggled her eyebrows encouragingly from her place above the woman’s shoulder.

“I’d like that,” Lyria said.

They walked together down the corridor. Lyria matched her pace to the woman’s, resisting the urge to pepper her with questions about her life, her family, how long she’d worked here. The servant’s eyes flicked sideways a few times, curiosity quick under the professionalism.

“Forgive my forwardness, Highness,” she said at last. “But it is good to see you awake. Some at court…” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “Some wondered if you would… take to this realm.”

Lyria’s hand tightened around her pendant.

“Some at court think she’s a project, not a person,” Selene muttered in her ear. “Just so we’re clear.”

Lyria didn’t answer the AI. She didn’t have to. The way her jaw set, the small flare in her nostrils, said enough.

The corridor opened into a broad archway. Beyond it, the Sunless Garden stretched in a wide, circular courtyard open to the sky. The name felt wrong at first glance; the place glowed.

Plants unlike any on Earth filled tiered beds and climbing trellises: vines with translucent leaves that glowed faintly from their veins outward; shrubs bearing flowers whose petals shaded from deep indigo at their base to pale silver at the tips; tall stalks topped with spherical blooms that pulsed gently, like breathing.

No sunlight reached here—only the constant, gentle radiance of the looming moon and the stars above. The air smelled of damp stone, sweet blossoms, and something sharp and clean, like the air after lightning.

A path of pale tiles wound through the beds. As Lyria stepped onto it, the tiles lit beneath her feet, marking her trail with a slow ripple of light.

Her chest loosened. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, unplanned.

The servant dipped a brief curtsey. “I’ll leave you to your walk, Highness.”

Lyria looked at her, the impulse to ask her name strong on her tongue.

“Not yet,” Selene said softly. “We’ll see her again. Save the deep dives for when you’ve got more context.”

Lyria nodded once, both to the servant and, slightly, to the disembodied voice. The woman retreated, her own dress swaying simply, the hem brushing the lit tiles into darkness again.

Lyria walked deeper into the garden.

The plants weren’t uniform. Some beds were meticulously pruned; others were more wild, tendrils spilling over stone edges as if testing boundaries. Tiny lights—fireflies? No. Little motes of magic—drifted between blossoms, drawn more strongly to some than others.

She brushed the petals of a low flower near the path. Its surface was cool and slightly waxy, but warmth pulsed from its center, like a heartbeat.

“I feel like I’m in a video game,” she murmured.

“Welcome to Star Realm Online,” Selene said cheerfully. “Except there’s no respawn and your choices actually matter. Fun, right?”

Lyria snorted softly. The sound surprised her again. She hadn’t known she could snort and still feel… pretty.

Movement beyond the nearest trellis caught her eye.

Two figures stood in a side path: a young footman in simple tunic and trousers, his hands twisting the edge of his cap, and a woman in a gown of dark green velvet, her sleeves slashed to show pale chemise beneath, her hair coiled in an intricate style that probably took a maid an hour. Strings of tiny starstones decorated her braids, winking with every tilt of her head.

Their voices carried faintly.

“…not a true heir,” the woman said. The words were sugar‑coated, but the sneer beneath them carried. “Plucked from a dying world to play at princess. Daya’s… project.”

The footman glanced over his shoulder, eyes wide, thread of anxiety written in every tight movement. “My lady, if someone hears—”

“Let them,” she said, flicking a hand. Bracelets chimed. “A goddess may weave what she pleases, but bloodlines are not so easily rewritten.”

Lyria went very still.

Her first instinct was to duck behind a vine, to fold herself smaller, to be unseen. Years of doing exactly that made her muscles start the motion before she thought.

Her second impulse, newer and more fragile, was to step forward and announce herself, to let the woman choke slightly on her own words.

She did neither.

Instead, she turned slowly and walked away, back along the path. The tiles lit under her feet again, steady and certain.

Selene hovered at her shoulder, little moon‑face watching her.

“You could’ve called her out,” Selene said. No judgement. Just observation.

“I could have,” Lyria agreed.

Her fingers relaxed one by one from the fist they’d curled into.

“She’s wrong,” Selene added. “About bloodlines.”

“I know,” Lyria said. “But I also know what it’s like to have your existence be someone else’s debate topic. I’m not giving her that stage.”

The AI emitted a small sound, like a hum of approval. “Noted. Plus ten to emotional intelligence.”

Lyria huffed a laugh through her nose. The tension in her shoulders eased a fraction.

They spent the next stretch of time—she couldn’t have said how long; the sky didn’t change—moving through different sections of the palace.

Selene steered her to the servants’ dining hall at off‑hours, where a cook in a flour‑dusted apron paused mid‑stir when Lyria entered, then offered her a bowl of something steaming without fawning. Lyria tried it, eyes widening at the taste: not quite any spice she knew, but warm, grounding. She listened to the murmur of conversations at the far tables, catching scraps of words like “patrol rotation” and “thread‑sick cousin,” storing them away.

They passed through a gallery where portraits lined the walls: past champions, past daughters, past consorts. Lyria stood before one painting longer than the others—someone with a jaw like hers, wearing armor inlaid with tiny moons and a dress whose skirts had been slashed to reveal leggings beneath. The plaque bore a name she didn’t recognize. She traced the air beneath it, feeling an odd kinship with a stranger painted centuries ago.

Later, Selene coaxed her into a rehearsal room where dancers practiced a formal pattern, skirts swishing in unison. The dance mistress, severe in a candle‑flame orange gown, eyed Lyria critically, then nodded once and beckoned her into the line. Lyria’s steps were unsure, but her body knew how to follow rhythm. By the third sequence, she was turning at the right beat, her gray skirt flaring among the others like part of a pattern instead of a disruption.

Through it all, threads floated at the edge of Lyria’s perception. Not lines, not yet. Hints. A faint halo around some people—brighter near the cook who’d offered her food, dim near the green‑gowned noble. She reached for them instinctively and found nothing to grasp.

By the time she returned to her chamber, her bare feet were chilled and her head buzzed with new names, half‑remembered directions, and the way her dress had moved when she’d bowed to the dancers at the end of their practice.

She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, letting the quiet of the room settle around her like a cloak.

Selene dimmed a bit, as if respecting the stillness. “Tutorial complete,” she said softly. “You survived your first day without tripping over your hem or punching a noble. Gold star.”

A notification bloomed in Lyria’s vision:

Quest Complete: Moonlit Beginnings
Reward: Thread Sight – Tier 1 (Perception only).

The world shifted.

For a heartbeat, everything in the room pulsed—the bed, the rug, the mirror frame—as if a web of fine, luminous lines had been overlaid on reality.

Then it snapped into clarity.

Lines—threads—stretched from Lyria’s chest out into space, faint and silver. One ran toward the archway, out into the city, thinning as it went: Daya. Another, softer, newly woven, curled toward a point somewhere below and to the left: the servant with the linens. A cluster of very faint threads drifted off toward more distant points—faces she had passed, eyes that had met hers for half a heartbeat.

She gasped.

Her own thread, when she looked down, arched from her sternum upward through the ceiling and beyond, into the sky. It glowed brighter than the others, shot through with many colors: silver, indigo, a line of deep ruby that pulsed faintly as if in anticipation.

Her fingers twitched, wanting to touch it.

She raised her hand.

The thread shimmered prettily and remained out of reach.

She tried again, focusing on the faint line leading toward the kitchens, thinking of the cook’s flour‑dusted hands, the way she’d slid the bowl of steaming stew across the counter with no comment on titles.

Nothing.

The threads moved when she moved, floating gently, but no matter how she reached, they stayed intangible, like reflections on water.

“Careful,” Selene said quietly. Her usual lilt was muted. “You’re seeing, not weaving. There’s a difference.”

Lyria dropped her hand, heart thudding. “I just wanted to… smooth something,” she said. “Just a little. Isolde. That noble woman. Or that footman. Or—”

“Or yourself,” Selene supplied.

Lyria’s mouth closed.

“I see you want to fix everything,” Selene continued, drifting closer until her projection hovered near Lyria’s shoulder. “Understandable. But your magic has… rules. You can’t force anything. Not a noble’s heart, not a servant’s fear, not your own scars. And you definitely can’t tweak your thread, even if it’s just to, like, increase your Charisma by five percent.”

“That’s not what I—” Lyria started, then stopped. The protest felt too much like old defensiveness.

Selene let her hover in that silence for a beat.

“To weave,” the AI said finally, “you’ll need three things. Training. Lifeforce to spend. And a heart that’s… clear. Not empty. Not numb. Just not tangled in wanting to punish.”

Lyria moved to the mirror.

The girl in gray looked back, pendant resting against her collarbone, threads curling around her like filaments in a lamp. Her own face still made her breath catch. But now, behind that face, she saw the line of her thread stretching up and up, too bright, too fragile.

“What happens if I ignore that?” Lyria asked, eyes still on her reflection. “If I try anyway. Out of anger.”

“The weave won’t hold,” Selene said. “Your magic will sputter. And if you keep pushing, you risk your own thread fraying. You can’t patch that. Not even Daya can. You tear yourself too much, and you’ll start slipping.” A pause. “In and out.”

“In and out of… where?” Lyria asked, though she knew.

“The place between tapestries.” Selene didn’t dress it up. “The place you came from when you left Earth. Not fun. Ten out of ten do not recommend.”

Lyria’s fingers tightened on the edge of the vanity.

In the mirror, her eyes were wide, pupils dilated. Her shoulders had gone stiff again, the way they had in HR meetings, in alleys, at family dinners where her father had refused to say her name.

She forced her grip to loosen. One finger at a time.

“I don’t want to disappear again,” she said. Her voice was very soft.

“Then don’t,” Selene said. “You don’t have to fix everything tonight. Or tomorrow. Or ever, honestly. You’re allowed to—wild idea incoming—live. Eat starfruit tarts. Teach nobles how wrong they are by existing. Form crushes. Adopt stray kids.” The last part came out too quickly, like a glitch, but she barreled on. “Weave when your heart’s ready, not when your guilt is screaming.”

Lyria’s mouth twitched despite herself.

The threads around her pulsed gently, as if in agreement.

She lifted a hand again, slower this time. Not to grab, but to trace the air along the line of her own thread, following it upward with her eyes.

It led somewhere she couldn’t see yet.

She let her hand fall.

“Okay,” she said. “Seeing is enough for today.”

Selene dimmed further, her projection shrinking. “Good call,” she said. “We’ll practice with things like, ‘Is this noble secretly aligned with Alus?’ and ‘Does this servant actually hate you or are they just sleep‑deprived?’ before we attempt ‘Rewrite the consequences of generational trauma.’ Baby steps.”

Lyria laughed once, a small, half‑exhale. It eased the tightness in her chest.

She unfastened the crescent pendant and set it carefully on the nightstand, next to the vase of moonflowers. The blossoms glowed softly in the dimming light, their petals curling inward as if settling to sleep.

Thread Sight faded from full intensity to a faint overlay, like afterimages behind her eyelids. She let it.

As she slipped the nightgown back over her head and slid under the dusky duvet, the bed’s warmth enveloped her. The beads of tiny moons pressed against her ribs in reassuring lines.

She lay on her side, facing the window slit where a slice of the indigo sky showed between curtains. The moon hung huge and close, cratered face serene.

Her hand found the spot at her chest where her thread emerged. There was no physical mark, but she pressed her palm there anyway, as if she could feel the line anchor.

Somewhere far away, threads twisted by Alus writhed. Somewhere closer, threads around servants and nobles and a certain young astrologer she had barely met shimmered faintly.

Tonight, she could only see.

Tomorrow, she would begin to learn what to do with that sight.

In the quiet, with the palace’s stone breathing slow and deep around her, the words Daya had spoken in the mist echoed softly:

The thread begins anew.

Lyria’s eyes closed.

Sleep came, not like falling, but like being gently woven into a pattern that had waited a long time for her shape.