The boy from the cradle had not slept since the bird spoke.
They placed him in the grief-hut after. Not as punishment—something quieter.A waiting place. A breath held too long.
He hadn't cried.Hadn't spoken.
But the elders said the Wailtree had to see him.
When they came for him in the morning, they didn't speak.They simply opened the curtain and let the light in.
He stepped into the open. Barefoot. Dust-clung.The path was already waiting.
The villagers stood along the hill. Silent. Watchful.Not like they feared him.Like they feared what he might answer.
Ikaro tried to follow. He took two steps before a hand landed on his shoulder.
"Let me go, Elder Seyru!" he burst, voice cracking. "He's by himself!"
The elder's fingers were firm, not cruel. Her voice low and steady.
"The Wailtree listens in silence, Ikaro. Only the unseen may stand beneath it."
Ikaro's fists clenched. His lip shook.
"He looked scared. You're just going to let him—?"
Seyru knelt to his level. Her eyes weren't angry.
"Sometimes the Loom waits to remember. But sometimes it needs a reason."
Ikaro stared after the boy.
"Then maybe I should've gone instead."
Seyru didn't answer that.She only stood. And waited.
The Wailtree wasn't just a tree.It was grief given roots.
Its trunk bent like an old back.Its branches hung low, heavy with memory.Its roots knuckled into the earth like a fist trying not to shake.
The boy walked forward.The air stilled.The threadlight faded.
Even the Loom above him fell silent.
A thread fell.
Black.
It swam downward through the still air, slow and aimless—like something half-asleep, or long forgotten.
It touched his wrist.
Not his chest. Not his brow.
His wrist.
He didn't pull away.
And the thread sank into him, quiet as breath.
The clearing dimmed.Not from light. From knowing.
A vision unfurled—not as pictures, but pressure.
A woman with a mouth too sad to smile.A cradle wrapped in empty names.A thread laid down by someone who didn't say why.Ikaro's hand, smaller than now, placing a stone beside the quiet boy.
A breath taken.
A thread remembered.
He hadn't been born.He had been stitched.
Grief had pulled him into the world.
He staggered.
Another thread descended—silver—and wrapped gently around the black.A comfort laid over a wound.
Above, the Loom shimmered faintly.
Gasps ran through the villagers.
Elder Seyru stepped forward and whispered:
"Threadborn.Not from flesh.Not from rite.Woven from echo.Bound by grief."
Ikaro broke before he thought.
He'd watched it all.
The black thread curling like it wanted to erase.The silver trying to hold it in place.The boy standing there, not blinking, not breathing like the others.
"He looked like he was gonna disappear…"
Ikaro sprinted across the grass.
"I couldn't let that happen again."
He fell to his knees beside him, breathless.
"So I came. I held it with you."
The boy didn't look at him.
Not at first.
But slowly, his gaze lifted.
And he spoke.
"I didn't want to go."
He looked at the mark on his wrist.
"But the tree… it let me stay."
The threads above shifted.
The wind returned.
And the Wailtree said no more.
That night, the village gathered near the fire.
The children asked quietly.
"Is that what happens when your thread wakes up?"
"No," someone older said. "That's not the Rite. That's something different."
One of them turned to Elder Seyru.
"Then how does it work?"
Seyru stirred the coals. Her eyes reflecting orange, not answers.
"At fourteen, if the Loom whispers your name.Later, if you dare to wrestle fate.And never, if the world forgets you were waiting."
The children fell quiet.
Seyru leaned slightly toward a cloaked figure in the shadow behind her.
"Send word to the Rememberer," she murmured."Tell them... the Threadborn speaks."
The boy from the cradle sat alone.
But not apart.
The silver thread on his wrist didn't shine.
But it held.
And so did he.