Solin Dain felt the Weave shudder as he stepped into the alleyway, his boots scraping against the damp cobblestones. The city of Althmire loomed around him—twisting spires of stone and iron, windows flickering with arcane lanterns, the air thick with the scent of rain and smoldering incense. The Weave here was frayed, the Threads thin as if something had been pulling at them for years, twisting reality into something brittle.

He exhaled, his breath visible in the cold night air. The Weave was everywhere, unseen but felt, and he had spent his life learning to hear its silent screams. As a Tearbringer, he knew better than most what happened when the fabric of existence weakened.

A man lay slumped against the brick wall, blood pooling at his side, his chest barely rising. Solin knelt, pressing two fingers to the man's neck. Still alive. Barely. His own Thread trembled as he reached out, sensing the faint echoes left behind.

"Help me," the man rasped, eyes fluttering open.

Solin hesitated. He was no healer. Threadbinders could mend wounds, but Tearbringers? All they did was break things. He could snap a person's fate like an errant stitch, send them tumbling into oblivion.

But he had to know who had done this.

Closing his eyes, he plucked at the Weave, feeling for the reverberations of what had come before. The air rippled, and reality trembled. Time bent backward in jagged, uneven stitches.

A vision snapped into his mind—a figure cloaked in shadows, their voice a whisper against the fabric of the world. Their hands gleamed with stolen Threads, shimmering strands of fate unraveled from the wounded man. Solin's stomach twisted.

Thread-thieves. The kind of monsters who stitched themselves into positions of power, stealing the essence of others to extend their own reach. And worse, this one was strong.

The dying man coughed, grasping at Solin's cloak. "Don't let them… unmake us."

His Thread gave out. His body sagged, dissolving into strands of golden light that shimmered briefly before fading into nothingness.

Solin cursed under his breath. He had been too late. He stood, shaking off the ghostly residue of the man's unraveling, and scanned the alley. If a Thread-thief was in Althmire, the city was in more danger than it realized.

A sharp laugh echoed behind him. Solin turned, every instinct sharpening. A woman leaned against the alley's entrance, arms crossed, dark hair tumbling past her shoulders. She wore the sigil of the Horizon Walkers—a silver-threaded cloak that shimmered faintly with each movement.

"Didn't take you for the sentimental type, Tearbringer," she said. "Since when do you mourn the dead?"

Solin narrowed his eyes. "Since they started unraveling in front of me."

The woman, Lirien Vale, pushed off the wall and stepped closer. "That's happening a lot more lately."

"I noticed."

"You're looking for the Thread-thieves, aren't you?"

Solin didn't answer. He didn't need to. Lirien tilted her head, studying him with those sharp, knowing eyes. "You should leave this alone, Solin. They're not just picking off Weavers anymore. They're tearing apart the Weave itself."

Something cold settled in his gut. He had feared as much. He had seen the Threads stretch thinner every year, had felt the growing wrongness of the world. It wasn't just that people were being unmade. Reality itself was beginning to fray.

And if the Weave broke completely… there would be nothing left.

"I can't leave it alone," he said. "Not if they're this close."

Lirien sighed. "Then I hope you have more than just your usual reckless determination. Because whatever's coming? It's bigger than you."

Solin glanced back at the spot where the man had vanished, at the lingering strands of light still flickering before fading into the night.

"I know," he murmured. "That's what worries me."