Prologue: The Awakening

  The Nexus stirred.

  For centuries, it had slumbered in the spaces between realms, its threads of power lying dormant like silvered spider webs in forgotten corners. But on this night, as frost crept across the windows of Frosthearth's homes and an unnatural chill settled over the land, the ancient power began to wake.

  In the highest chamber of the Spire Academy, Master Thane's hands trembled as he traced the patterns forming in the air—threads of silver and blue that hadn't danced with such intensity in over fifty years. The old thread-seer's weathered fingers followed their movement, his eyes wide with recognition and fear. Around him, ancient artifacts thrummed with awakening power, their crystalline surfaces reflecting the ethereal light of the moving threads.

  "It wasn't supposed to happen this soon," he whispered to the empty room. The prophecies had spoken of the Nexus's awakening, yes, but not for another generation. Something—or someone—had accelerated the timeline, and the implications made his blood run cold.

  Turning to his desk, he pulled out a worn journal bound in midnight-blue leather, its pages filled with careful illustrations of thread patterns and ancient symbols. Some of the drawings seemed to shift in the flickering candlelight, as if the very ink was responding to the Nexus's stirring. His quill scratched urgently across a fresh page:

  The signs are unmistakable. The Nexus awakens, far earlier than the prophecies foretold. The threads grow restless, and with them, the barriers between realms weaken. Already I can see the corruption beginning—black threads where there should be silver, discord where there should be harmony.

  The Guardians must be summoned, but I fear we are too late. The girl in my visions—she's the key. Everything depends on her awakening to her power before the corruption spreads too far. The thread-seers are nearly gone now, and she may be our last hope.

  He paused, his hand hovering over the page as a sudden gust of wind extinguished the candles. In the darkness, the threads glowed brighter, forming patterns he had only read about in the most ancient texts. A warning.

  If you're reading this, seek the one who can see the threads. Time grows short, and the—

  The writing ended in a violent slash of ink. In the moment before darkness took him, Master Thane saw them—figures made of shadow and corruption, their forms wrapped in threads of deepest black. His last thought was a prayer that the journal would find its way to the right hands.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Miles away, in the depths of the Shadowspine Mountains, Guardian Kestra felt the change. The ancient wards under her protection flared to life, their runes blazing with an intensity that turned night to day. Around her, the threads of power that she had monitored for three decades began to twist and writhe.

  "Captain!" she called out, her voice echoing through the stone corridors of the Guardian's Keep. "Sound the alarm. It's happening."

  But even as the warning bells began to toll, she knew. They weren't ready. The Guardians, once hundreds strong, had dwindled to barely two dozen. The great spells of containment, maintained for generations, were fraying like old rope. And now, with the Nexus stirring...

  She watched in horror as the first of the boundary stones cracked, black threads seeping through like poison through veins.

  Deep in the Forgotten Realm, something ancient stirred. Eyes that had been closed for millennia opened, sensing the shift in power. The creature—if such a simple word could describe such a being—reached out with tendrils of consciousness, testing the weakening barriers between worlds.

  Soon, it thought, its awareness spreading through the corrupt threads that had once been pure silver. The seals weaken. The time of awakening approaches.

  In the remote town of Frosthearth, unaware of the events unfolding across the realms, a young herbalist named Eryndra tossed in her sleep. Her dreams were filled with images she couldn't understand—a towering door covered in symbols that seemed to whisper secrets, threads of light that danced just beyond her reach, and a voice that called to her with increasing urgency.

  The threads are unraveling, the voice warned. The balance fails. Wake up, thread-seer. Wake up before it's too late.

  But Eryndra slept on, not yet ready to face the destiny that was steadily weaving itself around her. In her small cottage at the edge of town, silver threads began to gather, drawn to her like moths to a flame. They swirled and twisted, forming patterns that hadn't been seen in centuries—patterns that spoke of power, of destiny, and of choices that would reshape the very fabric of reality.

  On her desk lay an unopened letter from her brother Kieran, its contents still unknown. Inside, a hastily drawn map and a warning waited to be discovered, the first threads of a tapestry that would soon enfold her completely.

  The Nexus had awakened.

  And with it, the threads of fate began to weave anew, drawing together the strands of a story that had been waiting centuries to be told. In the spaces between realms, in the forgotten corners where reality grew thin, ancient powers stirred and watched, waiting to see what pattern this new weaving would create.

  The time of unraveling had begun.

  As dawn approached, the first snows of an impossible winter began to fall on Frosthearth, each flake carrying within it a tiny thread of silver light. Those who were awake to see it would later speak of strange patterns in the sky, of lights that danced like auroras in the deep of night, and of a sense that the world had somehow shifted—ever so slightly—on its axis.

  The age of forgotten magic was ending.

  The age of awakening had begun.

  Next Chapter: "The Vanishing"