They found the ridge at sunset — a break in the forest where stone paths stretched downhill like frozen veins. The trees bowed away as if something immense had passed through long ago. Below, only shadows and silence waited.
Lumen stood at the edge, breath caught halfway.
Something down there was calling.
He didn't know what it was. Not fear. Not hunger. Just a pull — like a thread running through his chest, tugging gently but insistently.
"I need to go," he muttered.
"No," Rin said flatly, stepping in front of him. Her cloak brushed frost. "You're not ready."
"I can feel it. This place—this is the Threadkeeper's path."
"It's also your grave if you keep moving," she said. "You saw what came last time. You felt it. You won't survive another encounter like that yet."
He opened his mouth to argue — then stopped.
Her eyes weren't angry. Just firm. And beneath that, concerned.
"…Fine," he said at last. "But we come back."
They knelt together and marked the edge of the path. Lumen etched a small scarecrow symbol into the stone, and Rin tied a red thread to a low branch, the fibers catching in the wind.
"When you're strong enough," she said. "Then we return."
And so they turned back — to the village.
They came home quietly.
No cheers. No questions. Just the steady rhythm of village life continuing on. Children darted between worn fences. Bread lines moved slowly. Someone hammered a loose hinge back into place.
But for Lumen and Rin, everything had changed.
Rin retreated to her sharpening stone.
Lumen sought the old woman.
She was seated, as always, on the chapel steps — weaving nets out of dried grass, a lazy gray cat curled around her ankles like mist.
"You again," she muttered without looking. "Crows must've led you back."
Lumen sat beside her. "Not crows this time. Just threads."
Her fingers didn't stop moving. "More dangerous than crows, those."
"I want to know about sigils," he said. "Mine especially."
She snorted. "Of course you do. Everyone wants to understand the fire they're dancing in."
He waited.
Finally, she looked at him. "The Threadbinder. Common, not rare. But that doesn't mean weak."
He blinked. "Common"
"Mm-hmm." She tapped his chest. "The System ranked it by how many get it. Not by what it becomes. The Threadbinder is misunderstood. It grows with its wielder. It's reactive — responds to thought, emotion, intuition."
He glanced at his hand, flexing the fingers. "It feels like… it knows me. Or learns me."
"It does. That's the danger. If you're careless, you'll weave your own end."
He nodded slowly. "Can it be trained?"
The old woman smirked. "That's the only way it won't kill you."
He looked back at the cat by her feet. "You said your husband had a sigil too?"
Her weaving slowed.
"He did," she said softly. "It was a small thing. Emberbrand. Barely lit a hearth fire on most days. Not flashy. Not rare. But in his hands… it meant something."
Lumen leaned forward. "What happened to him?"
A pause. Then:
"He believed there was something wrong in the world. That some threat was circling this village. He went into the forest alone. He said if he couldn't defeat it, he'd watch it. Stand between us and it. Even if it meant no one ever saw him again."
"Did he have a name?"
"Bram," she said. "Strong name. Stronger will."
Her voice trembled only once. Then the moment passed, and she turned her eyes back to her weaving.
"He was a man who fought with what he had, not what he was given."
The cat meowed, nudging Lumen's boot.
And he stayed quiet for a long time.
For the next few days, Lumen stayed.
He rose early. Practiced his control with threads — stretching lines between trees, weaving tripwires between fence posts, catching falling pinecones before they hit the ground. The Snareweave skill grew smoother. Faster.
By day, Rin trained him.
"Stop flinching," she snapped once, knocking him into the dirt.
"I wasn't flinching."
"You blinked."
They sparred until bruises bloomed. He lost every match. But slowly, the gap between them shrank.
"Good," she said one morning, after he nearly landed a hit. "You're finally moving like you belong to your own body."
At night, the old woman took over.
No blade. No system alerts.
Just focus.
She made him hold single threads between his fingers while wind tried to snap them. Made him anchor lines between stones and balance pebbles on them. Made him tie one loop blindfolded.
"It's not just control," she told him. "It's resonance. Feel what the thread feels. That's the difference between a snare and a stitch."
He started dreaming in threads — tangled, luminous cords pulling through an endless dark.
One evening, the little girl who used to bring him bread appeared again.
She didn't speak at first. Just sat beside him on the chapel step and watched the sky darken.
Then finally: "You're not cursed."
He raised an eyebrow. "No?"
She nodded. "Just weird."
He smiled. "I'll take it."
She grinned, then slipped him a small, awkwardly wrapped bundle of leftover bread. "Don't waste it."
"I'll fight birds for it if I have to."
"Good," she said, and ran off.
On the third night, the old woman handed Lumen a scarf.
"This used to be his," she said. "My husband's. Don't ask why I kept it. I don't know."
The cloth was rough and faded — ember-red, with tiny burn marks along the edge. Not accidental. Symbols, scorched into the fabric like a message from a life long burned out.
As Lumen ran his fingers over it, something deep in his sigil stirred.
[System Notice: Dormant Signature Detected]
Fragment Identified: Emberbrand Residue
Relation: Adaptive Resonance
Connection Level: 12%
Fusion Option: Locked(Training Required)
He looked up at her. She was already weaving again.
The gray cat circled him once, then settled in his lap.
On the fifth morning, he stood beneath the scarecrow post again, stretching arms made sore by repetition and failure.
But inside, something had changed.
The Threadbinder felt clearer. Threads moved with less resistance. His body moved like it finally knew what to do.
The fear wasn't gone. But it was quieter.
He looked toward the distant ridge — that path they'd turned away from.
Not yet.
But soon.
And this time, he wouldn't just be pulled by threads.
He would be the one pulling.
[System Status Updated]
Location: Village of Hollowrest
Objective: Train for Encounter — Final Arc Guardian Detected
Threadkeeper's Hollow Entry: Postponed
Skill Gained: Snareweave — Refined (Tier I)
Fusion Candidate: Emberbrand Signature Detected (Locked)
Current Tier: Common
Evolution Potential: High
[Observation Thread Active]
Sigil Profile: Threadbinder
Type: Reactive Control Sigil
Affinity: Emotional | Strategic | Memory-Woven
Weakness: Instability under duress
Growth Method: Emotional resonance + mastery
[Echo Detected: Rin | Lumen | Unknown Entity (Masked)]
░The Scarecrow learns. He weaves not to bind — but to choose what breaks.░