Why…
Why does this world hate us so much?
Even now, my hands are shaking.
My legs won’t stop trembling.
I don’t want to die.
But Emi–
I can’t let Emi die too.
Ato ran barefoot through the narrow hallway of the home that had once felt small only because it had been safe.
Now it felt like a coffin already set ablaze.
The old wooden boards groaned beneath his feet. Smoke poured through the cracks in the walls. Heat bit at the back of his neck. Behind him, armored boots pounded through the house with cruel certainty, metal scraping wood, heavy and merciless. A royal soldier in black plate burst through the haze, one gauntleted hand already raised.
Ato didn’t understand magic.
Not truly.
He had seen it from a distance before, soldiers conjuring flame, palace enforcers turning steel red-hot with a gesture, executioners burning flesh as if life were no more sacred than dry grass.
But right now, as terror hollowed out his chest and grief clawed at his throat, he felt something inside himself answer.
A faint warmth.
A pulse.
A small, buried thing stirring in the deepest part of him.
The soldier’s hand flared orange.
“IGNIS—FIREBALL.”
The world erupted.
Ato threw himself left just as the spell detonated through the hallway.
BOOM.
The back half of the house exploded into splinters, flame, and screaming heat. The shockwave hurled him into the wall hard enough to steal the breath from his lungs. Burning fragments rained around him. The family shelves his father had built by hand shattered apart. Their old table split down the middle. Embers raced greedily along the floorboards.
Ato coughed, blinking through the smoke—
And saw her.
“Emi—”
His little sister was being dragged across the living room floor by a royal soldier as though she were nothing. Her long blonde hair, usually silky and bright even in poor light, was now soaked with ash and blood, dragged in streaks behind her. Her emerald eyes were wide with pain, wet with panic, searching for him through the chaos.
One of her arms laid several feet away.
For one broken second, Ato’s mind refused to understand what he was seeing.
Then the blood reached him.
It was everywhere.
A dark, widening pool soaking into the floor.
His breath caught in his throat.
“No…”
Emi let out a raw, tearing scream that barely sounded human.
The soldier dragging her only smiled.
It was not anger. It was not in duty. in amusement.
Ato took one stumbling step forward.
And a slash cut through the room.
Wet.
Clean.
Final.
The second arm flew from Emi’s body and hit the floor with a sickening sound.
For a moment, the world stopped.
Ato did not hear the fire.
He did not hear the crackle of timber or the shouting outside.
He heard only the rushing roar inside his own skull.
“STOP!”
The scream tore out of him so violently it scraped his throat bloody.
He charged.
No thought. No fear. No plan.
Only rage. Pure, blinding rage.
His fists clenched so tightly his nails bit into his palms. Something inside him surged in answer. not hot like fire, not wild like panic, but sharp and sudden, like a sealed door thrown open in the dark.
His body moved faster than it should have.
The soldier had been distracted, still grinning down at Emi’s mangled form, enjoying her pain.
Ato’s fist smashed into the man’s face.
The impact cracked louder than it should have.
The soldier reeled sideways, slammed hard into the nearest wall, and dented the wood with his shoulder before collapsing into a half fall.
Ato froze.
That… shouldn’t have happened.
He was only a boy.
A hungry village boy.
Not strong. Not trained. Not anything.
But the shock lasted less than a heartbeat.
Because Emi was still there.
Because she was dying.
He dropped to his knees beside her so fast it hurt.
“Emi— Emi, look at me, look at me–”
He slid his arms beneath her carefully, lifting her against his chest. Blood covered him instantly, soaking into his torn shirt, running hot over his skin. She was so light.
Too light.
She had always been light.
Always the one climbing onto chairs, onto his back, into his arms. Always laughing. Always asking for one more story, one more promise, one more impossible thing from the world.
Now she trembled in his hold like a candle in a storm.
“No, no, no…” Ato’s voice broke apart. “You’re not going to die. Do you hear me? We’re still going to go. We’re going to leave this place one day, just like you wanted. We’re going to travel, Emi. We’re going to eat all the strange foods you kept talking about. We’re going to see oceans and mountains and cities bigger than this rotten kingdom. You can’t die now. Please… please don’t do this to me.”
Tears spilled freely down his face.
He did not try to hide them.
He was long past pride.
Emi looked up at him through half-lidded eyes.
Even bloodied, even pale with death closing around her, she was still Emi, still soft-faced, still small, still carrying that impossible gentleness that the world had never deserved. Her long blonde hair stuck to her cheeks in wet strands. Her emerald eyes, once bright with mischief and endless wanting, had already begun to dim.
And yet she smiled.
A weak, trembling smile.
Ato choked on the sight of it.
Above her head, something flickered.
A thread.
Tiny. Faint. Almost invisible.
He stared through tears, unsure whether he was hallucinating from smoke and grief. The thread hovered there, so delicate it barely seemed real, shining with a pale, trembling light. It moved not with the wind but with her life, as if it were her life.
Ato didn’t understand it.
He only knew that every second it grew fainter.
“It’s okay, big brother…” Emi whispered, blood on her lips.
Her voice was so soft he had to lean close to hear it.
“Don’t cry…”
Her breathing hitched.
“Big brothers… are supposed to be strong after all…”
She lifted one trembling hand—no, not a hand anymore, only the broken motion of a limb trying to remember itself–
Ato felt himself shatter.
“No,” he whispered. “No, Emi, please. Please don’t talk like that. Stay with me. Stay with me!”
Her smile lingered for one final second.
Then her weight changed.
It was so slight he might have missed it if he hadn’t been holding her like his whole world depended on it.
Her body sagged against his chest.
The thread above her head flickered once…
Twice…
Then went out.
Like the last ember of a fire no one had protected.
“Emi?”
Ato shook her gently.
“Emi?”
Nothing.
Panic surged up again, desperate and stupid and refusing reality.
He shook her harder.
“Emi?”
Still nothing.
Her head lolled against him.
No breath.
No answer.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
No pulse.
“EMI?!”
The scream that ripped from him was not the sound of grief.
It was the sound of something being torn out by the roots.
Harsh footsteps thundered outside.
The back door exploded inward in a shower of broken wood. More soldiers poured into the room, black armor glinting in the firelight. Two stopped in front of him.
One smirked.
The other looked away.
Ato barely saw them.
He was still clutching Emi’s body.
Still waiting for a miracle.
The smirking soldier stepped forward first.
Fast.
Too fast.
Ato looked up just in time to see the man’s fist drive into his stomach.
The blow folded him in half.
All the air vanished from his lungs. His grip broke. Emi slipped from his arms. Pain detonated through his body as he hit the floor and rolled across blood and ash.
Darkness rushed at him from every side.
The last thing he saw before unconsciousness took him was Emi lying still on the ruined floor of their burning home.
And the place above her where the thread had been—
Now empty.
Darkness did not come quietly.
It dragged memories with it.
Not the recent ones at first.
Not blood. Not fire. Not screaming.
Instead, it gave him what was crueler.
It gave him home.
His mother stood in warm afternoon light, one hand on her hip, the other adjusting a pot over the stove. Her blonde hair fell in smooth, soft waves down her back, catching gold where the sun touched it. Her emerald eyes, so much like Emi’s always seemed to see everything at once: a boiling pot, an empty shelf, the way Ato was hiding a bruise, the exact moment Emi was about to do something foolish.
She had not been delicate.
Kind, yes.
Gentle, often.
But never weak.
His father was beside the table, repairing a broken stool with patient hands, black hair falling across his brow, blue eyes focused and calm. He had always seemed built from steadiness. He spoke little, but when he did, the world seemed easier to bear.
There had never been much in their house.
A few bowls.
A rough table.
Worn blankets.
Too little food far too often.
And yet somehow, with the four of them together, it had felt full.
Ato saw himself younger, sitting cross-legged with Emi at dinner while the rain tapped softly against the roof.
“Big brother, big brother!” Emi chirped, cheeks stuffed with porridge.
Their mother turned sharply. “Emi. What did I tell you about speaking with your mouth full?”
His father chuckled under his breath.
Emi puffed out her cheeks stubbornly, chewed as fast as she could, swallowed, then lit right back up again as if the interruption had only built excitement.
“Well?” Ato asked, pretending patience.
Emi climbed onto her chair on her knees, long blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. Her emerald eyes shone with all the impossible places she had never seen.
“I want to eat more food like this,” she declared as if announcing some grand revelation. “And not just here. Everywhere. I want to travel and see so many places and try all the foods and look at everything and take all of you with me.”
Ato snorted softly. “That’s a lot of demands.”
“They’re not demands,” Emi said with scandalized innocence. “They’re dreams.”
Their father laughed properly at that.
Their mother tried not to smile and failed.
Emi leaned across the table toward him. “So? Will you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Make it happen.”
Ato rolled his eyes in the way only an older brother could. “Of course.”
Emi narrowed her eyes. “Of course what?”
“As your big brother,” he said, lifting his chin with mock dignity, “I will make sure you get to see all of it.”
Emi gasped. “Realllllllly~?”
“Yes.”
“Prooooomise?”
He smiled.
“Yes. I promise.”
“Emi,” their mother said, though she was smiling now too, “sit properly before you fall and crack your head open.”
They all laughed.
It had been such a small moment.
The kind no one thinks to treasure while it is happening.
The kind that becomes unbearable only after it is gone.
The memory shifted.
The warmth bled out of it.
Ato remembered another day.
Another hall.
Another floor stained red.
He was ten.
Emi was even smaller then, sobbing into his shoulder while soldiers held them both down and forced them to watch.
His mother’s blonde hair had been soaked black with blood at the ends. His father, still trying to stand even after being cut open, had turned those same blue eyes toward Ato one last time—not with fear, but with command.
Run.
That was all.
Run.
The king had watched.
The old king. The one who should have been dust by now.
Ato remembered the slash of steel. The flames. The smell of burnt flesh. The way magic had devoured what blades began. He remembered screaming until his throat gave out.
Then running.
Running with Emi in his arms.
Running back to the outskirts.
Running until his legs failed.
Running because surviving was the only thing left his father had asked of him.
And now.
Now even that had not been enough.
Pain woke him.
Not all at once.
In pieces.
His cheek scraping stone.
His shoulders burning.
His stomach twisting around the echo of that punch.
Ato forced his eyes open and found the world sideways.
He was being dragged.
His face scraped along the cold floor of a stone stairwell while a soldier hauled him upward like dead weight. His wrists were bound. His clothes, already ruined, had been stiffened by dry blood and soot. Every jolt against the steps sent fresh agony through his ribs.
He lifted his head.
And saw where they were.
The castle.
His breath stopped.
Not just any castle.
That castle.
The same looming monument of polished cruelty where his parents had been butchered in front of him.
The same walls.
The same banners.
The same black stone that seemed to swallow light instead of reflect it.
His body reacted before his mind did.
He convulsed and vomited across the stair.
The soldier dragging him cursed, yanked him upright by the hair, and drove a boot into his stomach hard enough to make his vision burst white.
“Do that again on palace grounds,” the man growled, “and I’ll break every tooth in your mouth.”
Ato doubled over, gagging.
His whole body shook.
He wasn’t here.
He couldn’t be here.
Not again.
But the soldier dragged him onward through vast halls lined with pillars and gold trim that made the place look rich if one ignored the rot hiding beneath everything. Sunlight streamed through high windows, too clean for a place like this. Guards stood along the walls, expressionless. Servants lowered their eyes as he passed, pretending not to see.
At the end of the hall stood a pair of towering black and gold doors.
Ato knew them.
He remembered them from childhood nightmares.
They opened.
The throne room lay beyond.
It was grand in the way only evil that has ruled for too long becomes grand.
Marble floor.
Towering pillars.
Tall windows bleeding sunlight across red carpet.
And at the far end, above all of it, seated like judgment made flesh.
The current king.
And beside him, on a lesser throne that somehow felt more poisonous.
The retired king.
The old monster.
The one who should have died years ago.
The soldier threw Ato down.
He struck the floor face first, biting his tongue hard enough to taste blood.
The soldier knelt with fist over heart.
“Your Majesties. We have successfully captured the last of the Lifeweavers.” His voice held ugly satisfaction. “He is the only one.”
The words slammed into Ato harder than the kick had.
The last of the… what?
Lifeweavers?
He forced himself up onto shaking arms and looked toward the throne.
The retired king stared at him with pure, undiluted disgust.
Not anger. Not triumph.
Something worse.
The look a man gives a stain he thought he had already scrubbed clean.
The current king, his grandson, seemed calmer, colder. He did not look surprised. Only mildly inconvenienced, as though this were a task report interrupting his day.
“Good,” the retired king said at last.
His voice had aged, but not softened.
“To the dungeon with him. He is to be watched at all times.”
The soldier bowed his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
That was all.
No explanation.
No accusation.
No trial.
No reason.
Just the same thing as before.
Power deciding life had no need to justify itself.
Ato’s nails scraped against the polished floor. Rage surged hot and choking in his chest, but fear wrapped around it just as tightly.
Lifeweaver.
The word echoed in his skull.
What was that?
What had his family been?
Why had they all been hunted?
Why had the king looked at him like a curse left unfinished?
He was hauled upright again before he could speak.
The throne room vanished behind him.
The palace grew colder as they descended.
The beauty above gave way to stone, mildew, rust, and old suffering.
The dungeon reeked of death.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Rot clung to the walls. Moss crept between cracked stones. Water dripped somewhere in the distance with maddening regularity. Some cells held only skeletons and old chains. Others held men and women too hollow eyed to beg anymore. Murderers. Rebels. Thieves. And those too poor to survive without breaking laws written by people who never starved.
Ato was dragged past all of them.
Some looked at him with pity.
Others with dead eyed indifference.
One prisoner laughed weakly and muttered, “Another one.”
The soldier unlocked a final iron door.
“This one’s for executions.”
He cut Ato’s legs out from under him and shoved him inside.
Ato hit the floor hard.
Chains were fastened to his wrists.
More to his ankles.
The cell door slammed shut with the kind of finality that seemed to seal fate itself.
The soldier leaned in just long enough to spit at his feet.
Then he walked away.
Ato stayed where he had fallen.
For a long time, he could do nothing but breathe.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Every breath hurt.
His entire body ached.
His sister was dead.
His parents were dead.
And he was here.
Back in the place where this family had first been broken.
His thoughts circled the same questions until they became poison.
Why?
Why them?
Why his mother, with her emerald eyes and steady hands?
Why his father, who had done nothing but work himself half to death for scraps?
Why Emi, who wanted nothing from the world except to see more of it?
Why him?
Tears gathered again, but this time they did not fall cleanly. They mixed with fury, thick and hot, until he could barely tell one from the other.
A faint warmth pulsed beneath his skin.
The same strange sensation as before.
Not enough to understand.
Only enough to notice.
Enough to know something in him responded when hatred and grief pressed hard enough.
Ato lowered his head, breathing hard.
“I will not die here,” he whispered.
His voice sounded wrong in the dark.
Too thin.
Too young.
But he said it again anyway.
“I will not die like this.”
Footsteps passed his cell.
A guard on rounds.
Ato lifted his head.
And froze.
Above the guard’s head, something hung in the air.
A thread.
Faint.
Pale.
Alive.
He stared.
It danced gently above the man like a strand of light too delicate to belong in a place like this.
Ato blinked hard.
The thread remained.
His chest tightened.
Slowly, carefully, he turned his head.
The prisoner in the next cell had one too.
So did the old woman huddled across the corridor.
So did the man chained to the far wall.
Every living person he could see.
Every one of them had a thread above their head.
Some were brighter than others.
Some flickered weakly, as though near to going out.
Some pulsed with stubborn strength.
Ato’s breath caught in his throat.
He looked down at his own trembling hands.
The warmth beneath his skin pulsed once.
Then again.
The dungeon seemed to shift around him.
The dripping water.
The rot.
The chains.
The darkness.
All of it faded beneath the horror of sudden realization.
Something was waking.
Something that had always been there.
Something his family had died for long before he ever understood its name.
And in the cold, stinking dark of the execution dungeon, surrounded by the forgotten and the doomed, Ato stared at those waiting threads.
And for the first time in his life, he understood that death was not the only thing inside this place.
Something else was here with him.
Watching.
Waiting.
Remembering.
—-
