The faint, ever-present hum of fate threads resonated through the crystal lattice that formed the chamber. Saereth sat alone, eyes closed, concentrating. The faint, silver glow of the table in front of her illuminated the room. She focused on controlling her breathing. She ran her hand lightly over the scrying table’s stone surface. It was smooth and cool to the touch, but within it, a glowing pool with hundreds of luminous threads drifted in an endless sea, twisting about one another, separating, spreading apart, then sinking into the depths as another rose to take its place. A single silver thread was ever present. Others would rise and sink around it. Some came into contact with it only to slide off and fall away. 

   She caught her reflection in the pool’s mirrored surface. Even at her age, her light-grey skin was still smooth and taught, her hair jet black with only a few strands having turned lunar-silver, her deep violet eyes still as bright and intelligent as in her youth. But she didn’t have time to indulge in such vain reflection. Today she wanted to confirm a suspicion.

   Saereth focused on the silver strand. In her mind’s eye, she concentrated on it as it remained anchored among thousands of other fate threads, then she noticed a thread, moving along a parallel path. She knew instinctively to whom it belonged. Concentrating on the new thread, she tried to push it closer to the silver thread. Slowly, carefully, she pushed it. Suddenly, her mind was pulled away. The images of glowing threads fading into darkness. Not even a trace of the crystal web that was ever present was visible. In her mind, she was in a space that felt cold and dark. A silver glow came into focus. She was in an immense cavern illuminated by a pool of silver moonlight. She tried to focus, then an immense stabbing pain gripped her, as if red hot needles had been shoved into her eyes, just as she saw a Moonwell. Her mind jolted back to the scrying chamber, her concentration broken.  

   She opened her eyes and the pain was gone. The chamber was dark and the table’s surface blank. She placed her hand on it again, but it did not respond. She thought of the two threads. Has the moment she has been waiting years for finally arrived? She wondered whether she would finally reveal herself and accept what she is. 


   Nedythra jolted awake, suddenly afraid she had remained here too long. The past few days had exhausted her body and mind more than she’d imagined. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d slept so deeply—probably not since before her self-imposed exile in the tunnels beneath the city. For three days she had laid false trails and avoided Nethyraen patrols. She sensed something had changed.

   She stretched her legs, the muscles still aching, and looked about the faintly lit the room.  Everything was as it should be, and yet it wasn’t. She glanced about a second time, but had difficulty focusing. She rubbed the sleep out of her purple eyes, but didn’t help. The room was now illuminated in a pale silver-white light that seemed to pulse ever so slightly. She ran her fingers through her platinum blonde hair, trying to straighten out the tangles.

   She stretched her arms, wincing as pain shot through her left arm. She’d forgotten about that. Gently, she removed the bandage and checked the wound. It was dark purple against her pale skin, but no sign of infection. She closed her eyes and sighed. For thirteen years, she’d lived in exile, learning the patrols’ routines, studying their tactics, always staying one step ahead. She left no trace, no hint that she was alive or still in Nethyr’rae. So why, after all this time, was there suddenly so much activity in the Old Tunnels? 

   Something had changed.

   She stood up, fully alert. The hair on the back of her neck suddenly stood on end. It felt as if someone had blown softly on the back of her neck.

   Nedythra

   She held her breath and listened. Someone—or something—had called her name. Or had it? She strained to hear. Seconds passed. Nothing. She ran her fingers through her platinum blonde hair, which was now halfway down her back. She wished she had her mirror and a comb, but she had had to leave them behind when the scry-hunters had come after her.

   Nedythra took her handkerchief and dampened it slightly, just enough so she could wipe the sleep from her violet eyes. She tried to clean some of the dust and dirt from her skin, which was now more ash than pale-grey, but the dust from the tunnels clung to her. She longed to indulge in a bath and wash the years of dust and dirt from her skin.

   She finished dressing, putting her black spider-skin armor on. It fit looser than when she had received it, a gift from her house’s weapons master after she passed the trials. She had lost weight while in self imposed exile. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes when she heard it again. Like a lover’s soft whisper in the dark. Pressure began building in her chest as her heart began pounding.

   Nedythra 

   She felt a tug in her chest under her ribs, as if a string had been pulled. Enough. She determined to find what felt so wrong. She finished dressing, all the while listening intently. She heard nothing but the soft movement of air through the old tunnels as it gradually warmed and rose up to the city of the Chasm Heart. The pressure in her chest persisted. It pulled at her. She resisted, but it was growing stronger, becoming painful to ignore. She crept out of her hiding place and into the passage, following it in the direction of the Old Tunnels. As she descended deeper below the city, the pressure slowly began to ease.
She continued; the pressure in her chest easing with each step, yet ever present. She moved instinctively through tunnels no living being had walked for years, maybe centuries. The crystal in the rock illuminated in the same pale-silver light that had woken her from her sleep, as if guiding her way. The echo of her footsteps grew softer as she continued on. She became aware of the crystal web. It was closer to the rock surface here. She sensed the fate threads, some loosening, others tightening. That awareness had been a part of her training when she was younger.

   She followed the passage as it illuminated, showing her the way, traveling ever deeper below the Chasm Heart. Along this passage, she was aware of threads tightening rapidly. So fast that she thought she was sensing a fracture. Then, suddenly, the pressure was gone. The tunnel opened into a cavern so large she could barely make out the other side. Cautiously, she took a step forward.  She wasn’t prepared for what came next. 

   The very air resisted her, like walking through chest-deep water. Hesitantly, and with considerably more effort, she took another step forward. The air parted and then sealed behind her, as if an invisible door had been closed. The cavern was eerily quiet, as if sound itself dared not disturb. The air was clean and clear, and while it was heavy, it was not the damp, musty air that she was used to breathing underground. Nothing, no one, had ever disturbed this cavern before.

   She glanced upward. The ceiling was not natural. It was a perfect dome, polished impossibly smooth. So smooth, the black granite stone shone like a mirror, reflecting pale silver light from the pool in the center. A Moonwell. 

   The sides and floor surrounding the Moonwell were as smooth as the ceiling. The basin’s rim was obsidian-dark, threaded through with veins of silver that pulsed faintly, not rhythmically, but attentively. The water, absolutely still, was the source of the pale, silver light. Even though they were a natural phenomenon, they weren’t common. Only one existed, or so she believed until now, in the realm of Nethyr’rae, and that was in Vharzhelra’s temple. She had been forced to visit that Moonwell several times. The thought of those experiences sent a shiver down her spine. Moonwells are beautiful and yet terrifying. She felt as if something in it could see right through her to her very soul, and that all her secrets were laid bare. It was at a Moonwell she had been forced to do terrible things, and where she had finally dared disobey. She pushed the memory from her mind.

   She swallowed hard and forced herself to take another step forward. She swayed, then stumbled a step before regaining her balance. The pressure in her chest was gone. She looked down and found she was standing next to the polished edge of the Moonwell. Looking back, she could see the tunnel entrance she had just entered from, but it looked as if it were ten meters away.  She looked back at the Moonwell, and it brightened slightly, as if acknowledging her presence. 

   She waited, and the Moonwell continued to brighten. Its creeping glow finally reached her. It traced the edges of her boots, caught in the folds of her cloak. Where it touched her skin, her sensation sharpened. She cast no shadow. Instead, the light clung to her as if insisting on her presence. She knelt by the basin’s edge and felt the cool stone beneath the palm of her hand.

   She took a deep breath and tried to steel her resolve and control her fear. She had been called here, had she not? She leaned forward and peered into the luminous surface. At first, she saw only light, but then shapes began to form and resolve. Fate threads. They drifted below the surface like strands of suspended spider silk in a light breeze. Some were knotted and looped, while others were taut and straight. Others frayed at the edges, indicating indecision. 

   Slowly, she controlled her breathing and began to relax. She had been taught all these theories, words, and warnings. Fate threads existed everywhere, woven throughout the world and bound to the crystal web beneath it. Seeing them this close was something else entirely. It no longer felt abstract. It felt intimate.

   One drifted closer to the surface, brightening as it neared. Suddenly, she felt the tug in her chest, sharp enough to make her gasp. Pressure behind her eyes as images of dark tunnels flared in her mind, whispered names, and a blade slick with more than blood. She pulled away, her heart pounding.

   The threads drifted away, and the Moonwell dimmed as if disappointed.

   Easy.

   She was unsure if she was speaking to herself or the Moonwell. If it heard her, it didn’t respond. The pressure behind her eyes eased slightly.

   Then the light shifted, focused, and Nedythra stiffened. She felt it along her spine first, as though something unseen had drawn an icy finger down her back. The air grew thick and heavy. She looked into the Moonwell as the threads beneath the surface reacted, several drawing inward, overlapping in a slow convergence. 

   She rose in one smooth motion, her hand instinctively finding the hilt at her side. Footsteps sounded behind her. They echoed briefly, then vanished in the Moonwell’s hush, as if even sound thought better than to intrude. 

   A second figure stood at the cavern’s edge, half in shadow and half in the Moonwell’s glow. Platinum hair captured the silver light, and her midnight blue armor trimmed in lunar silver caught it in sharp lines. It accentuated her breast and her light-grey arms were bare. The armor was more ceremonial than functional. The woman’s posture was alert but not aggressive. Her weight balanced, hands relaxed, eyes already assessing. For a heartbeat, neither moved. 

   The Moonwell responded before either of them did. Beneath the surface, threads tightened, drawing closer together, their movements no longer aimless. The air between the two women thrummed, faint but unmistakable. Nedythra felt a pull, not painful but undeniable. 

   Cheslindra’s gaze moved to the basin, her red eyes widening a fraction, the Moonwell’s silver light reflecting off her white pupils. When she looked back at Nedythra, something had shifted. Recognition. 
“You feel it too,” she said.

   Her voice was quiet and controlled, yet it did not cross the space between them. Instead, it arrived fully formed in Nedythra’s thoughts, intimate and immediate, as if spoken from inches away. 

   Nedythra exhaled, then spoke slowly. “The well is listening.”

   The Moonwell stirred. The surface rippled inward, drawing light to a single point at its center before smoothing again. Reflections passed briefly below its surface. Two silhouettes moving through the darkness on separate paths. A moment when those paths brushed close, then veered apart. Nedythra sensed a strain in the threads, pulled taut by opposing forces. She felt the slight movement of air as the cavern seemed to inhale. 

   Cheslindra stepped closer, stopping just short of the basin’s rim. The glow outlined the tension in her hands, restraint etched into the angle of her shoulders. “Then it’s already too late to pretend this is a coincidence?”

   Nedythra met her gaze. The pull in her chest steadied, resolving into something denser - certainty, heavy and unwelcome. “Moonwells don’t arrange meetings,” she said evenly. “They reveal them.”

   For a long moment, Cheslindra said nothing. Her eyes tracked the movement of the drifting threads beneath the surface, her brow tightening as if she were reading a language she wished she did not understand.

   “I didn’t come looking for answers,” Cheslindra said at last. “I came to confirm a doubt.”

   “And?” Nedythra asked.

   Cheslindra paused, considering whether to answer. “I was right to be afraid of it.”

   The Moonwell’s glow dimmed, as if acknowledging Cheslindra’s assessment. 

   Nedythra turned back to the basin. One of the threads had risen again, bright now and closer to the surface. It pulsed, resonating with something between them. She could feel it. A shared tension that neither had chosen.

   “This place,” Nedythra said slowly, “doesn’t force anything. It clarifies. Whatever you feared was already there.”

   Cheslindra studied her for a moment. “And you?” she asked. “What brought you here?”

   Nedythra hesitated, honesty pressing at her throat and sharpened by the Moonwell’s insistence. “I,” she paused, contemplating her next words, “was summoned.”

   Cheslindra’s eyes narrowed. “Then we were always going to cross paths.”

   Nedythra nodded. “Yes.” The word settled heavily between them. The Moonwell brightened just enough that Nedythra caught the tremor in Cheslindra’s breath. “I don’t trust places that pay this much attention.”

   “Neither do I,” Nedythra replied. “But they exist whether we trust them or not.” The silence became deeper. The cavern held them, the Moonwell’s light unwavering. Beneath its surface, the threads slowly eased apart as if acknowledging a connection without fully binding it. 

   Cheslindra stepped back first, breaking the brightest edge of the glow. Immediately, the pressure in the air eased, though it did not vanish entirely. “Whatever this is, it’s not finished.”

   Nedythra tilted her head. “No. It has only been seen.”

   The Moonwell dimmed another fraction. Satisfaction or warning, neither could be sure. 

   Cheslindra didn’t linger. She turned and walked away from the basin, disappearing back into the old tunnel. Her footsteps muted by the cavern. Nedythra paused for a moment and looked at the now dim Moonwell, and felt she had been dismissed. She turned and walked back the way she had come. As she passed back into the passage, she felt it again. A gentle tug beneath her ribs like a thread drawn close but not pulled tight.