Chapter 3 - A thread across worlds

Eirian didn’t sleep through the night anymore.

Her naps were shallow, brief, and dreamless. Most of her real rest came from stillness, just lying in silence, listening to the activities of her new parents, deciphering what was happening around her without seeing.

There was a rhythm here, she realized.

The walls breathed.

Mana moved through the wood and stone like air through lungs, like blood through a body. It was something passive and structured, not the chaotic flare she’d once glimpsed when her mother cracked a warding seal open.

And it had a language of its own.

She felt it most when Sera worked.

The woman’s magic was gentle. Eirian had watched her dozens of times now—grinding herbs in sets of threes, breathing softly over charms, humming as she twisted fine copper wire into symbols she placed beneath pots or in bundles of herbs.

It wasn’t like the rituals she’d learned at home. Those relied on invocation, sacred geometry, and spirit appeasement. This was closer to threading. Taking the existing mana in the air and guiding it, nudging it through intent and repetition.

And Mana responded.

It moved with meaning.

Even the wind seemed to answer Sera’s actions—a draft slowing near a hanging charm, a soft gleam catching in dried sage leaves when she sang a certain note.

Eirian studied it all with silent intensity.

She had to understand.

Because her own magic wasn’t behaving the same way. Every time she tried to reach for it—to mimic one of Sera’s gestures, even mentally—it sputtered.

She realized the way Mana was behaving differently was because she wasn’t just manipulating her own mana; it was something else, the soul curled deep inside her. The demon’s essence didn’t rise on its own. It didn’t try to speak or control. But it was always present, a flicker of heat behind her navel.

She didn’t dare prod it too hard; instead, she began cataloguing how her own magic responded.

In her world, her mother had taught her to listen first. “Power means nothing if you don’t understand the voice of what you’re channeling,” she’d once said. “Don’t shout at a spirit. Let it speak to you.”

So she listened.

She lay in her cradle and breathed in through her nose—slowly. She let her awareness slide inward. Past bone. Past breath. To that warm thread that ran through her chest like a river waiting to rise.

Her mana.

Raw. Thin. But unmistakable.

It glimmered like silk in her mind’s eye—silver-blue and coiled around the edges of something deeper.

She focused on it.

Not to use it, she just wanted to watch.

It pulsed with her heartbeat, reacting to her emotions—fear made it contract, and warmth made it ripple outward. But most of all, it liked structure.

When she thought about music, it flowed more easily.

When she thought about her mother’s voice—her steady chants, her steady hands—the thread brightened.

So she tried something small, a mental ritual, one pattern she had made thousands of times in her previous life.

First she took three breaths, then she focused on the thread while picturing light, how that light was felt against her body—it was warm, safe, and unthreatening.

Her mana flickered in reply.

It stirred toward her fingertips, soft and clumsy, like trying to write with a pencil gripped in her palm, and she felt how it moved; her right hand twitched. A spark brushed her knuckle.

Eirian froze, and she held her breath, then relaxed, she had done it, it was success, barely, but still a success.

That evening, as Sera carried her outside into the tiny garden to get some air, Eirian stared at the wind chimes hanging from the porch beam.

They were ordinary-looking—simple silver rods, a carved stone disk at the center. But mana collected around them, swirling like morning mist. She could almost see it now if she unfocused her vision.

Sera watched the wind play across the yard. “Storm coming,” she murmured. “Not tonight, but soon.”

Eirian leaned into her shoulder, eyelids heavy, but her thoughts alert.

Storms had always meant more in her old life. A change in pressure, in the sky’s mood, always affected rituals. Her mother used to say, “The spirits listen differently when the wind’s angry.”

Now she wondered what storms meant here.

‘Would mana become unstable? Would her connection to the soul change?

Would this new world start testing her before she was ready?’

She wasn’t afraid, but she was aware—acutely—that her progress had come too easily.

She wasn’t just a baby.

***

The bells on Sera’s cart jingled as she wheeled it up the hill, its small wooden wheels creaking against the uneven path. A linen canopy shaded the inside from the midmorning sun. Bundled within the woven quilt lining its basket, Eirian squinted against the light, her face half-covered by a soft cloth.

Today was her naming day.

Sera had explained it earlier, speaking softly while tucking an embroidered ribbon around Eirian’s tiny wrist.

“Not just a name,” she’d said, smiling with the kind of warmth that carried magic. “The world has to feel your presence. And you have to feel how it echoes back.”

In her old life, Hana had helped prepare dozens of blessings for newborns—sigils for longevity, amulets for peace, and small spirit-threaded tokens to protect babies too young to defend themselves.

The path wound upward toward the edge of the village, where the trees thinned and the land opened into a field of knee-high grass. A circular stone platform rose at the center, old and moss-covered. Carved lines circled the edges—runic etchings that glowed faintly even in daylight. Lit by the residual memory of a thousand names spoken aloud over generations.

A sacred place.

Sera stopped the cart and lifted Eirian into her arms, slow and careful. The wind tugged at her braid.

“I know you can’t talk yet,” she murmured as they stepped onto the stones. “But I have a feeling you’ll remember this.”

Villagers stood in a loose semicircle around the ring, some in travel clothes, others dressed in ceremonial colors. They nodded politely as Sera approached—respectful, though slightly wary. Eirian could feel it in the subtle shift of air between bodies.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Sera knelt in the center of the circle and placed Eirian gently on a square of white cloth. A polished bowl sat beside her—shallow, wide, filled with water and sprigs of ironmint.

The village priest stepped forward—an older man with cloud-grey robes and fingers stained from mixing ink and balm. He glanced at Eirian with a furrowed brow, then dipped his hands into the water.

“Before giving her a name,” he said, voice rough but clear, “we see what flows beneath.”

He stirred the water gently with a carved wand, whispering under his breath. The surface shimmered.

Eirian stayed still, breathing slowly.

She wanted to see what would happen.

The water rippled outward in a perfect ring—then pulsed again, stronger. The bowl trembled. The priest flinched.

A small swirl formed at the center of the basin, drawing the ironmint in and spinning it too fast for such a small volume of liquid.

One of the watchers stepped back.

Another muttered something under their breath.

Sera didn’t move. Her hand rested calmly over Eirian’s leg. Her voice didn’t waver.

“Strong flow,” she said aloud. “The kind that reshapes things.”

The priest set the bowl down without comment. His eyes flicked between Eirian and Sera, but he said nothing.

Eirian felt a pang in her chest from a memory. Her mother’s voice, once clear and bold during ceremonies, saying, “Don’t draw attention to your gifts until you understand them. Power seen too early becomes something people want to control—or destroy.”

But Sera didn’t flinch.

She rose, lifting Eirian into the crook of her arm, and turned to face the gathered villagers.

“Her name is Eirian, chosen by the threads that brought her here. She comes with flame wrapped in silver and a heart made to endure. Her path will not be gentle, but she will walk it.”

The wind picked up as she spoke.

Like the world was listening.

The crowd bowed—some stiffly, some with genuine reverence.

Ceremony complete, the villagers dispersed slowly. A few offered Sera dried fruit or sprigs of protection herbs for the baby. A boy, no older than ten, offered Eirian a carved button shaped like a fox. “For luck,” he mumbled, avoiding her eyes.

She took it in her tiny hand and held on.

Because even if they didn’t understand her—

Even if they saw too much, too soon—

She understood them.

Ordinary people, living ordinary lives, walking past a girl who once dreamed of traveling far away, now reborn into a place with no trains, no neon lights, and no half-priced iced coffee after school.

***

Sera laid Eirian down later that afternoon with the fox button clutched in her hand. The wind chimes outside the window clinked gently.

“She’s different,” Orlen said quietly from the doorway.

Sera didn’t look up. “I know.”

“You’re not worried?”

“I am,” Sera said. “But not in the way you think.”

He crossed the room. “The priest couldn’t read her aura. That’s not a small thing.”

“She’s more than an aura. She’s soul-marked. You saw it in the water.”

“Exactly,” Orlen said. “Soul-marked infants bring attention. The wrong kind.”

Sera finally looked up. Her eyes were calm but unreadable.

“She’s a child,” she said. “She didn’t ask to carry anything.”

“No,” Orlen murmured. “But she carries it anyway.”

They stood in silence looking at each other. Eirian, half-asleep, stirred; she heard them.

And deep in her chest, her mana core throbbed—steady, quiet, but watchful.

***

That night, the house was still.

Sera had banked the fire low. Outside, wind rustled through the tall grass beyond the garden, brushing dry leaves against the shutters. The village had long since gone to sleep, leaving only the soft, steady rhythm of breath and wood settling.

Eirian lay awake in her cradle, her fingers loosely curled around the fox button from earlier. The naming rite was over. The village had accepted her—or at least decided not to question her. That was enough for now.

Her mana hummed louder now. She could feel her own mana moving, coiling gently under her ribs—stronger than before. Her experiments with sensing and shaping energy, however small, had begun to yield structure.

But that wasn’t what kept her awake.

It was the entity that resided inside her, the demon soul. She didn’t reach for it this time; instead, it was the demon who reached for her.

At first, she thought she was dreaming—again. The flicker of heat. The hum behind her thoughts. The sensation of falling inward, spiraling toward some center she didn’t understand.

But when her vision blurred and turned inward—when she saw not the ceiling above her but the shimmering void behind her eyes—she knew this was different.

This wasn’t a dream.

The place she found herself in wasn’t like before. It wasn’t the darkness of soulspace or the chaotic firestorm that had ripped through her during the failed exorcism. It was quiet.

A void that wasn’t empty.

She floated within it as her self. Her soulform. Shaped by memory and thought. Older than her new body. Familiar. A teenage girl in a long cotton shirt with ink stains on the sleeve and a red cord still tied to her wrist.

And across from her, something stirred.

It hovered at the edge of the void, half-coiled flame and half-shadow. Its shape flickered—not entirely formed.

And yet she could feel it watching her, curious about her.

‘Why are you awake?’

The flame shifted.

‘You reached for me before.’

‘I didn’t mean to consume you.’

‘You did anyway.’

She flinched. Guilt stirred beneath her ribs.

‘I wanted you out. I was trying to survive.’

A beat passed.

‘Don’t lie, both of us know the truth.’

She paused.

And then answered honestly.

‘You are right… I wanted more from life, but at the time, I didn’t know what I was going to leave behind.’

‘There’s no coming back.’

‘How are you so sure?’

The presence pulsed faintly.

‘You can try if you don’t believe me.’

‘I’m not going to pretend to know what you are or represent, but my mother is waiting for me.’

‘You don’t hate me?’

The question surprised her. She hadn’t expected it.

‘I feared you,’ she admitted. ‘That day, I felt your pain when you entered me. I thought I was being destroyed. But when I took you in… I felt something else.’

The flame drew a little closer. The demon soul stirred again, more strongly now.

‘I had a name once.’

‘What was it?’

‘Askariel.’

The name rang through the void like a deep bell.

And it clung to her.

‘You’re not trying to escape,’ she realized.

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you didn’t run.’

She felt the truth of it—how in that final moment, she had faced the ritual, the pain, the breaking—and she had chosen to stand.

And something in Askariel had seen that.

Eirian bowed her head in that space between them.

‘Then let’s make a deal. You rest. I grow. When we’re both strong enough to speak properly… we talk.’

The flame pulsed once—then settled.

Agreement.

And then—

She opened her eyes.

Back in her cradle. Moonlight on the ceiling. Fox button in her hand.

And a name echoing faintly beneath her skin.

Askariel.