Eight years had passed since the chill of winter had gripped the Cinder Moor, the year Silas turned ten. Then, his mother had been out, checking the snares in the snow-dusted gully. Alone in their cramped hut, a fierce draught rattled the single pane of glass, stealing the last warmth from the dying hearth. Fingers numb, Silas had knelt before the cold grate. He’d reached for a sliver of kindling, a thought forming, vague and desperate: *warmth*. Not a plea, but a nascent command, a quiet thrum beneath his skin. Stone sparked. The rough granite of the hearth shimmered, a low hum resonating through the floorboards. Flames, impossibly bright and hot, didn't ignite the wood but *erupted* from the very rock itself, licking upwards with an eager, hungry dance. He stumbled back, breath catching. His small hand, still tingling, had felt the world shift. Not just the fire, but the fundamental currents beneath, the 'Aethelweft' as he would later come to call it, had bent to his silent will. It wasn't long before the subtle whispers became a language. Lifting a fallen beam with a flick of his wrist, coaxing warmth from cold metal, mending a cracked ceramic bowl with a soft touch – he could accomplish incredible things with mere intent. “Mama, look!” he’d shouted that evening, beaming, a chipped mug of milk hovering above the rough-hewn table. “It floats!” His mother, her face etched with the weariness of the moor, did not marvel. Her gaze, usually so kind, held a deep, unyielding despair. She reached out, gently guiding the mug back down, her hand trembling slightly. ‘Silas, listen. We must make a promise. That power you found? You must never use it carelessly. Especially never in front of others.’ ‘But why?’ he’d asked, his excitement souring. He’d always been a quiet, obedient child, but this felt like suppressing a part of himself, a vibrant new sense. She warmed his milk by the fire – a fire she’d coaxed from flint and steel, the old way. Then, for the first time, she spoke of the sprawling, steam-choked city of Veridia, far beyond their isolated ridge. ‘Down in the city, there are people called Technocrats,’ she’d begun, her voice hushed, as if the wind itself might carry her words away. ‘They are the descendants of the Founders, those who first mastered the Aethelweft. They built Veridia’s clockwork spires and steam-engines, and they rule everything.’ These Technocrats, she explained, inherited potent abilities from their ancestors, shaping metal and steam with a thought, commanding power lines with a gesture. They were the architects and masters of their age. ‘Then there are the Attuners,’ she’d continued, her fingers tracing the rim of his mug. ‘Those born from Technocrat and ordinary blood. They also feel the Aethelweft, but their touch is weaker, less direct. They are treated as… tools. As resources.’ Silas had inherited the touch of an Attuner, she believed, from his absent father. She warned him of the city’s hunger. If he were ever to descend the Cinder Moor, the powerful Syndicate Lords would find him. They would capture him, bind him, force him into service. His gift would become his cage. ‘Think of it, Silas, like this: the Syndicate Lords are the engineers who build the great clock. And the Attuners are the specialized cogs within it. Sometimes, an engineer might appreciate a particularly fine cog, cherish its smooth turn… but they can also replace it, repurpose it, or grind it down when necessary.’ Though the Technocrats commanded all Veridia, they squabbled constantly over territories and industrial secrets. In these conflicts, the Attuners were often the first to be expended, sacrificed. It was like an engineer sending a cog into a machine to test its strain, watching from a safe distance as it ground itself apart. Her face, as she spoke, held a desolation Silas had never witnessed. Her eyes were far away, fixed on some memory he couldn't grasp. ‘Silas, do you want to live with Mama for a long, long time?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then you must hide this power. Otherwise, the bad Technocrats will come. They will take you away. And you will never see me again.’ ‘Okay, I promise! I won’t use it in front of anyone!’ Eight years later, the confident vow still echoed in his mind. Even after his mother succumbed to the coughing sickness that claimed her two winters past, Silas had remained on the Cinder Moor, tending their few hardy sheep. He lived in the shadow of Veridia’s smoke-plumes, avoiding the Syndicate Lords who might one day come looking for him. Refusing to become a cog in their grand, grinding machine. --- “Fools, all of them.” Silas slammed the hut door shut, the latch groaning. Earlier that morning, before the distant city’s steam-whistles began their mournful daily chorus, a knot of young men from the nearest hamlet had stomped up the path. They’d come to accuse him of Old Man Garen’s death, days ago. Evidence of a Gearsnarl attack — those mutated, steel-fanged beasts that sometimes clawed their way out of the industrial wastes — was plain to see. Torn fabric, jagged paw prints in the mud, the metallic tang of its musk clinging to the air. Yet, they insisted Silas must have killed the old man, then fed him to the creature as bait. Absurd claims, spurred by fear and the hamlet’s perpetual distrust of the solitary boy on the moor. Their true motive was transparent. They sought leverage, an excuse to undervalue his wool or short-change him on supplies next time he ventured down to barter. Silas had made short work of them. A swift, brutal shove that sent one sprawling into the mud, a sharp twist of a wrist that left another yelping. He hadn’t used the Aethelweft, not overtly, but a subtle hardening of his knuckles, an imperceptible quickening of his step, had made his raw strength seem inhuman. They’d scattered, their bravado evaporating into the damp morning air. It would happen again. He knew the cycle. He would visit the hamlet, they would try to cheat him, and he would remind them of their place with a few well-aimed blows. An annoying, predictable rhythm. Lost in the familiar hum of resentment, a loud, insistent rapping jarred him. *Bang, bang, bang*. Silas let out a deep sigh. He gripped the door handle, knuckles white, before wrenching it open. “Who now? Have you all forgotten the lesson so quickly?” His voice was a low growl, rough from disuse. The man standing on his doorstep was not one of the youths. He appeared to be in his late forties, cloaked in dust-stained wool, a quiet smile on his face. He held a staff, unremarkable save for a small, polished brass mechanism affixed near its head. “Ah… my apologies, young friend,” the man said, his voice soft, unhurried. “I’m a traveler, merely seeking shelter from the biting wind, but it seems I’ve chosen an inopportune moment.” A traveler? Silas stiffened. In his eighteen years, he had never encountered such a person. Few strayed to the Cinder Moor, and none with such an air of leisure, of being utterly unconcerned with the grit and grime of the world. After a moment’s hesitation, Silas stepped aside. His mother’s lessons on hospitality, long buried beneath layers of solitude and suspicion, resurfaced. “No, not at all,” he muttered, the formal words feeling foreign on his tongue. “Please, come in. Some… unpleasant people were here.” When had he last spoken like this? Before he’d realized the hamlet elders, including Old Man Garen, were just as self-serving and petty as the rest. It had been a very long time. “If you’ll excuse me, then.” The traveler dipped his head, entering the small hut. Dust settled from his cloak like fine ash. Silas knew he should have sent the man away. Secrecy was his shield. But the aching quiet of his life, the unspoken words that piled up inside him, yearned for release. Even a brief, peaceful conversation felt like a desperate need. And if the man proved malicious, Silas thought, watching him move, he was confident he could handle him. “Have you eaten?” Silas asked, gesturing to the roughly hewn table. “Not yet, I confess.” “Nor have I. Join me, then.” Silas placed a wooden trencher on the table for the stranger, then laid out what little he had: freshly churned goat’s milk, a hard wedge of cheese, a bowl of coarse porridge made from dried grains, a thumb-sized lump of rock salt, and thin slices of dried lamb jerky. His mother had taught him: treat guests with utmost hospitality, and they would be less inclined to harm you. A simple, ancient wisdom. “It’s a poor place, this. Not much to offer.” “What nonsense!” The man’s eyes widened, a genuine warmth in them. “This is a feast! My thanks.” He ate with an almost ravenous enthusiasm, as if he hadn’t tasted a proper meal in days. Yet, even in his hunger, his table manners were impeccable—a stark contrast to the hamlet folk. He chewed with his mouth closed, turned his head slightly when drinking from the horn, small gestures of civility Silas had almost forgotten existed. The traveler seemed to notice something similar in Silas. After a long draught of milk, he offered a kind remark. “You possess good manners, young man. Your parents must have taught you well.” “My mother did.” Silas kept his gaze on the table, scraping the last of his porridge. He didn't mention his father; he rarely did. A brief hesitation from the traveler. “And… is your mother still in the hamlet? This house, it suggests a singular occupant.” He must have noticed the single, narrow bed against the far wall. Silas nodded. “She passed from illness, two winters ago.” His voice remained even, steady. The initial, raw grief had calcified into a quiet ache, a familiar emptiness. The traveler looked troubled. He bowed his head slightly, then placed a hand over the brass mechanism on his staff, his fingers gently tracing its intricate clockwork face—a gesture Silas had never seen. “My sincere condolences. To have raised such a fine young man, she must surely find true rest in the quiet beyond the gears.” “I hope so.” Silas felt a familiar shadow fall over him. To be able to speak of her passing without tears, without the crushing weight that once paralyzed him… Was it simply the passage of time, dulling the edges of his memory? Or had he, too, grown cold and distant like the world around him? He forced himself to change the subject. “More importantly, sir, what brings you to such a remote place?” “I passed through a settlement on the Iron Road, and heard an old woman lamenting a Gearsnarl. It seems it’s been preying on their livestock, even attacked one of their own. I decided to investigate.” He gave a shrug. “I’m quite confident in matters of… disposition.” “Alone?” Silas couldn't hide his astonishment. A middle-aged man, not exactly ancient but certainly past his prime, claiming he could face an Ironhide Gearsnarl with only a staff? The traveler offered an awkward smile. “I am an Attuner. I served the Brassworks Guild for sixty years. Most such creatures are merely a nuisance.” At the word ‘Attuner,’ Silas’s body tensed, a jolt of recognition running through him. A being from his mother’s hushed warnings, the servants of the Syndicate Lords. But the man’s eyes held no malice, only a weary kindness. Silas slowly relaxed his shoulders. “Is something amiss?” the traveler asked, observing his shift. “It’s just… my first time meeting an Attuner,” Silas admitted. “But more than that, you don’t look like someone who’s served for sixty years.” The man’s face, though lined, was robust, his movements unburdened. “Attuners, well, we age differently. Slower, perhaps. Longer lives than ordinary folk. I’m seventy-five this year. For an Attuner of middling power, I’ve aged like this. Powerful Technocrats, they say, can easily live for two or three hundred years.” Silas stared, fascinated. This was the first time he’d heard such details. He carefully studied Corvin, a man of his own kind, a truth his mother had kept from him. Outwardly, there was no distinguishing feature. No glow, no mark. If anything, the man possessed a sturdy build, a healthy complexion that spoke of enduring vitality. This was crucial. It meant that even standing in the bustling heart of Veridia, as long as he refrained from obvious displays of the Aethelweft, no one would be able to discern his nature. A tightening in his chest, a lifelong knot of fear, suddenly loosened. “To be an Attuner,” Silas murmured, “it’s truly incredible.” “Incredible?” The traveler chuckled, a dry sound. “Not at all! I think people like you are far more incredible. Living in such a place, where Gearsnarls prowl, without relying on the Aethelweft? I couldn’t even imagine it.” Contrary to the man’s assumption, this was the first Gearsnarl that had truly threatened human life in the area since Silas’s birth. If not for that unusual peace, his mother, a woman without such sight, would never have dared raise him on the desolate Cinder Moor. “Now that I think of it, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Corvin. Corvin of the Brassworks—or, I suppose, no longer. Just Corvin the Wanderer. And you?” “Silas,” he replied, a quiet strength entering his voice. “The sole shepherd of the Cinder Moor.” “A wonderful name, Silas.” “You mentioned earlier that you ‘served’ a Guild. Does that mean you no longer do?” “I officially ended my vassal contract a month ago,” Corvin confirmed. “The Guild offered to keep me until my dying breath, a comfortable retirement, but… I wanted to spend my later years traveling, seeing the edges of Veridia. After all, I’ve been tied to a single forge since I was hired at the age of fifteen.”

The Weight of Unseen Strands