Ashai liked the quiet mornings best.
The sun had peeked over the tree line, splashing morning rays over the moss that coved the cabin. Birds sang, but not loudly. The air was cool and still, not yet disturbed by heat or voices.
He stepped carefully through the garden path, carrying a pair of wooden buckets. One was already full, sloshing faintly with water from the stream. The other was waiting to be filled. His steps were light. He didn't need to look down. His feet knew the way.
He reached the stream and dipped the bucket.
As he did, he whispered—not with words, but with will. The Myhn thread shimmered faintly at the edge of his touch.
A tiny glyph, drawn not with ink but intent, flickered across the handle of the bucket. It adjusted the weight, balanced the flow, made it easier to carry. He didn't think about it. It was just how things moved when he wanted them to.
Myhnscribe. He hadn't heard the name until Suhra said it. But now it was part of everything. Lifting, weaving, shifting.
He turned and started back toward the cabin. The glyph unraveled on its own once he no longer needed it.
Inside, Suhra was cooking. Not talking.
Ashai set the buckets near the corner and sat by the table, watching the way her glyphs curled through the air as she heated the pot. She didn't speak them aloud. Just motioned with a finger.
Finally, she looked up. "You've gotten better with the movement ones."
He smiled faintly. "They feel like my own hands."
Suhra raised a brow. "That's not something most say until they're twelve."
Ashai tilted his head. "Maybe my hands are just ahead of me."
She gave a short, amused breath through her nose, then went back to stirring.
They ate quietly, but not in silence.
Ashai talked more now. He asked questions. Simple ones, but full of curiosity. Why do birds sing at dawn and not dusk? How does heat make bread rise? What is the difference between a glyph that listens and one that acts?
Suhra answered most. Others, she let him wonder on.
After the meal, Ashai helped clean. When the plates were nearly stacked, a spoon slipped off the counter.
Before it hit the ground, a small glyph appeared on the floor beneath it. It caught the spoon in mid-air and lowered it gently down.
Suhra watched from the doorway.
"That was deliberate," she said.
Ashai looked up. "It felt wrong to let it fall."
Suhra crossed her arms. "And what did you use?"
"Myhnscribe," he replied. "But softened. So it didn't catch too fast."
She smiled a little. "You're not weaving strands anymore. You're letting them answer you."
Ashai didn't answer. But his eyes softened, like he understood something he couldn't explain yet.
The rest of the day passed with small moments like that—movement, thought, unspoken threads stitched through daily tasks. Ashai drew water, gathered herbs, cleaned a cracked inkpot with a spiral glyph that rinsed only the inside.
Evening came. The air cooled again. Suhra was sweeping the floor when she paused.
A shimmer.
Very faint. Almost not there. But she felt it like a wrong note in a familiar song.
She followed it to the wall, fingers moving through the dust above the window frame.
There. A glyph. Almost invisible.
She inhaled sharply and traced it.
Luthien. Voice-bound. Meant to speak—but not to her. It wasn't broadcasting to ears.
Suhra narrowed her eyes and pulled a small copper pin from her hair. She pressed it into the glyph's core.
The glyph flared, then blinked out.
"Tracking," she muttered.
Ashai had turned around in his seat. "What does it mean?"
Suhra didn't lie.
"It means someone left a trail in our home. Someone I trusted."
Ashai didn't speak. He just looked at her with something like confusion and sadness.
Suhra walked over and matched his eye level.
"We have to go, not far though."
He looked afraid for a moment.
"Will it be worse?"
"No," she said. "Just... different. There's a place near a school. For children like you. Start getting ready, we'll leave soon. I think we'll be safe there."
Ashai nodded "I'll go where you go."
Suhra's chest tightened.
She reached out and touched his face. "You speak more now."
"There's more to say." He spouted as he leaned into her hand.
The wind whistled through the forest, like a quiet alarm.