Determine

She did not sleep. Olrin’s narrative voice, slithering into her skull through the music room, would not allow it. Every time her eyes closed, she saw his reflections staring back at her, endless and suffocating.

But fear, once ignited, burned into resolve. If he could twist her manipulations, then the seam cut both ways. That was the truth her book suggested—hidden in the margins, in curling notations that had first seemed decorative.

"A hand upon the loom may tangle. But a hand that follows, not opposes, can reweave the thread itself."

The words tolled in her head like a bell. If she could not outmuscle him, perhaps she could turn his strength.

…

At dawn, with the manor hushed in that pale hour before the servants stirred, Cecilia stole into the linen closet. A humble place, quiet, lined with folded sheets and lavender sachets. Perfect for her purposes.

She closed the door behind her, struck a match, and lit a stub of candle. The little flame guttered, throwing shadows across the stacked linens. She chose a towel at random and let her fingers brush its hem, whispering the same coaxing words she had used countless times before. The weave shifted under her hand, thread twitching unnaturally.

But she did not press further. Instead, she waited.

She invited the push back.

And it came.

The towel rippled in her grasp, twisting of its own accord, threads snarling into knots that dug against her skin. He was there again—testing, mocking, exerting his will. Her stomach lurched, but this time she clung to the words in the margin. Follow, don’t oppose.

She let the threads pull, let them knot tighter. Her fingers moved with the twist, tracing its path, coaxing—not resisting, not denying. For long minutes she followed every snarl, every tightening loop, until her hands moved as if she were sewing with invisible needle and thread.

And then—she tugged, just slightly.

The knot loosened. Not unraveled completely, but shifted direction, reweaving itself into a simple braid that lay smooth across her palm.

Cecilia froze. Her heart thundered.

It had worked. She had not fought him—she had redirected him. His will had become a part of hers, twisted into something else.

…

The first time was luck, she told herself. She had to prove it. Again and again, she pulled linens from the shelves, coaxing them to life, inviting his interference. Each time, the cloth writhed, his hand pressing down invisible upon hers. And each time, she followed the pressure, guiding it, learning the rhythm of his force.

Most attempts ended in failure. The sheets tangled into useless knots. A pillow split open, feathers erupting into the air. Once, the candle snuffed itself, plunging her into suffocating dark until she relit it with shaking hands.

But she persisted. Hours bled away. Her mind pounded, her body trembled, and her fingertips ached as though she had been sewing for days. Still she worked.

Until—success again.

A bedsheet that had twisted violently into a choking loop around her wrists softened beneath her palms, its fabric folding neatly, obediently, into the shape of a rose. Crude, wrinkled, but undeniable.

She let out a strangled laugh, pressing the cloth-flower to her chest. “You see?” she whispered into the quiet, though no one was there. “You see, you’re not untouchable. You’re not absolute. You can be turned.”

The shadows seemed to deepen at her words. For a heartbeat, she thought she heard the faintest hiss of disapproval—a reminder that he was always watching.

But the rose remained.

A fragile victory, yes, but hers. Proof that the story’s weaver was not immune to being rewoven.

She blew out the candle and sat in the linen closet’s dark, clutching the folded rose. A wild thought sparked in her chest, reckless and dangerous: if she could braid his manipulations into her own… perhaps one day, she could braid him.

The notion chilled her even as it thrilled her.

Her lips curled into the faintest, trembling smile.

“Careful, Lord,” she whispered, tongue thickly coated with malice, spite, and determination. “Your strings will one day strangle you.”