Cwal slowly pulled his dagger free from my bloodied neck, only then did I really look at his face.
Not the assassin everyone saw in the arena.
Not the shadow that blinked in and out of existence.
Just a boy my age, eyes too calm for someone who had never been allowed to be one.
I knew that face very well. The face of a person who is swallowed by anxiety of the future. The face of someone who survives because he has no other choice.
Cwal's story was another cliché. However, as much as I love good clichéd endings, there also exist clichéd tragic stories.
A single mother doing her best, skipping meals, and smiling anyway. Telling her son that things would get better, even when she did not believe it herself. When help finally came, wrapped in kindness and patience, she grabbed it with both hands.
Who would not?
Their life changed overnight. Bills stopped piling up. Food became plentiful. Small luxuries appeared, things that once felt impossible felt possible. For a brief moment, they were safe.
But in this world, safety never comes free.
They did not realize the man offering help was already measuring how much they were worth.
In a world shaped by power, weakness is always a sin.
They never realized the sheep offering help was a wolf.
By the time the truth surfaced, it was already too late. Cwal's mother became a test subject, her body and core torn apart in the name of science and innovation. Cwal himself caught Roy's attention. Talent like his did not go to waste.
So Roy handed him a leash.
The heart grasp serpent. A living weave that coiled around his core and heart, tightening with every act of defiance. Cwal accepted it willingly. Not out of loyalty. Out of fear. Out of a promise never to betray the man who now owned his and his mother's life.
I never blamed him for that. If someone told me my obedience could keep the only person I loved alive, I would have taken the deal, too.
Later arcs, barely remembered him. Sometimes he even stood in Finster's way because of Roy's orders.
They never understood how critical he truly was.
Cwal's ability worked on aberrants as well. That single fact made infiltration possible. Without him, the Helle hostage rescue would have collapsed before it even began.
Cwal Solace was an enigma even among indigo cores.
His mastery over corruption was so refined that only two senses could still perceive him. Sight and presence. He could selectively erase perception itself, choosing which senses remained intact. That was why he vanished when he spoke. He needed his voice to be heard, so hearing remained untouched. However, since only two senses can pick him up, sight vanished entirely.
To most people, he simply ceased to exist.
I exhaled slowly.
I swallowed and finally spoke.
"I do not need you to trust me."
My voice was quieter now.
"In this world, results are all that matter. You know that. You live by it every day."
His eyes did not leave mine.
The air around us felt heavier.
"Bring me to your mother this weekend," I said. "Let me see her."
"I will show you proof. If I fail, you may end me right then and there, but if I succeed…
" I hesitated, then finished, "I get your life in return."
...
...
...
A deadly silence stretched between us.
Cwal did not move. Did not speak.
Then he nodded once.
And vanished.
...
....
....
The room felt suddenly empty.
I let out a breath I did not realize I was holding and reached down, crumpling the cut paper into a tight ball before stuffing it into my pocket.
I expected too much. Someone like him would not open up this early. Not after everything that had happened to him.
I stood and made my way toward the training grounds reserved for us.
On the way, I brushed my fingers against my neck. The cut was shallow, already closing. It would heal on its own. I pulled my collar higher than was comfortable and tightened my tie to hide it anyway.
When I arrived, Tasora was leaning against the wall, scrolling through her phone.
I stepped closer. She looked up, eyes narrowing slightly before softening. "Good. I was about to call you, then I remembered I do not have your contact."
She slipped her phone into her pocket. "Give it to me when we are done."
I nodded and stepped onto the marked circle at the center of the grounds. The lines etched into the floor indicated where the lingering downward force was.
"Alright," Tasora said, her tone sharpening, the casual edge gone. "Close your eyes."
I did.
"If what you said is true," she continued, "that you are still new to the world of weavers, then that actually works in your favor."
I frowned slightly.
"Do not confuse wielding concepts with wielding thrum," she said. "They are not the same. Thrum weaving follows a structure. Flow. Logic. Concepts do not care about any of that."
Her voice lowered. "Concepts respond to will. Strip the logic away. Do not think. Feel it with your most primal desire."
I nodded. I already understood the theory, though knowing something and actually doing it were two very different things.
"The clearer and simpler your desire," she added, "the easier it is to control."
I drew in a slow breath and reached outward
At first, there was nothing.
Then my head spun.
The world tilted sideways, like the ground itself had shifted. A dull pressure bloomed behind my eyes, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
Something answered.
"Good," Tasora said immediately. "Do not grab it. Let it obey you."
Light flared at the edges of my vision.
The highlights in my hair glowed teal, reflected faintly even through my closed lids. When I opened my eyes, the world looked distorted, as if I were staring through deep water. My eyes burned with the same color.
The air thickened around me.
I focused, gently retracting, gathering the downward force clinging to the space above the ground. It felt like pulling invisible weight toward myself, slow and resistant.
Pain spiked without warning.
Warm liquid slid down from my nose. Blood was seeping down like a broken faucet.
"Whew…" I muttered, wiping it away. "That was not as bad as before."
Tasora snorted. "Let us not force it. Given how low your mind stat is, the fact that you are not convulsing on the ground is already worth celebrating."
I laughed weakly, the sound coming out more breath than humor. "Yeah. I would rather not turn myself into a vegetable through sheer recklessness."
We went back to the seats along the edge of the training grounds. Once the adrenaline faded, exhaustion crept in. We exchanged numbers, talked about nothing in particular, small things meant to fill the quiet.
Eventually, I nudged the conversation where I wanted it to go.
"What do you think of Finster?" I asked.
Tasora did not answer right away. She looked at my face, then past me, eyes lingering on the faint residue of my concept still hanging in the air.
"You know you are being unfair," she said. "You ask me what I think of him, yet if I ask what you know about him, you would shut your mouth instantly."
I scratched my cheek.
She hit the bullseye.
"Well," she continued, "first thing I can say is this. He is not a conceptual weaver. Just like us."
I nodded slowly.
"The moment he punched the wall free," she said, "I stopped time. I wanted to examine him. He froze completely."
I nodded again, already knowing where this was going.
"The power behind his punch was not what broke the barrier," Tasora said. "Yes, he hit it hard. Very hard. Still, a sovereign-ranked barrier is almost absolute. A weaver student ranked at pawn should never be able to break it."
She looked at her hands. "Yet he did."
"You know what makes it worse," she continued quietly. "Something stranger happened. When he was pushing through the barrier, I stopped time again. He was frozen. Still, the pressure kept increasing. The barrier kept giving way. That's when I realized something was off."
Her jaw tightened. "It startled me so badly that I released the time stop immediately."
I did not interrupt her talking and just kept listening to her.
"After the barrier shattered, I tried again to confirm my suspicions," she said. "I froze time one more time."
She looked straight at me.
"This time, he moved freely inside the frozen world."