Cwal stood beside the glass casing, close enough that his breath fogged it faintly.
Mary did not move. If not for the slow rise of her chest, she could have been part of the display.
He spoke without turning.
"I came from a small family," he said. "Just me and my mother."
His palm rested against the glass, fingers spread.
"Just me and my mother. No name, no lineage worth mentioning. When they learned she was unawakened, everyone would now treat us like garbage ."
"It got worse when my mother tried to find work. They would refuse to hire someone who could not awaken, saying the most basic stereotype, like she was unreliable, dangerous, or a burden. None of them would say it to her face, but she is not dumb enough not to notice it."
Leaves rustled above us.
"Then they saw us starting to crumble, they increased the pressure. Our landlord raised the rent twice in one month. The baker charged us more than everyone else."
His presence shifted. The air pressed inward, sharp and heavy. My lungs resisted every breath, like the room had decided there was less space for me now.
"When my mother collapsed one night, feverish and shaking, I dragged her to three different healers. Every door closed. One of them even told me to take her to the slums and let nature finish the job."
"We sold what we could to cure her. Furniture first. Then clothes. Then keepsakes. When there was nothing left, we were put out in the slums anyway."
"The slums were loud, filthy, and honest in a way the city was not. No one pretended to be kind. If you were weak, you starved; it was as simple as that."
"Luckly I awakened there and learned quickly. How to know which pockets were safe. How to slip food without drawing a blade. I was still a child back then, but I needed to do something to help."
His voice dropped, and his killing intent mellowed.
"My mother saw what I became. She hated herself for it."
"I told myself it was temporary, just until my mother got better. Just until something changed."
"That was when the woman in the labcoat appeared."
"She stood out so badly it almost hurt to look at her. Clean boots. White coat without a single stain. She did not wrinkle her nose. She crouched down, even dirtying her coat so that she was on eye level with my mother and spoke to her as if she mattered."
His fingers slid slowly along the glass.
"She said she was a researcher. Said Salem had failed the unawakened. Said people like my mother deserved better. Food. Shelter. Medical care."
"My mother smiled. For the first time in months. She was our hope and a beam of light at the end of a tunnel.
His hand stilled.
"But we did not know that light also burns."
"The place they took us to was this same casino, but a different entrance hidden beneath a building with no markings. Inside, it was warm and clean. They gave us real food. Fresh water, even a personal room and furniture.
"For weeks, nothing had happened. Then one day, the woman came back to us and said we needed to repay their generosity, and we could repay this by being granted the honor of being the first artificial awakened in the whole world. She said it expressively, like she was giving us a big favor."
"They separated us. They took my mother down a level I was never allowed to see before. The hallway smelled like metal and chemicals. But due to my talents, I manage to slip in and take a peek. There was a room with bars instead of walls. Inside it was an aberrant, restrained, and sedated but unmistakably alive. Even half-conscious, its presence made my skin crawl."
"I could hear my mother breathing through the door. They told her to lie down on a bed. I heard restraints click into place. Machines came alive one by one."
"They said it would change everything. That she would no longer be weak. and would soon bring forth a new generation of weavers."
"They gutted the abarent alive and grafted its core into her."
I raised my hand at him, cutting him off. I need to be sure what I've was correct.
"It was aberrant, not human?" I asked, confirming what I heard.
"Cwal did not hesitate. yes. It was an aberrant core."
...
...
What the actual F***?
...
...
I went quiet for a long time. Both my mind and body can't process this fast enough.
This is just beyond wrong. Transferring a core alone is the highest taboo in this world. People are executed for even attempting it, along with their relatives, to set an example.
And what Cwal is describing goes even further than that. It is not just a crime, it's just not something another fellow human should even think of doing.
This is a completely new story that was never mentioned in the novels.
Aberrants.
The world's mistake given flesh. Thrums' natural enemy. They were called many things across cultures. Voidspawn. Godless remnants. Walking calamities. Titles layered over fear
No race truly understood what they were.
Humanity, elves, dwarves, and beastkin, wars and old grudges temporarily set aside, all turned toward the same questions. What were aberrants? Why did they exist? What did they want? Every answer conflicted with the last.
What they did agree on was their durability. Their bodies endured damage that should have ended anything else. Gray skin tones stretched tight. Pitch-black eyes, clustered and protruding, making it impossible to tell what they focused on. Wings that should not have functioned, yet carried them effortlessly.
Then there was thrum.
Magic constructs failed against them. Magic lost structure on contact. Spells unraveled, enchantments collapsed, barriers thinned to nothing. For a long time, brute physical force was the only method that worked with any consistency.
Much later in the story, it was revealed that aberrants could only be truly killed through conceptual magic.
Scholars described them as living organisms driven by indulgence. Greed. Sloth. Lust. Wrath. Envy. Gluttony. Pride. Every excess made flesh.
Standing there, listening to Cwal, watching his mother lie encased in glass, a thought kept circling back no matter how I tried to push it away.
Roy.
An influential magic scientist. Revered in academic circles. Known forhis stellar results. Ethics were something he treated like a suggestion rather than a shackle.
Cwal never said exactly what Roy intended.
He did not need to.
I pieced it together myself, slowly, reluctantly.
An aberrant carried properties that no human core ever had. Resistance to thrum. Immunity to magic constructs. Durability that defied known limits. If someone believed those traits came from the core itself rather than the body that held it, then a horrifying possibility emerged.
What if you removed it?
What if you implanted it?
Not into a trained soldier. Not into an awakened elite.
Into someone unawakened. Someone fragile. Someone desperate.
Someone like Mary.
I could see the shape of the idea forming without anyone saying it aloud. Recreate aberrant resilience inside a human vessel. Strip away unpredictability. Keep obedience. Produce a new kind of weaver that could survive what others could not.
Not people.
But assets.
Whether that was truly Roy's goal, I did not know.
Whether he believed his own grand vision of progress or simply wanted proof that he could do it mattered less than I wanted it to.
What mattered right now was that we were lucky.
The natural weakness of aberrants was within my grasp.
Kind of?.....
I turned toward Cwal. He was still standing close to the casing, shoulders squared, like stepping away might cause her to vanish.
"Is your mother an artificial ichor weaver or an astute one?"
"An astute," he replied without hesitation.
That earned a small nod from me.
I walked a short distance away, then another step, then back again. The floor was soft beneath my boots, roots shifting slightly.
Cwal watched me pace, his brow slowly knitting together.
I stopped and exhaled, long and slow.
"Hah…" I muttered. "This is going to hurt."
I rolled my shoulder once, then brushed my ring and spoke lightly.
"Laedingr....."
Light spilled out, clean and bright, flowing over my hand. It settled into shape, solidifying into a glove and armguard. The low hum of thrum filled the space, vibrating faintly through the glass and leaves alike.
Cwal was already moving, a dagger forming in his grip as he stepped in front of the bed. His presence sharpened, cold enough to cut.
"Are you seeking to die?" he asked.
I raised my hand slowly. "Relax. I found a way to treat her."
I glanced past him at the bed.
"I need to inject my thrum directly into her. At my current level, I can only secrete thrum outside my body with the help of a loom."
He did not lower the blade. "Just injecting your thrum? Do you know how many doctors tried that already? Every attempt failed."
"I know," I said. "It fails because the core is that of an aberrant. I am not fixing it."
I paused, choosing only the words that he would like.
"If before she could only stay awake for seconds, I can stretch that to several minutes."
His eyes searched my face.
Then the dagger vanished. He stepped aside.
I moved forward.
Up close, the glass felt thicker, heavier.
Mary's face rested just beneath the glass. Her features were smooth and unmarked, skin pale and even, lips faintly parted as if caught mid-breath.
"Open it," I said.
Cwal hesitated, then sighed. "Do not do something you will regret."
"Oh, trust me, I just might," I said in my head.
The glass lid slid open with a soft hiss.
I steadied myself and held my hand above her forehead, close enough to feel warmth.
Tasora's voice surfaced uninvited.
"Concept follows not instructions but the will of the user."
I grimaced faintly. As irritating as she was, she was still my master.
I focused.
I pushed my thrum downward, forcing it past resistance. I aimed for the core buried deep within her head, willing it to collide.
My hair highlights flared bright teal. My pupils burned to match.
Good.
But the pain followed immediately.
Blood dripped out of my mouth. My nose bled without warning. The world smeared at the edges, colors bleeding together.
Of course, Verde's curse would pick now.
I pressed on.
My vision went red. My right eye burned as blood-laced tears spilled down my cheek. Sweat soaked through my clothes, my knees trembling.
"Yeah. This was not happening in one go."
I pulled my hand back and stumbled, dropping to one knee before I could stop myself.
Cwal was beside me instantly. "Did it work?"
I wiped my mouth and looked up at him. "You are supposed to ask if I am alright."
A pause.
I sighed. Guess we are not there yet.
"Yes, it worked. I cannot say for how long. I pushed my thrum as deep as I could with my limited capabilities."
I wiped my nose again.
"She should stay awake for two to five minutes. Roughly."
.