The garden didn't feel like the rest of the tower. It was too quiet, too clean. The dirt wasn't soaked with blood or rot, and the air didn't hum with threat. It almost felt like nothing at all. Still and heavy, like time had slowed down to watch us.
Chains trained near the wall, under the Witch's eye. She didn't ask for help. She didn't ask for anything. Just picked up the stones and carried them, first with her arms, then with one tied to her back, then with the gravity turned so high she could barely crawl.
The Witch never gave commands. She just stood there, watching. When Chains dropped, the Witch said, "Again," and that was enough. Chains would stand, teeth clenched, body shaking, and go again.
I stayed near the edge of the clearing, sitting on the cold dirt. My shoulder still ached, the scar sharp even after rest, but the fever was gone. My thoughts were clear. That made it worse.
The threads were here. More than ever. Thin, pale lines that drifted in and out of sight, trailing from tree branches, from corners, from my own skin. I didn't know what they were tied to. Sometimes they followed people. Sometimes they led into stone and vanished.
The Witch said I had a perception-bound ability. That it was not magic, not sight, not something normal people used.
"It is not vision," she told me. "It is knowing. That is far more dangerous."
I didn't know what to say to that.
Sometimes, when I sat still and closed my eyes, I could feel the threads moving before anything else did. When Chains stumbled, I had felt a tremble in the threads a second before it happened. When the Witch stepped outside her hut, a thread brushed my hand like a warning.
They weren't showing me what was. They were showing me what might be.
Possibilities.
I stood and walked slowly, breathing steady, not thinking too hard. That seemed to help. If I tried to control it, the threads disappeared. If I just… watched, they stayed.
One pulsed near the edge of the garden. I reached out with my hand, not to grab it, just to follow. It curved ahead of me, toward a stone resting half-buried in the soil. I stepped toward it. The thread hummed softly, like a voice I couldn't quite hear.
When I touched the stone, nothing happened. But the thread vanished.
It was like I had caught a moment before it passed.
The Witch watched me from the doorway. Her eyes never blinked.
That night, she called us both over.
"You want to know what you are," she said. "I will show you."
Chains sat up straighter. Her burns were still healing, wrapped in fabric that smelled faintly of ash. She didn't speak.
The Witch stepped into the center of the garden and drew a shape in the dirt. A circle, marked with four small runes at the edges. Then she pointed at us.
"Stand there. One at a time."
Chains went first.
The Witch said nothing. The air changed. Not colder, not warmer—just tighter.
Chains stood in the center for five long minutes before the Witch nodded.
"Pain-bound. Your body responds to pressure. Fear, strain, injury. It converts it to movement. Very old type. Dangerous."
Chains blinked. "I already knew that."
"You barely understand it," the Witch said. "Vessel Burn is not a trick. It is a debt. Every time you use it, something inside you breaks. That is the price."
Chains looked away.
"Do you want control?"
"Yes."
"Then prove you deserve it."
The next trial began that night.
The Witch made her hold a stone the size of her torso while standing in waist-deep water. Every time she dropped it, the current dragged her back. Chains bit her tongue to keep from screaming. The weight crushed her shoulders. Her hands shook. When she finally activated Vessel Burn, a red chain wrapped her forearm, glowing brighter with every second she kept going.
She made it back to shore and collapsed.
The Witch said nothing. Just watched.
Then she pointed at me.
I stood in the circle. Nothing happened at first.
Then the threads swarmed in. I could see hundreds now, all weaving through the sky above me, pulsing faintly, waiting. I kept my eyes open, but they flickered in and out of vision.
The Witch watched closely.
"Do you see them?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Can you follow them?"
"I think so."
She tilted her head. "And can you cut them?"
That stopped me.
"I don't know."
She turned away. "Then learn."
That was the start of my training.
No movement. No noise. Just silence and focus.
I sat for hours, breathing slow, watching the threads. Sometimes they followed the wind. Sometimes they hovered still. One night, I reached toward a thread that circled the edge of the Witch's hut. When I focused too hard, it snapped. A gust of air pushed open the door.
The Witch looked out and said nothing.
Chains returned to training the next morning. Her legs were shaking. Her burns reopened. When she lunged forward, the chain lit up again. Vessel Burn. Red light climbed her shoulder. Her strike cracked the surface of a stone slab.
She dropped after.
Her face was pale. She didn't stand for a long time.
I sat beside her.
"You need to rest," I said.
She didn't answer. Just looked at the sky.
"You don't have to prove anything."
"Yes, I do," she whispered. "I have to matter."
I didn't know what to say.
The threads near her body flickered red. Not glowing, pulsing. Like they felt her heartbeat. Like they wanted to wrap around her too.
That night, I tried something different.
I followed three threads that led to the edge of the garden, where the fake trees met the stone. I stood there for ten minutes, feeling them pull.
Then I touched the center one and pulled.
A stone fell from the ceiling. Small, harmless, but still real.
I had not touched it.
The thread had.
It wasn't perfect control. But it was something.
The Witch watched from her doorway again.
"You are learning faster than you should," she said.
"Why?"
She didn't answer. Just turned back inside.
Chains lay on her back, arm bandaged tight.
She looked at me. "You figure it out yet?"
"Not all of it."
"But some?"
I nodded.
She laughed once. "Good. One of us has to."
The garden felt quieter that night.
I didn't sleep.
The threads stayed with me, flickering in the dark like veins of light. Some were calm. Some pulled sharp. One led toward Chains.
I let it rest across my hand.
It was warm.
Not bright. Not sharp.
Just… present.
We were both changing.
We were only beginning.