Chapter 3 — Learning How to Fall
The first thing I learned about becoming Awakened was that Mana did absolutely nothing for sleep.
I had gone to bed exhausted, sore, and under strict instructions from Father not to experiment with my Core until morning.
Naturally, I spent most of the night experimenting with my Core.
Nothing dangerous.
Probably.
By sunrise, I had established three things.
First, I could still feel the small sphere beneath my sternum even when I wasn't actively using Mana. It wasn't a physical object—not exactly—but it possessed enough presence that ignoring it was like trying to forget you had a tongue.
Second, circulating Mana felt surprisingly natural once I stopped concentrating on every step. The energy moved through my body in a slow loop, violet and dense, gathering at the Core before spreading outward again.
Third—
I could make my bed become down.
That discovery had cost me a lamp.
I stared at the broken ceramic scattered across the floor.
In my defense, I hadn't expected everything resting on my blanket to stay governed by normal gravity when I changed mine.
The book beside my pillow had remained exactly where it was.
The lamp on my bedside table had not.
I had fallen sideways onto the mattress, kicked the table on the way down, and watched the lamp achieve a brief but respectable career in aviation.
There was a knock at the door.
I looked at the shattered ceramic.
Then at the door.
Another knock.
"Astri?"
Bella.
Excellent.
"Give me a minute."
The handle moved.
"No."
The door opened.
Bella stepped inside.
Her eyes went immediately to the floor.
Then the tilted mattress.
Then me.
I was standing normally again, which I felt was worth something.
She slowly looked up.
"You lasted one night."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The lamp."
"Structural failure."
"The table is on its side."
"Related structural failure."
She walked farther into the room and picked up a piece of ceramic.
"Father told you not to practice."
"He told me not to experiment."
Bella stared at me.
I considered the distinction.
"Fine. That's difficult to defend."
She tossed the shard onto the table.
"What were you doing?"
I glanced at the bed.
"Learning."
"At four in the morning?"
"Mana doesn't respect schedules."
"Mother does."
That was substantially more threatening.
I immediately crouched and started gathering the broken pieces.
Bella grinned.
"Breakfast in ten minutes."
"Why did you come all the way up here to tell me that?"
"Father wants you at the eastern training hall afterward."
My hands stopped.
"What for?"
She gave me a look.
"Probably to congratulate you for following instructions."
I threw a pillow at her.
This time, she wasn't fast enough.
It hit her directly in the face.
There were victories in life that required no further explanation.
Father was waiting in the eastern hall when I arrived.
So was Mother.
So was Bella.
That immediately made me suspicious.
The eastern training hall was normally used for controlled Mana practice. Unlike the outdoor yards, everything inside had been built to survive mistakes.
Thick black stone covered the walls. Reinforcement runes crossed the floor in silver lines. Several training dummies stood along one side beside racks of wooden weapons, weighted balls, suspended targets, and enough padding to make me worry about what Father intended to do.
Mother sat near the wall with a book.
Bella sat beside her.
I pointed at both of them.
"Why are they here?"
Mother looked up. "Good morning."
"Good morning. Why are you here?"
"To watch."
Bella smiled. "I brought entertainment."
"You brought a book."
"It's for when this gets boring."
Father stood in the center of the room.
"Come here."
I looked at Mother.
She returned to her book.
No help.
I joined him.
Father's gaze moved over me.
"How much did you practice last night?"
"Very little."
"How little?"
I thought about the lamp.
"An amount that could reasonably be described as little."
His eyes narrowed.
"Did you injure yourself?"
"No."
"Damage anything?"
Silence.
Bella started laughing before I answered.
Father closed his eyes briefly.
"How much?"
"One lamp."
Mother turned a page.
"It was ugly anyway."
I looked toward her.
"Thank you."
Father sighed.
"Show me your Core."
I frowned.
"How?"
"Circulate Mana."
That, I could do.
I focused inward.
The Core responded immediately.
Mana spread through my chest and down both arms. Yesterday, drawing even a thread of Mana from the environment had required concentration. My own Core felt completely different.
Responsive.
Familiar.
Mine.
The energy moved faster as I guided it.
Father watched without speaking.
After a few seconds, he nodded.
"Stable."
"That's good."
"It's expected."
"You could let me enjoy something occasionally."
"You formed your Core yesterday."
"Yes."
"That was the enjoyable part."
I looked toward Mother.
She smiled apologetically.
Father stepped aside.
"Show me your Expression."
I placed one hand against the nearest wall.
Nothing happened until I made the mental shift.
That remained difficult to describe.
I wasn't pulling myself toward the wall.
I wasn't making the wall heavier.
I was simply accepting, somewhere deeper than conscious thought, that the wall was beneath me.
My Core pulsed.
The world turned.
My stomach lurched as my body fell sideways.
This time I bent my knees before impact.
My boots struck the wall.
For me, the room rotated instantly. Father, Mother, and Bella now stood sideways on what looked like a wall to my left.
Bella lifted a hand.
"You still look ridiculous."
"So do you."
"I'm standing normally."
"From your limited perspective."
Father walked toward me.
Or sideways toward me.
This was going to become irritating.
"Release."
I did.
Normal gravity returned.
I dropped about four feet and landed on the actual floor.
Better than yesterday.
Father nodded.
"Again."
I should have expected that word to survive my Awakening.
For the next half hour, Father had me repeat the shift until the nausea mostly disappeared.
Wall.
Floor.
Wall.
Floor.
At first, every change made my stomach twist. After the twentieth attempt, the sensation became more like missing a stair.
Unpleasant.
Manageable.
Father finally stopped me.
"What are you changing?"
I wiped sweat from my forehead.
"Down."
"Define down."
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it.
"You're doing that on purpose."
"Yes."
I looked around the hall.
"Down is the direction gravity pulls something."
"Usually."
"Usually?"
He gestured toward me.
"Yesterday, the planet's gravity continued pulling you toward the floor."
"But I fell toward the wall."
"So?"
I thought about it.
"My Expression overrides it."
"Or?"
"Adds another force."
"Those are different."
Right.
If my ability removed the planet's gravity and replaced it with a new direction, that was one mechanism.
If it created an additional force stronger than natural gravity, that was another.
The result looked the same.
The cause wasn't.
"How do we tell?"
Father pointed toward a set of scales.
Of course there were scales.
House Gravitas had apparently prepared for this conversation generations before I was born.
He placed a heavy iron weight on one side.
"Stand on the other."
I did.
The balance dipped under my weight.
"Now choose the wall."
I touched the stone beside me.
The shift came.
My feet left the scale.
I dropped sideways and caught myself against the wall.
The balance immediately rose.
Father watched it carefully.
Then he moved another scale against the wall beneath my feet.
"Hold."
I remained where I was.
He adjusted the counterweights.
My weight on the wall was almost exactly what my weight had been on the floor.
Not perfectly.
Close.
Father looked at me.
"What does that suggest?"
"I'm not adding a sideways pull."
"Why?"
"Because if normal gravity were still pulling downward, part of my weight should still be pressing toward the floor."
"Good."
I looked at the scale.
"So I'm replacing my gravitational direction."
"Possibly."
"Possibly?"
"We've conducted one test."
I groaned.
Father ignored me.
"Next question. What exactly are you affecting?"
"My body."
"Are you?"
I stared at him.
"I feel like these questions are becoming intentionally philosophical."
"Your clothes moved with you."
I looked down.
They had.
"So did your boots."
"Yes."
"Your belt."
"Yes."
"The Mana crystal in your pocket."
I froze.
My hand went instinctively toward the small crystal Father had apparently slipped there without telling me.
I pulled it out.
"When did you put this there?"
"Before you entered."
"That's concerning."
"Answer the question."
The crystal had fallen with me.
So had everything attached to me.
But last night, the book on my bed hadn't.
Neither had the lamp.
"Things I'm carrying?"
Father tossed me a wooden training sword.
I caught it.
"Again."
I touched the wall.
Shifted.
Fell.
The sword came with me.
Father tossed a small wooden ball toward me.
From his perspective, he threw it upward.
From mine, it traveled strangely across the room.
I caught it.
The instant it entered my hand, it changed direction.
The ball slammed toward the wall with me.
I almost dropped it.
"Oh."
Father's eyes sharpened.
"Release it."
I did.
The ball immediately fell toward the actual floor.
It bounced several times.
I stared.
Bella had finally put her book down.
"Do it again."
I pointed at her.
"You're enjoying this now."
"Maybe."
Father retrieved the ball.
This time, he placed it on my open palm before I changed gravity.
Wall.
The ball came with me.
He then placed another ball against my shoulder.
It fell normally.
We repeated the test with increasingly stupid objects.
Sword.
Ball.
Backpack.
A chair.
The chair did not work.
This resulted in me falling sideways while the chair remained on the floor and smacked me in the shin.
Bella laughed so hard she had to leave her seat.
I ignored her.
Mostly.
By the end of the tests, a pattern had emerged.
Objects I considered part of what I was carrying came with me.
Loose objects didn't.
That was stranger than I expected.
"So it's based on perception?" I asked.
Father shook his head.
"Don't assume."
I frowned.
"The chair didn't move because I wasn't carrying it."
"Or because it exceeded your current limit."
We tested that.
Father handed me increasingly heavy weights.
Five kilograms.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
At thirty, the change became noticeably harder.
At forty, the weight stayed behind.
Unfortunately, I did not.
I hit the wall alone while the iron dropped onto the floor.
Mother winced.
Father looked interested.
I hated that combination.
"Again," he said.
"You're enjoying this."
"No."
"You are."
Mother didn't bother hiding her smile.
By midday, we had filled three pages with observations.
Father wrote them.
I lay on the floor wondering whether Awakening was supposed to make a person feel stronger, because at the moment I felt like I had been beaten repeatedly with furniture.
Father read the notes aloud.
"Your Expression currently affects only yourself and objects below an approximate additional mass threshold of thirty-two kilograms."
"Thirty-four," I corrected.
"The thirty-four kilogram test failed."
"I almost had it."
"It failed."
"Harsh grading."
"Your effect does not appear to manipulate surrounding objects directly. It changes your personal gravitational reference."
I sat up.
"That's a terrible name."
Father ignored me.
"Activation requires a reference."
"An Anchor."
He stopped writing.
"What?"
"Anchor."
"Why?"
I looked at the wall.
"Because I'm attaching my down to something."
Father considered it.
"It's imprecise."
"So is 'personal gravitational reference.'"
"It describes the function."
"It sounds like a textbook."
"It will eventually be in one."
I smiled.
Father stared at me.
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking something."
"That's difficult to prove."
He returned to the notes.
Mother spoke from the side of the room.
"Anchor is easier to remember."
I pointed toward her.
"Thank you."
Father looked betrayed.
Mother smiled sweetly.
"Continue."
He sighed.
"For now, Anchor."
Victory.
Small victories were still victories.
Father drew a line beneath the heading.
"Current limitations?"
I counted them on my fingers.
"One Anchor at a time."
"Observed."
"I need contact."
"Observed."
"I can't affect other people."
"Not tested."
I looked at him.
"No."
"We need data."
"No."
Bella immediately stood.
"I volunteer Astri."
"That's not how volunteering works."
Father actually considered it.
"Later."
I stared at him.
Mother cleared her throat.
Father added, "Much later."
Better.
I continued.
"There's a mass limit for carried objects. I can't manipulate anything else around me. Switching direction makes me nauseous if I do it too quickly."
"And range?"
I paused.
"What range?"
"You have assumed contact must continue."
I looked at the wall.
During every test, I'd remained standing on whatever surface I'd Anchored.
But last night—
I had changed toward the bed before I actually touched it.
Hadn't I?
I stood.
Father noticed immediately.
"What?"
"I'm not sure I need to keep touching it."
He crossed his arms.
"Test it."
I placed my palm against the wall.
Anchor.
The shift came.
My boots settled against the stone.
Then I jumped.
For a moment, I moved away from the wall.
Gravity pulled me back.
Normal.
I tried again, harder.
Same result.
I stepped several paces along the wall.
Still fine.
"Distance from contact isn't the problem," I said.
Father nodded.
"So what ends it?"
Good question.
I looked toward the opposite wall.
Maybe—
I released the Anchor.
Normal gravity returned.
I landed on the floor.
Then, without touching anything, I tried to Anchor to the first wall again.
Nothing.
So touching established it.
Afterward, I could move away.
"Contact establishes the reference," Father said.
"And it persists afterward."
"Until?"
"I release it."
"Or?"
There was always an or.
I moved farther from the wall.
Five meters.
Still active.
Ten.
The training hall wasn't much wider.
Still active.
Father opened the doors leading into the adjoining courtyard.
I looked outside.
Then at him.
"You want me to keep walking."
"Yes."
"This feels suspicious."
"Why?"
"Usually when you want me to walk somewhere, suffering is involved."
He waited.
I stepped outside.
The moment I crossed the doorway, something changed.
The Anchor weakened.
Not gone.
Just—
stretched.
I took another step.
Pressure formed behind my eyes.
Another.
My Core tightened.
"That's new."
"Describe it."
"Uncomfortable."
"Useful description."
"You asked."
I walked farther.
The farther I moved from the wall, the harder maintaining the Anchor became.
At around twenty meters, I couldn't hold it anymore.
The connection snapped.
Gravity returned to normal.
Because I had been standing on flat ground by then, nothing dramatic happened.
For once.
Father marked something down.
"Range limit."
"Approximately twenty meters."
"Currently."
That word caught me.
Currently.
I smiled.
Father noticed.
"Don't."
"What?"
"Start imagining what you can do at one hundred meters."
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"Maybe fifty."
"Astri."
"Fine."
But I was already thinking about it.
Touch something.
Establish an Anchor.
Move away.
Twenty meters.
What if the Anchor itself moved?
My eyes shifted toward Bella.
She was holding the wooden ball.
"Throw that."
She frowned. "Why?"
"Experiment."
She looked delighted.
Father looked concerned.
That was usually a good sign.
Bella tossed the ball toward me.
I caught it.
Then concentrated.
Anchor.
At first, nothing happened.
A ball wasn't a wall.
Why?
The wall had size.
Mass.
Stability.
The ball was small.
But Gravity didn't care whether something looked impressive.
Every object with mass participated.
I tried again.
This time I focused on the ball itself—not its surface, but its position.
My Core responded.
Very faintly.
There.
I handed the ball back to Bella.
"Throw it."
Father's head snapped toward me.
"Astri—"
Too late.
Bella threw.
The ball crossed the courtyard.
My stomach dropped.
Then the rest of me followed.
"OH—"
My feet left the ground.
I shot forward.
Not fast.
Fast enough.
The ball traveled in a shallow arc.
I traveled after it.
For one glorious second, I was flying.
Then Bella's throw began curving downward.
So did I.
The ground approached.
Quickly.
I released the Anchor.
Normal gravity took over.
This did absolutely nothing to the horizontal momentum I already possessed.
I hit the grass shoulder-first and rolled several times before stopping in a hedge.
Silence.
Leaves covered my face.
Something small crawled across my cheek.
I spat out grass.
"...That worked."
Bella was the first one to start laughing.
Mother followed.
Even Father took several seconds before approaching, which I suspected meant he was hiding something.
He stopped beside the hedge.
"You could have broken your neck."
"But I didn't."
"That is not a defense."
"It is technically evidence."
He reached down and pulled me upright.
My entire body hurt.
Again.
Apparently magical advancement had not changed that part of my life.
Father took the ball from Bella.
His expression had become thoughtful.
"A moving reference."
I rubbed my shoulder.
"Anchor."
"Fine. A moving Anchor."
Bella tossed the ball between her hands.
"So if I throw it off the mountain..."
I pointed at her.
"Don't."
She grinned.
Father looked toward the training hall.
Then at the ball.
"Your speed matched the acceleration produced by the Anchor."
"Which means?"
"You weren't being carried by the ball."
I thought about it.
Of course.
If the ball itself had been dragging me, I'd have moved at the same speed it did.
Instead, I'd accelerated toward it.
"The Anchor is just defining where down is."
"Exactly."
That meant the ball didn't need to be powerful.
It didn't generate the force.
My Core did.
The ball only told my ability where to point.
Something clicked.
I took the ball from Bella.
Father saw my expression.
"No."
"I haven't done anything."
"You are about to."
"I'm thinking."
"That's usually when the problem begins."
I ignored him and looked toward the training hall wall.
Wall.
Ball.
Floor.
Three potential directions.
Only one Anchor at a time.
But changing Anchors—
I could fall toward the wall.
Then, before reaching it, switch to the ceiling.
Then somewhere else.
Momentum wouldn't disappear simply because gravity changed.
My movement could stack.
Not infinitely.
Probably.
But enough.
"What happens if I switch while moving?"
Father was silent.
That was unusual.
Mother closed her book.
Bella's grin vanished.
Apparently everyone had reached the same conclusion.
Father finally said, "Not today."
"But—"
"Not today."
"I know how momentum works."
"Yesterday you didn't know your own Mana existed."
"Technically I knew it existed."
"Astri."
I looked at the ball.
Then back at him.
"Tomorrow?"
He stared at me.
"With safety equipment."
I smiled.
"Tomorrow."
Father shook his head.
But I saw it.
That almost-smile.
We spent the remaining afternoon on less exciting exercises.
Mana circulation.
Holding an Anchor without nausea.
Switching between floor and wall slowly.
Measuring Mana consumption.
The last one proved disappointing.
My Core was small.
Very small.
Each Anchor change consumed considerably more Mana than simply maintaining one, which meant whatever ridiculous chain of movements I was imagining would probably leave me unconscious after a few attempts.
Still.
That could improve.
Everything could improve.
By the time Father finally dismissed me, the sun had begun falling behind the western peaks.
I was leaving the training hall when a servant hurried across the courtyard.
He wasn't walking with the controlled pace expected inside the estate.
He was running.
That immediately caught Father's attention.
"My lord."
The servant stopped and bowed, breathing hard.
"A message from Master Havel."
Father took the sealed note.
I slowed.
He looked at me.
"Go inside."
That was almost enough to make me obey.
Almost.
"What happened?"
"Astri."
The tone meant stop.
I did.
Mostly.
Father broke the seal.
His eyes moved across the page.
Whatever he read removed every trace of amusement from his face.
Mother approached.
"Aaron?"
He handed her the letter.
She read.
Her expression changed too.
I lasted approximately four seconds.
"What?"
Neither answered.
"Is it the road?"
Father looked toward me.
For a moment I thought he'd refuse.
Then he folded the note.
"They inspected the remaining Anchor stations."
"And?"
"They found another filament."
The courtyard suddenly felt quieter.
"Another black one?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Anchor One."
I frowned.
That station hadn't failed.
"Then why was the road only affected around Three?"
"They don't know."
That answer again.
I hated how much I liked it.
Father continued.
"This one wasn't inside an exposed control lattice."
"Where was it?"
"The sealed reference assembly."
I knew enough Anchor construction to understand why that mattered.
Reference assemblies weren't casually opened.
They were installed, sealed, inspected externally, and generally left untouched unless the entire Anchor underwent reconstruction.
"How long has it been sealed?"
Father's eyes remained on mine.
"Forty-three years."
The excitement in my chest cooled.
Yesterday's filament could have been sabotage.
Someone could have inserted it recently.
But this?
I looked toward the distant mountains beyond the estate.
"Then how did it get inside?"
Father glanced down at the message.
"That's the question."
For once, I didn't have another one ready.
Somewhere beneath my sternum, my new Core gave a faint pulse.
I barely noticed.
Then it pulsed again.
Stronger.
I froze.
Father noticed immediately.
"What?"
I placed a hand against my chest.
The sensation vanished.
"Nothing."
His eyes narrowed.
"You hesitated."
"I'm allowed to hesitate."
"What happened?"
I wasn't sure.
Maybe nothing.
My Core was less than a day old. Every sensation still felt unfamiliar.
Then it happened again.
A faint pull.
Not toward the floor.
Not toward a wall.
Not toward anything I could see.
North.
Toward the mountain.
Toward the Hanging Road.
I turned my head.
Father followed my gaze.
"Astri?"
I could feel it now.
Weak.
Almost impossible to distinguish from imagination.
But after an entire day spent learning exactly what an Anchor felt like, I knew the sensation.
Something very far away was pulling at my Core.
And somehow—
my Core was trying to answer.