Warmth.
That was the first thing Silas felt.
Not just the warmth of a body, but something beneath him. Something soft that cradled his weight instead of resisting it. He opened his fingers slowly, tracing the surface with caution, as if expecting it to vanish if he pressed too hard.
It didn't vanish.
The fabric wrinkled between his fingers. Soft. Warm. No stones, no cold wood, no wet earth.
A bed.
The word came to his mind slowly, as if retrieved from a distant place he had never needed before. He knew the word; he had heard it from the mine workers when they spoke of their homes at night. But he hadn't known this was what it meant.
He sat up slowly.
In the blackness, there was nothing. No threads, no dots, nothing to tell him where he was or the size of the space around him. The air was different—drier than the street air—carrying the scent of something he couldn't quite name. Wood, perhaps. Or old cloth.
He gripped the edge of the bed with both hands and remained there, listening.
Silence.
Then his heart began to race as he suddenly realized he didn't know how he had gotten here. The last thing he remembered was the cold ground against his face, the voice that sounded as if it came from underwater, and the hand that had lifted him as if he weighed nothing.
After that, nothing.
It took some time before he heard the footsteps.
Quick and hurried, approaching from behind what seemed to be a door. Before he could move, the door opened.
In the darkness, a mass of red veins appeared.
They weren't like the veins he had seen before. These were organized, cohesive, moving with speed and confidence. A web of crimson threads forming a human silhouette, advancing toward him with relentless steps.
Then came the voice.
Light yet annoyed, as if the speaker had decided to be calm but the irritation was winning: "What was the Lord thinking, throwing a blind child into my care?"
The words weren't directed at him. She was talking to herself, or the walls, or anything other than him. Then she stopped.
And Silas felt a gaze.
"Get up."
The word wasn't entirely cruel. But she wasn't asking.
He ended up standing beside the bed, hands at his sides, not knowing where to look because he couldn't see anything at all. The mass of red veins was still in front of him, still now.
Then came a scent.
It hit him before he understood its source. Something warm and cooked, smelling of fat and salt and other things he didn't know. His stomach cramped instantly, and without a conscious decision, his foot took a small step forward.
Then he stopped.
He didn't know where to go. And he didn't know if he was allowed.
He heard movement. Then the sound of something being placed on a nearby surface. Then the same voice, less annoyed this time: "Come."
He found himself following the scent more than the voice. A step, then another, his hand ahead feeling through the air until it touched the edge of something solid. A table, perhaps. He felt the girl's hand lightly touch his shoulder, guiding him to sit.
Then something warm was placed in his hand, and his fingers were closed around it.
Bread.
Eat.
He thought of nothing else. Not the place, nor the terrifying voice he had heard in the alley, nor the hand that had lifted him. He simply ate until nothing remained in his hand.
When he finished, he felt something else placed in his other hand.
His fingers explored it. Long, thin, made of wood or metal or both.
"A cane," the red mass in front of him said. "Its tip carries a simple enchantment. You'll feel what's in front of you before you collide with it."
Silas gripped the cane with both hands. It was light, and at its end was something like a faint warmth—a tiny pulse of mana moving out and back.
"What is your name?"
"Silas," he answered, his voice fearful and shy.
"Walk."
It took Silas some time to get used to the cane.
The second room was larger.
He realized this from the sounds. Multiple breaths. Small movements. The rustle of clothes. And in the blackness, faint dots and threads here and there—five or six small human masses scattered throughout the space.
Children.
Five masses. Some denser than others.
Erica stopped and spoke a bit louder: "You have a newcomer. His name is Silas."
No one answered with words. But the threads in the room moved; some turned toward him, and some did more than that.
Silas began trying to understand what was before him.
The mass closest to him was orange. Its threads were dense but compressed, as if trying to take up as little space as possible. It stood perfectly still, but in that stillness was something like tension or fear.
Beside it was a mass of pale turquoise. Its threads were different, moving with a calm regularity as if breathing at a different rate than the rest of the room. It didn't turn toward him directly like the others, but it didn't move away. It remained as it was, as if his presence changed nothing in its calculations.
As for the indigo blue mass at the far side of the room, it was the densest after Erica. Its threads were more spread out, more relaxed. Silas noticed that this mass didn't turn to him immediately but rotated with deliberate slowness, as if it had decided to look rather than react.
Then he saw the green.
It was a small mass, its threads a pure emerald unlike any color he had seen in the darkness. But what caught his attention was that it was in the furthest corner, and its threads were retracted inward in a way different from the orange mass. Not exactly fear. Something quieter, more distant.
Then he searched for the last mass.
He didn't find it at first.
He stared into the black. Four masses, five with Erica. But he felt there was something else in the space. A very faint pulse, barely visible, as if it hadn't yet decided if it existed or not.
He focused.
There. In the corner near the door, apparently sitting on the floor. Faint pink threads, unlike the others. They weren't compressed or spread out. They were just... there. As if the mana itself hadn't decided what shape it wanted to take.
Silas noticed this was the only one that didn't turn toward him.
"This is Silas," Erica repeated with an indifferent tone. "Get to know one another. I'll be back shortly."
Then she turned her back and left.
The silence that remained was different from the silence that came before.
Silas gripped his cane with both hands and stood his ground. He knew this kind of moment. In the mine, when a new slave arrived and stood in the tunnels, there was always a period of waiting before the others decided what to do with him.
The turquoise mass was the first to move.
Two calm steps toward him. Then a small voice that held no question in its formation: "I'm Lola."
She didn't wait for a reply. She returned to her place with the same calm.
The indigo mass didn't move. But from it came a heavier, more balanced voice: "Hans."
One word. Then silence.
The orange mass didn't speak. Its threads compressed further for a second, then a hesitant, faint voice came: "...Liam."
The emerald mass in the corner neither moved nor spoke.
Silas waited.
Nothing.
And the faint pink mass in the corner still hadn't turned.
Silas didn't say his name. No one asked him again, and that suited him just fine. He felt his way to the wall and sat with his back against it, his cane in front of him.
In the blackness, six colored masses moved, stopped, and returned to whatever they were doing.
Silas noticed that the orange mass, Liam, stayed in the same spot the whole time. He didn't sit, and he didn't walk. He just stood.
And the fear in his threads had not yet left.
It took some time before Erica returned and took him back to the first room.
"Alright." The red mass sat before him. "Tell me what you can do."
He didn't answer.
"The magic you used in the alley. Use it again."
Silas looked at the floor he couldn't see. He knew what she meant. That moment when the thread in his chest was yanked and everything exploded. But he didn't know how he had reached it. He didn't know where it began.
Still, he tried.
He closed his eyes—already closed—and searched for that thread in his chest. It was there; he could feel it. But when he tried to grasp it, he found nothing to hold. It was like trying to catch the air.
"Fine." There wasn't much patience in the voice. "Again."
He tried again.
Nothing.
Then a third time, and a fourth, until his hands began to tremble slightly from the concentration.
"Enough."
He heard a single step toward the door, then a voice calling: "Liam."
Footsteps. Then they stopped.
In the darkness, the orange mass appeared again. Its threads moved with a slowness and caution that exceeded what was necessary for someone simply walking.
Silas noticed something in those threads. The caution wasn't just in Liam's steps. It was in everything. In the way he stood, in the way he distributed his weight on his feet.
As if he were bracing for something he didn't want.
"Stand beside him," Erica ordered.
Liam didn't speak. But the orange threads moved and stood two steps away from Silas.
"Release your mana."
For a moment, Liam stood motionless. Then the orange threads began to change. They expanded, became clearer, and started to flow in an organized manner from the center of the chest to the limbs.
Silas watched.
He didn't listen to Erica, who was talking. He didn't notice her voice as she began explaining something about mana, flow, and control. He only looked. He watched how those orange threads moved, where they began, how they organized themselves, how they responded to something he couldn't see.
And suddenly, he saw it.
A single, tiny pulse originating from the center of the chest before anything else. As if there were a starting point, before any will or decision. A first pulse that ignited everything after it.
He searched for that pulse within himself.
He found it.
When he pressed upon it, he felt something move very slowly—very heavy—as if he were moving something that had never moved before. A faint pain spread through his chest. Then into his arms. Then—
It came out.
Not a wave like the first time. Something much smaller—a single thin thread emerging from his left hand and stopping in the air. But its color was different from everything he had seen in the darkness.
Purple. Heavy, as if the color itself carried weight.
Then it snapped.
Silas coughed once, then twice. He clutched his chest. The faint pain didn't disappear entirely; it remained like a small ember behind his breastbone.
The silence in the room shifted.
And in that silence, Silas felt something new. It wasn't Erica's gaze. It was the gaze of Liam standing beside him—those fearful orange threads that hadn't stopped fearing since the moment he entered.
They were looking at him now with something different.
Silas didn't know the name for what he saw in those threads. But he knew it wasn't fear this time.
"Go."
Erica sent Liam away.
She remained silent for a long moment before speaking: "Gravity."
She wasn't asking him. She was saying the word as if tasting it, deciding what it meant.
Then: "This... is unexpected."
Silas sat with his hand still on his chest. The small ember behind his bone had not yet faded.
But he said nothing about it.