I stood in the center of the quiet training hall, the memory of the Grey corner I had just woven still sharp in my mind. For the first time since entering this tower, a piece of my magic had felt like my own again. The exhaustion was deep, but it was the clean exhaustion of progress, not the fraying exhaustion of survival.
Julius let the silence settle for a moment, his gaze analytical. "You have learned to write a new kind of sentence," he said, acknowledging the corner that was no longer there. "One made of space. That is a crucial step." He paused, and his focus sharpened. "But you carry four pens, and you have only been using one."
He was right. My sword was my foundation. The Grey was my tool for geometry. But my other Gifts had been relegated to minor, personal tasks.
"Your Mythweaver fails," he stated, not as a criticism, but as a diagnosis. "When you entered, you tried to write a law. The tower taxed it into nothing. Why?"
