The iron ball hovered, wobbling in the air like a drunkard fighting to stay upright. Radovan Kresnik, knuckles white, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, strained against the invisible resistance. His arm trembled, a feigned weakness that felt disturbingly real, even to him. Around him, the grand training hall of the central Spire Academy hummed with the muted chatter of two dozen peers, most struggling not to openly snicker. A few, the truly brazen, didn’t even bother to hide their smirks.
“Pathetic, Kresnik.” Instructor Borislav’s voice cut through the air, sharp as a whetted blade. He paced the polished obsidian floor, his tailored uniform of deep violet and silver accentuating his broad shoulders. A thick, braided scar ran from his temple to his jawline, carved by some beast during the border skirmishes—proof of a prowess Radovan knew was genuine, if overshadowed by the man’s monstrous ego. “Two cycles of study, and you can barely lift a two-kilo orb. A common street charlatan conjures more impressive parlour tricks.”
Radovan felt the familiar burn of humiliation, a sensation he had cultivated and worn like a second skin. It was necessary. The world-weary veteran masquerading as a talentless novice, the one who had watched humanity burn in his first life, needed to be utterly forgettable. Especially here, in the cutthroat crucible of the Spire, where every flicker of potential was dissected, coveted, or crushed.
He loosened his focus, letting the iron drop with a clatter that echoed too loudly in the sudden silence. Its dull thud against the floor was the sound of his supposed failure.
“Again,” Borislav commanded, his voice dripping with condescension. He gestured to a second orb resting on a plinth nearby. “Show us your ‘gift,’ Kresnik. Or maybe your talent for failure is simply too strong.”
Radovan’s mind, however, was not on the target. It was on a voice, an echo from a future that hadn’t yet happened, a memory from a self he desperately fought to outrun. *Borislav. The first to fall. His arrogance was a breach.*
The words were a whisper, a cold splinter of guidance from his future self, the architect of his impossible regression. Borislav’s downfall hadn’t been a glorious battle, but a careless oversight, an underestimation of a threat that had then consumed him, leaving only a hollow shell. Radovan remembered the look in Borislav’s eyes as the Void’s tendrils had found him, not fear, but bewildered rage. An arrogant man, indeed.
He reached for the weight, his fingers brushing the cold metal. He could lift it, of course. Not just lift it, but crush it into a crumpled ball, or fling it through the reinforced adamantine wall of the hall without breaking a sweat. His true power, a mastery of subtle telekinetic manipulation, was an art that could twist the very fabric of space on a microscopic level, creating pockets of crushing density or pockets of near-zero gravity. But for now, he was Radovan Kresnik, the struggling novice, barely able to nudge a pebble.
“Come on, Kresnik,” Borislav sneered, his patience wearing thin. “Are you rooted to the spot? Your sister, Milena, shows more raw potential in her dreams than you do awake.”
The mention of Milena struck a raw nerve. Borislav, a man of noble blood, knew exactly which buttons to press. Milena, his younger sister, was the fragile core of his resolve, the reason he had accepted the agonizing burden of this second chance. He would save her. He would save Zora. He would save them all, even if it meant becoming the pariah of the Academy.
Radovan forced a shaky breath, his eyes fixed on the target. He focused a sliver of his true power, a miniscule fraction, just enough to make the iron vibrate almost imperceptibly, a nervous tremor in the metal.
“A tremor,” Borislav scoffed, a dark laugh rumbling in his chest. “Truly, you are a marvel of incompetence. Maybe you should take a different path, Kresnik. A scholar’s life, instead? Far less strenuous than facing the encroaching Void, wouldn’t you agree?”
A low murmur rippled through the onlookers. Mockery was one thing, but Borislav was now touching on the central stakes of their existence. The Void. The cosmic entity that devoured worlds, its advance a constant, gnawing dread on the continent of Volos. Svarog Spire, humanity’s shield, and the source of their Affinities, stood as their last bastion. To imply a Weaver was unfit to defend it was a profound insult.
From the back of the hall, a voice, clear and surprisingly firm, broke the tense atmosphere. “Instructor Borislav, maybe his gift is simply a slower bloom. Not everyone’s powers manifest with the same… immediacy.”
Radovan glanced over. Zora Vlasic. Her posture was straight, her dark hair pulled back from a face that, even now, held a quiet, defiant beauty. Her hand, resting on her belt, glowed faintly with the pale, protective luminescence of her restoration gift. She sought to intervene, a small act of kindness in this predatory environment. His lost love. He remembered her face as the Void had consumed her, a final, desperate plea in her eyes. It was a memory that still tore at the fabric of his meticulously constructed facade.
“Slower bloom?” Borislav’s eyes narrowed, shifting to Zora. His voice hardened. “Vlasic, are you suggesting my instruction is somehow lacking? Or that Kresnik’s performance is acceptable?”
Zora’s radiant glow flared brighter for a moment, then dimmed. She held Borislav’s gaze, unflinching. “No, Instructor. Only that… we all learn at our own pace.”
“Pace?” Borislav took a step forward, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. “The Void does not wait for ‘pace,’ Vlasic. It consumes. It erases. There is no time for weakness here.” He turned back to Radovan, a predatory gleam in his eyes. “Very well, Kresnik. A final lesson. Let us see how your ‘slow bloom’ handles this.”
Without warning, Borislav snatched the metal orb from its plinth and, with a flick of his wrist, hurled it directly at Radovan’s head. The projectile whistled through the air, gathering speed, a blur of polished steel aimed with lethal precision. It was an act of blatant sadism, a public execution of an initiate's spirit, if not his life.
The training hall gasped. Zora cried out, her hand flying up, a brilliant pulse of radiant power erupting around her, ready to form a shield. But Radovan was already moving. His feigned clumsiness had been refined over two lifetimes. He stumbled, a theatrical, wide-legged trip, his foot catching on an imaginary crack in the floor. His body folded, dropping him to one knee, then onto his hands and knees, head bowed, tucking his forearms tight around his skull.
At the same instant, a nearly imperceptible ripple passed through the air just above his head. A pinprick of focused gravity, a micro-distortion of space, subtly nudged the missile's trajectory. It was so minute, so precise, that it would have been impossible for anyone to detect, save for a Weaver of truly exceptional perception. Instead of striking Radovan’s skull, the orb veered a hair’s breadth to the left.
It missed his head by an inch, whistling past his ear with a fierce rush of displaced air, before slamming into the adamantine wall behind him. The impact was deafening. A spiderweb crack spread from the point of contact, and the heavy iron mass, unable to withstand the sudden deceleration against the unyielding surface, shattered into a dozen sharp fragments that clattered to the floor.
Dust motes danced in the shafts of light streaming from the high windows. Radovan stayed on the floor, breathing heavily, his head still bowed, feigning shock and terror. Borislav stood over him, a sneer plastered across his face, a triumphant glint in his eyes. Zora, still holding her hand up, the pale incandescence fading, watched Radovan with a worried, scrutinizing gaze. She lowered her hand slowly, her expression unreadable.
Borislav clapped his hands once, the sound sharp. “See? This is the consequence of weakness. Had I not intended to merely *demonstrate* a point, Kresnik would be nothing but a smear on the floor.” He surveyed the shattered shrapnel and the trembling youth, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips. “Class dismissed.”
The trainees, sensing the end of the spectacle, began to disperse, their whispers a renewed buzz in the hall. Radovan pushed himself to his feet, carefully avoiding eye contact, and began to shuffle towards the exit, his body aching from the forced contortion. He had played his part. The seed of his feigned incompetence had been further planted. The humiliation was a necessary veil.
A hand, light and firm, fell on his arm. He stopped, his shoulders tensing. He knew the touch.
“That wasn’t a stumble. I saw the air bend.”