Chapter 412: Thin Threads

Chapter 412: Thin Threads

Brand made him wait on Monday.

She read his log before putting it face down and pointing at the mat.

"Draw," she said. "Stop when I tell you."

He sat, took the partly used stone out of its cloth, and drew.

"Stop."

He stopped. The thread cut off clean, and the energy he’d been holding settled without a wobble.

"Again."

She did it eleven times. Sometimes she let him draw for a minute; sometimes she stopped him after only a thread or two.

Once she said stop almost the moment he’d started, and he felt the thread try to keep coming, the way water keeps running out of a tap for a second after you turn it off.

He held it anyway. It took more out of him than he expected.

On the twelfth, she let him run for a long time without saying anything. The Core filled, then packed, and kept packing, denser and heavier, until he could feel it pressing under his breastbone like a fist.

"Stop," she said, just as the next thread thickened. He checked it, but a little energy escaped his control before settling.

Brand glanced from him to her tablet. "Open your eyes."

"At your last check you were close," she said. "You were full, and the packing was good, but you were still pulling in bursts when you got tired."

She turned the screen so he could see the line on it. "That’s much steadier. Eleven clean stops, and on the last one I let you draw longer than I meant to. You caught the change without pulling harder."

"So I’m ready."

"Tomorrow morning," Brand said. "Here, first thing. Don’t eat a big breakfast, and leave the yards alone afterward. Rest means rest."

"What if it doesn’t happen?"

"Then you’ll have had a long, boring session, and we’ll try again on Thursday." She took the log back. "It’ll happen. I’m just not promising you the hour."

He walked out of the cultivation wing feeling lighter than he had any right to.

He’d been thinking about this since his last check. But close was a thing you could stay for months. Ready had a date on it.

The notice went up before lunch.

Lucian found him at lunch and put a slate down in front of him before he’d finished chewing.

"Read it," he said.

[Meridian Academy — Resource-Realm Selection]

[Two places available.]

[Eligibility and seeding: performance records and a one-day practical field assessment.]

[Places awarded by combat tournament among eligible candidates.]

[Field assignments and assessment briefing to follow Wednesday. Tournament structure published before combat begins.]

Jin read it twice.

"Combat," he said.

"Combat." Lucian took the slate back. "I thought they’d just pick. Records, interviews, a staff meeting. Two names on a board."

"So did I."

"It’s better, isn’t it? Nobody’s deciding for us."

"Somebody’s deciding who gets in the arena."

"Records and a field day. We’ve got records now." Lucian grinned. "We’ve got Teller now."

Jin thought about the students across the advanced practical groups, and how many of them were reading this slate and feeling exactly what Lucian was feeling.

"Everyone’s got something," he said.

Jin pushed his tray aside. "Brand says I can try for my breakthrough tomorrow."

Lucian stared at him.

"You’re what?"

"Brand says I’m ready."

"And you were going to tell me when?"

"I just did."

Lucian sat back and laughed, loud enough that people at the next table turned round.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Of course it’s tomorrow. And you say it like you’re getting a haircut."

He didn’t sleep particularly well. It wasn’t fear. It was more like the night before a long trip, when everything was packed and there was nothing left to do but lie there and think about it anyway.

Through the bond, he felt Glitch roll over down in the stall. Jin rested with that familiar, sleepy presence until he drifted off too.

Brand had the practice room ready when he arrived, the blinds half down and the mat in the middle of the floor.

"Same as yesterday," she said. "Thin. Whatever happens, keep it thin."

He sat with the partial stone in his palm and drew.

For the first twenty minutes, it was an ordinary session. The Core filled. The packing started. He felt it settle into the dense, heavy place he had come to recognise during recent sessions, and then a little past it.

Then it began to pull.

He hadn’t expected that. With 2-Star, the change had been quiet, a load shifting into a better place. This was different. The Core didn’t feel full anymore. It felt hungry.

Each thread he sank vanished into it, and the moment it was gone, something in his chest leaned toward the stone for the next one, harder than before.

His hand tightened on the stone without his meaning it to.

Just take more. It wants more. It’ll be quicker.

"Thin," Brand said quietly, from somewhere near the door.

He let his hand go loose.

It was the hardest thing he’d done in that room. The pull didn’t stop. It kept leaning, and he kept giving it the same thin thread at the same steady pace, as if nothing had changed.

Sweat ran down his back. His jaw ached, and he realised he’d been clenching it, and made himself stop.

He lost track of time. Once he felt a thread start to come too thick, and he caught it and pinched it back down before it reached the Core. His whole body went hot with the effort.

"Good," Brand said. "That’s the whole job."

Then, somewhere in the middle of all that leaning, the pressure gave.

It didn’t settle, the way it had last time. It opened. The fist under his breastbone unclenched, and the space behind it went on further than he’d thought it could. It was like reaching for a wall in the dark and finding nothing there.

The threads he sank kept going, and there was still room.

He sat very still and let the last few go in, thin and steady, until the pull faded into ordinary quiet.

"Open your eyes," Brand said.

She was crouched in front of him with the tablet.

[Astor, Jin — Core reading]

[Combat Rank: 2 — 3-Star]

[Bond Core: stable. Stripes: 6.]

He kept looking at it, because his eyes had gone hot and he didn’t want Brand to see.

"Three," Brand said. "And you didn’t grab once. Most students grab at the end. They feel it pulling and think it’s a sign to hurry."

"It felt like a sign to hurry."

"And you kept control anyway." Brand checked the reading again. "That was what I needed to see."

The reserve felt enormous. He reached for it out of habit, the way he would before a Gravity Press, and there was simply more of it, deeper and wider, sitting there calmly.

"It’s going to feel like more than it is," Brand said, reading his face. "For a few days, you’ll think you can go all afternoon. You can go longer than you could. Not all afternoon."

"How much longer?"

"Find out slowly. Rest today. Light work tomorrow and Thursday. If anything feels wrong, stop and come to me." She tapped the tablet. "And your Core’s exactly what it was. Six stripes, same slots. Don’t go looking for anything new in there."

Jin nodded, relieved that she hadn’t asked why he was still staring at the reading.