"It's not stubbornness," I said quietly, reminiscing of my own mother."That's just how mothers work."
Cwal did not answer.
"She just doesn't want you to worry. That's all it is."
Cwal's gaze dropped back to the woman sleeping behind the glass.
"Is that so?" he asked.
His voice was flat, but his hands were not.
I nodded once."Yeah. After all, a mother never cries for herself."
When I turned back toward him, my eyes dropped almost immediately to his hand.
He had clenched it so tightly that blood was seeping through his fingers, thick and dark, trailing down his knuckles before dripping onto the fogged glass of the medical chamber.
Each drop landed with a dull tap, sliding slowly before vanishing into mist, eaten away by whatever high-tech filtration this room used.
Cwal did not react.
Either he had not noticed, or the pain simply did not matter anymore.
I watched him stand there, rigid and silent, and the shape of his suffering was painfully familiar. It was not the frantic panic of someone about to lose everything. It was worse than that. It was the quiet, suffocating weight of someone who had already tried everything and failed.
I understood him far too well.
A son is supposed to be his parents' pride. Proof that their struggles were not meaningless. That every hardship, every compromise, every sacrifice amounted to something worthwhile in the end.
And what was Cwal Solace now?
A hired killer.A sharpened tool passed from hand to hand.A monster shaped into something useful and disposable.
Everything a mother could never possibly want for her son
The irony of it all was cruel.
His mother despised herself for being the reason he had fallen into this world. For surviving long enough to become his chain.
And Cwal despised himself for being unable to save her and do anything to her.
His shoulders trembled once, then again, like something inside him was finally cracking under its own weight.
"…Please."
The word barely carried sound. It was scraped out of him, thin and raw.
The room stayed quiet.
"…Help me."
The way he said it was worse than shouting. There was no pride left in it, no bargaining, no threats.
He was just exhausted, and his fear stripped him bare.
"I've tried everything," he said, voice low and uneven. "The best physicians in the kingdom. Private specialists with reputations older than noble houses. Court doctors trusted with royal blood."
His fist tightened further. Fresh blood spilled through his fingers.
"I even dragged in frauds and lunatics who swore they could cure anything for the right price."
A bitter breath escaped him.
"They all said the same thing."
His teeth clenched.
"That she can't be saved. That her condition is irreversible. That all I can do is delay the inevitable."
The word hung there, heavy.
"That I should prepare myself."
I exhaled slowly.
"Prepare," I muttered. "As if a son could ever prepare to bury his mother."
I stepped away from him and turned my back.
Not out of cruelty, but because if I kept looking at him, I would say something useless. Something hollow. Pity would not help him. Sympathy would only insult what he had already endured.
My gaze settled on the tree growing quietly in the corner of the room.
It should not have been here.
Its roots were embedded in a carefully constructed bed of enchanted soil, layered with stabilizers and nutrient arrays that hummed faintly beneath the surface. Tubes and runic filaments fed into the ground around it, regulating moisture, thrum density, and nutrient balance with absurd precision.
A treasure nurtured like a captive god.
I searched my memory.
The Golden Weaver's Apprentice. A story I had devoured piece by piece, chapter by chapter, obsessively. Every side note, every author comment, every scrap of lore burned into my mind.
By the time Cwal was permitted by Roy to join Finster's raid on the Aberrant lair to gain the remains of an Abarrent body, Mary Solace was still alive. Frail, unstable, confined, but breathing.
After that, her presence faded from the narrative.
Only indirect mentions remained. Cwal vanishing for months in search of rare herbs. Consulting specialists versed in nature-aligned thrum. Risking missions not for money or loyalty, but for access to deeper rewards in roys collections.
Which meant that by then, she had already crossed into a critical stage.
But with my little knowledge of Mary, does this mean I could not cure her?
...
No.
Cwal was beloved by readers. Which meant speculation flourished. Entire forums are dedicated to dissecting his story. Endless theories arguing over what had gone wrong, what could have been done differently.
And one comment, buried deep in a thread, posted by a user whose name was nothing but symbols.
That comment had been quietly confirmed by the author months later.
I stepped closer to the tree.
Hanging from one of its branches was a fruit, round and heavy, its surface a deep violet threaded with faint veins of pale light. It looked like an apple.
I reached up and plucked it free.
The moment my fingers closed around it, a faint chill spread across my palm. This thing in itself could literally buy a town or two.
I turned and tossed it toward Cwal.
He caught it on instinct. Blood smeared across its skin, dark streaks cutting through the faint violet sheen of the fruit.
"Don't worry," I said. "I intend to uphold my promise. I will save your mother."
His head snapped up.
For the first time since we entered the room, something cracked through his composure. Disbelief. Sharp and raw.
"She underwent an artificial awakening," I said. "Didn't she?"
His mouth opened.
No sound came out.
His body betrayed him.
"Ak… Ug… Ark—"
He staggered, one hand clutching at his chest as if something inside had twisted violently out of place. His breathing turned uneven, shallow gasps scraping out of his throat.
So we were back to this again.
The heart-grasping serpent problem.
I clicked my tongue quietly and closed the distance between us.
"Don't resist," I said.
He looked at me through unfocused eyes, teeth clenched, veins standing out along his neck. For a split second, instinct screamed at him to fight it. To push back. To force control.
Then he stopped.
Slowly, deliberately, he loosened his grip on his own chest and stood still, shoulders trembling.
Good.
I enhanced my finger, thrum concentrating just beneath the skin until it hummed faintly with pressure.
"Take a bite," I said, nodding toward the apple in his hand.
His gaze flicked down to it.
"Trust me," I added.
Jaw tight, he raised the fruit and bit into it.
The flesh gave way with a soft crunch.
Almost immediately, his breathing hitched. His pupils dilated. The tension in his shoulders spiked before easing.
I grabbed the hem of his shirt and shoved it upward.
He flinched but didn't stop me.
Just below his chest, slightly to the left, there it was.
A scar.
There was no mistaking it.
I pressed my enhanced finger just beside it.
His whole body jolted.
He coughed hard, nearly dropping the apple, a sharp sound tearing out of him as his knees buckled for half a second.
"My mother ak cough-," he tried to say.
"Later, this is temporary." I cut in.
"It takes time to kick in. The grasping heart serpent needs time to notice the better nourishment you just swallowed rather than your core."
I shifted my finger slightly, tracing a slow circle around the scar, feeling the thrum react under my touch.
"We'll deal with it properly, but not right now," I said.
His breathing gradually evened out.
The color crept back into his face, though sweat still clung to his brow.
I stepped away and released his shirt.
The apple in his hand had lost some of its glow, its surface dulling where he had bitten into it.
"Roy succeeded," I said. "He did what no one else had managed to do. He forcibly awakened a human by implanting the core of another awakened into your mother's body."
Cwal stared at the fruit in his hand as if it might speak.
"She became a weaver," I said. "But not the way nature intended."
He swallowed.
"Roy told me this would help her," he said quietly. "
That it would stabilize her thrum. Reduce rejection. Ease the strain."
I inclined my head. "He wasn't lying."
That made his expression twist.
"The Somnus Apple is a genuine treasure," I said. "Entire kingdoms would tear each other apart for a single harvest. In a natural weaver, it accelerates recovery, smooths thrum flow, and nourishes the core."
I turned my eyes back to the tree.
"And Roy knew exactly how valuable it was."
Cwal said nothing.
"He didn't put this here out of generosity," I said. "He put it here because it ensured your obedience. As long as your mother depended on it, you would never leave his reach."
My gaze drifted to the woman sealed behind glass.
"But Roy made a mistake. So did every doctor who examined her."
I raised a finger.
"They treated her like a normal weaver."
Cwal's was now showing a bewildered face. I was kind of refreshed.
"Her core didn't awaken naturally. It was grafted into her. Forced to take root in a body that was never meant to hold it."
I stepped closer to the chamber.
"The Somnus Apple is doing exactly what it is designed to do," I continued.
"It is feeding the core. Strengthening it. Helping it recover."
I let the words sink in.
"And that is why she hasn't woken up."
Cwal's hands began to shake.
"That core is not hers," I said quietly. "The more it is nourished, the more dominant it becomes. It is trying to claim the body completely."
The room felt smaller.
"That continuous sleep," I said, tapping the glass lightly, "is not rest. It is suppression. Her consciousness is being forced deeper because the core is asserting control."
Cwal closed his eyes and was now starting to get it.
"By how long she's been like this," I added, "the original owner of that core must have been monstrously strong."
"So every time I let her sleep," he whispered, voice breaking, "every time I thought I was helping her recover…"Cwal asked
"You were giving the core more ground," I said.
His shoulders sagged.
For a long moment, he stood there without moving. Then he straightened, slow and deliberate, as if sheer will was holding him upright.
"…Tell me what you need," he said. "Whatever it is."
I shook my head.
"Not yet."
I met his eyes.
"First, you tell me everything."
He waited.
"How Roy became involved. When the experiments started. Where the core came from. Every symptom. Every change, no matter how small."
I gestured toward the room, the tree, the sealed chamber.
"From the very beginning."
I took a breath.
"Only then do we talk about saving her."