The tower stairs were never meant for children.
Each stone step rose high enough to challenge Kael's short legs, the rough-hewn edges worn uneven by centuries of boots and weather. A winding spine of cold granite wrapped around the hollow center of the Dust Tower, climbing higher than Kael had ever dared explore.
Today, though, he climbed.
He had to know what was up there.
It had been three months since he'd been exiled from the East Wing. Three months since his Core Awakening had painted him as a failure, a joke. Three months of isolation, ink-stained hands, and sleepless nights sketching force diagrams into cracked floor tiles. He had learned more about the behavior of weight and motion in this forgotten spire than in any of the Empire's pristine libraries.
But theory alone was a cage.
He needed space. He needed velocity.
He needed altitude.
Kael paused to rest, placing a hand on the stone wall to steady himself. His breath came in short gasps, his thin frame drenched in sweat. He was still just a five-year-old, and the body reminded him of that at every step. But even now, his mind was alive with motion.
"A body in free fall doesn't feel weight. The pull of gravity becomes indistinguishable from the absence of it."
He didn't want to float.
He wanted to fall—and control it.
The Dust Tower's upper landing was nothing like he imagined. The stairwell opened into a square room with high, domed ceilings and massive arched windows open to the wind. Once a watch post, maybe. Now, it was hollowed out, bones of furniture scattered across the floor like forgotten time. A storm approached in the distance, the wind whipping Kael's hair into his eyes.
He took it in quietly, a subtle sense of triumph curling in his chest.
This was his throne, now.
A boy no one watched. In a place no one cared for.
He stepped toward the open arch.
The ledge outside was narrow—barely a foot deep—but it overlooked the entire western quarter of the palace. Below, the kitchens smoked. Beyond, the sun glinted off the imperial training grounds, where his brothers sparred in the light of praise.
Kael's eyes tracked the drop below.
He estimated seventy feet. Maybe more.
It wasn't a thought that came with fear. It came with curiosity.
What's the terminal velocity of a five-year-old with low surface drag and unassisted fall from seventy feet?
What happens if I shift the gravitational vector ten degrees mid-descent?
He didn't want to die.
He wanted to know.
But fate, as always, intervened first.
The voice came from behind him—soft, almost unsure.
"My lord... your tea."
Kael turned. The mute servant boy—barefoot, thin, eyes downcast—stood behind him, a small cup shaking slightly in his hands.
Kael's brow furrowed.
He hadn't asked for tea.
The boy placed the cup down near the stairs and retreated.
Kael moved to speak, but the floor shifted beneath him—just slightly.
Then more.
His foot landed on something slick.
Time folded.
His weight shifted, too far forward. The world tilted.
And Kael fell.
The wind howled past his ears like a banshee.
Kael's body twisted in the air, flailing as instinct took control. The tower's jagged stone raced past him in a blur of motion. His stomach surged into his throat.
Then—
Silence.
No sound. No pressure. No feeling of fall.
The sensation of pull had vanished. Not slowed. Vanished.
His mind snapped into clarity.
"Vector drop," he whispered into the wind. "Inverted axis... field disruption?"
A flicker of something—no, not something. Him.
His Core pulsed.
It wasn't conscious. It was instinctual. Triggered in terror. But it responded.
He wasn't floating. He wasn't flying.
He was still falling—but space wasn't treating him the same way.
Gravity has no direction—it follows curvature. If I bent the slope of space itself just slightly, could I stretch the descent over time?
He began to rotate slowly, his arms extended like an arrow. The stone courtyard below was no longer a blur. He could see every crack in the tile. Every bird scattering from the tower.
He was still falling.
But at half the acceleration.
And slowing.
He had warped the descent curve.
The impact came like a whisper and a scream—his body struck the dirt, tumbling through layers of wet soil, rolling into a stunned heap just short of the training grounds. Pain blossomed across his back, his arms, his legs.
But nothing was broken.
He lay there, coughing, blinking up at the grey sky, the edges of his vision spinning.
Footsteps neared.
A soldier barked in alarm.
More voices. Shouts. Running.
But Kael didn't hear any of it.
He was laughing. Quiet, breathless, shaking laughter.
Because in that fall, he'd found truth.
His magic wasn't weak. It wasn't random. It wasn't elemental.
It was systemic.
Fundamental.
A force older than fire, colder than water, more absolute than light.
And for the first time, he hadn't bent to it.
He'd bent with it.
Hours later, he was confined to his cot, bruised and aching. A physician had come and gone, called by panicked guards who had no explanation for how the forgotten third prince had survived a fall from a tower window.
But Kael knew.
He sat in the dark, skin covered in poultices, bones whole.
His fingers trembled as he jotted notes in charcoal:
Event Log: Gravitational Event #004
Trigger: Emotional trauma (fall)
Effect: Decreased vertical acceleration vector. Estimated reduction: 43%
Method: Instinctual activation. Spatial re-curve.
Implication: Field generation is possible without predefined incantation. Core acts as micro singularity.
He circled the last line three times.
The silence of the tower pressed around him, no candle lit, just the glow of a storm far away.
He closed his eyes.
Someone had pushed him.
That servant had no reason to be in the tower.
No request had been made.
Sabotage.
They want me dead. Already. But they had miscalculated. Because gravity—unlike fire or steel—was patient.
And now he knew.
Not everything that falls breaks.
Some things learn how to fly.
To be continued…