The girl was brought in just before nightfall. Not dragged not quite. The white-cloaked handlers were careful. Their gloves were soft, their faces unreadable.

  Her silver eyes scanned the walls, the floor, the long corridor that pulsed faintly with blue runes embedded in the stone. The air smelled sterile. Magic lingered in it like dust. They passed many rooms. Some were glassed small observation chambers. Inside, she saw children.

  A boy with a third arm growing from his side giggled as he built a tower from rune blocks.

  Another child hairless and pale stared blankly at the wall, unmoving. Two girls with mismatched eyes chased each other in slow motion, their laughter strangely delayed.

  The dull shimmer of her silver hair gave her away. Their eyes met for a second before the handlers moved on.

  In the hallway ahead, a body was being carried out on a stretcher. A child. Covered in a white sheet.

  It felt like a snake that coiled in her chest, pulled tight. She’d known this place would be strange. She hadn’t expected it to look so… bizzare. Polished hallways. Cold glass.

  Her steps slowed, just slightly.

  Was this my future? An extra limb. A missing voice. A half-thought smile beneath a glass pane? She thought.

  The walls felt as though they were creeping inward, closing around her. Fear tightened like a noose around her neck. She tried to think of a reason why she had accepted the One-Eyed Snake’s invitation. Maybe she should have thought longer.

  As the space narrowed, she considered striking the handler, seizing the Arkmarschall’s cane, and fighting for her life—or at least dying on her feet.

  But before she could act, she saw it. Beyond a glass wall, in a room as bare as a cell, a girl only slightly older was dancing. Flames curled around her arms, weaving into ribbons of fire as if she were a fae sprung from the pages of old tales. The sight rooted her in place, her feet heavy as anchors. The handler moved to prod her forward, but the Arkmarschall raised a hand, allowing her to watch.

  The figure was slender, no taller than herself. Her eyes were vast and dark, like deep seas. Serene and dignified, she moved with an elegance beyond her years, bending fire as though it were part of her hands. She played with it without the faintest trace of fear. Dim runes glowed across the walls, casting pale light that made it seem as if she danced beneath the moon.

  What held her most was the hair—silver and long, flowing like a veil of sky. Beneath it, her face was hidden by a rigid porcelain mask, black as obsidian, with only the faintest suggestion of lips etched upon it. The mask caught the firelight, turning the dancer’s visage into spectral and unreachable thing.

  Beautiful, she thought.

  “She also has the Faintborn’s Blessing, like you,” the Arkmarschall said.

  The words subdued every thought of resistance. Maybe—just maybe—this place, which allowed a girl with the same condition to dance so freely with magic, would let her do the same. To wield power as though it were second nature.

  She watched the masked girl leap into the air, fire trailing behind her like wings woven from a thousand halos of the sun. At the peak of her ascent she released the blaze, shaping it into birds that circled her as she descended—the fall of a Valkyrie.

  Then, as if remembering she was not alone, the girl lowered her gaze. She went to her bed and slumped against it, as though reminded of where she was, and what she was meant to be.

  Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe everyone here could wield magic. Proper magic.

  The sight stirred her memory. Once, when she had been beaten half to death, Elra had found her in front of the orphanage. To stop her crying, Elra conjured a little magic, shaping the moon in a veiled sky into the palm of her hand. That moment had hammered a love for magic into her heart.

  Her own magic had always been weak, too frail to lift even the lightest weight. The name Faintborn fit perfectly. Born too frail to matter.

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  But her need—her hunger—was never weak. It gnawed at her heart, drove her legs to the shed to train, kept her wanting, kept her enduring. It even allowed the One-Eyed Snake to do whatever he wished, so long as it left her with a shred of the heaven she had just glimpsed.

  It was madness.

  It was obsession.

  It was an unreasonable hunger, clawing beneath her ribs, a thing without shape or reason but always moving. Pulling and pulling her forward.

  And like a moth drawn to the flame that would burn it, she flew—soaring toward blaze and inferno, toward inevitable doom.

  Let him dissect my body. Let him reweave my fibers. Let him carve into my spirit. As long as it gives me even a single moment of wielding magic properly, as my Valkyrie just did. As long as I find what I need.

  Of Moon and Magic

  The thought dangled before her like a frayed thread tossed into a pit. Thin. Unreliable. But maybe—just maybe—she could climb it.

  The thought had barely settled when the handlers urge her to move. The corridor turned, quieter here. Fewer doors. No windows.

  Then they stopped.

  A simple metal panel slid aside with a quiet hiss, revealing a square, gray-lit chamber beyond. No words were spoken, but the meaning was clear.

  The girl’s eyes slipped past him, into the room beyond. It wasn’t large. A medium-sized space, square and quiet, with smooth stone walls that gave off a soft gray sheen under the ambient light. A simple desk stood near the far wall, stacked with neatly arranged books their spines uniform, their titles unreadable from here. Beside it, a plain wooden bed waited without sheets or warmth, too orderly to be lived in. The room held no clutter, no color, no sign of anyone before her. There is another room inside the chamber, lavatory it seems.

  Her eyes lingered on the desk.

  She hadn’t expected that. Or the books. Something about their presence felt... deliberate, yet oddly generous. As if she was being offered something more than survival. The thought stirred a quiet warmth in her chest fleeting, fragile. But the warmth did not last. The room was too clean. Too precise.

  Gratitude mingled with caution, curling in her stomach like steam against cold glass. This wasn’t the comfort of a child’s quarters or the warmth of a welcome it was something else.

  She couldn’t explain why, but looking at it made her chest feel smaller. Like the room was already watching her before she stepped in.

  Leopold’s voice cut through the silence.

  “You will undergo experimentation during the day,” he said, his tone clinical, "in the evenings, you will be expected to study. The books are chosen for your level. Your reactions, habits, and choices will contribute to my research on test subject behavior. A class room designated for research subjects also have been arranged, you will start tomorrow."

  He didn’t look at her as he spoke only the room, as if she were already inside it.

  The girl lowered her head slightly.

  “Thank you, Arkmarschall,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. Then, after a short pause,

  “May I… request something?”

  One of the handlers behind her look shocked, and before he can react, Leopold raised a finger.

  “Let her speak.”

  The room fell still again. The girl hesitated, only for a moment.

  “I would like a weight. Ten kyns. For training.”

  Both handlers exchanged a look something between confusion and disbelief. One blinked as if unsure he’d heard her right. Leopold said nothing at first. But there was no surprise in his eyes. Only calm. As if he had already accounted for this moment.

  Leopold spoke without hesitation.

  “You may.”

  With a slight motion of his hand, he gestured to one of the handlers.

  The handler gave a silent nod and stepped away. Minutes later, they returned, holding a solid iron weight. It was compact but dense, shaped like a disc with two side handles utilitarian, unadorned save for the symbol etched deeply into its center. The sigil of House Einhart. The girl stared at the weight for a moment longer. Something about it unsettled her not just the mark, but the fact that it had been given so freely. She hadn’t expected the Arkmarschall’s permission. The generosity felt strange and unfamiliar.

  “… Thank you,” she said again, quieter this time. “I’ll do my best.”

  Leopold gave a single nod. Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps fading into the long corridor beyond. The door closed behind her with a soft click.

  The girl stood still for a moment, letting the silence settle. The room felt colder now that she was inside not from temperature, but from emptiness. No windows. No voices. Just stone and the quiet sound of her own breath.

  She walked toward the desk, touched the edge of it as if to confirm it was real. Then to the bed firm and unfamiliar beneath her hand. She did not sit. Not yet.

  Her eyes moved to the weight.

  It rested exactly where the handler had left it, dark iron marked with the ouroboros. Heavy, motionless. She stepped closer. Then, without hesitation, she reached out her hand and focused. The familiar pull of mana swelled in her chest thin, hesitant, but there. She locked her gaze on the weight and tried to lift it with her will.

  Nothing.

  She exhaled through her nose and tried again, steadier this time. Still, the weight didn’t move. A third time. Harder. Her fingers curled, her brow furrowed, her body tensed.

  Still nothing.

  She gritted her teeth. A fourth try everything she had, all the fragments of strength left in her from the day, all the quiet desperation that hadn’t faded since she left the orphanage.

  The weight twitched.

  Not much. Just a nudge. A subtle scrape against the stone floor. But she saw it. She felt it. And for the first time since she arrived, something in her chest flickered not warmth, but a faint echo of pride. She let go. A long breath escaped her lips.

  Without another word, the girl walked to the bed, lay down on her side, and closed her eyes.

  so glad that you make it here, these 2 sub chapters is created to kinda give you a glimpse of what usually happend in a classroom in research facility and what the facility feels like when our protagonist arived for the first time

  thank you for bearing with me as always reviews and feedbacks are welcomed, follow if you fancy and give me a rating if you are generous heheheh

  Thanks see you next chapter