“It is only shameful to stay there.”

  The words clung to her thoughts like dust in light quiet, weightless, and impossible to ignore. They hadn’t been spoken with warmth. Herr Halwen wasn’t that kind of man. But something in his tone had landed with precision not like comfort, but like truth. She didn’t know why it stayed with her. Perhaps because it was the first time someone spoke to her not as a burden, or a variable, but as a person who wants to overcome.

  Her feet moved before she realized it. The corridor stretched ahead long, hollow, and too lonely. No guards. No voices. Just the soft scuff of her steps against polished stone. It should’ve felt like freedom. But it didn’t. Every echo made her flinch, every breath too loud. Then, halfway down the hall, she noticed it a smooth black stone embedded in the wall, decorated with faint runes that pulsed ever so slightly with mana.

  Scrying Eye.

  She knew the spell. Had read about it in one of the tomes. A surveillance enchantment that allowed sight to be cast from one fixed point to another. Like eyes without a body. Like mirrors that only ever reflected outward. Her shoulders tensed. No commands came. No voices whispered through the walls. But still, she felt them. Somewhere, someone might be watching. She lowered her gaze and walked faster, not running, just enough to look like she had purpose. So it wasn’t unguarded, she thought.

  Halwen’s voice trailed her like a shadow. “Keep the focus. The strength will follow.” Not comfort. But not nothing. A thread of encouragement. She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but she held it anyway.

  She turned a corner and stepped into a broad hall low-ceilinged, lined with old stone arches, and lit by pale rune-lamps embedded at regular intervals. The air here felt heavier, though not with heat or scent. It was the weight of something else. Something unspoken.

  There were others.

  A handful of test subjects scattered across the space. No older than she was. Maybe younger. Some were practicing spells, basic manipulation, little sparks of fire or hovering weights.

  Across the room, two girls, identical in every feature moved in eerie synchrony, lifting stones and shifting posture with mirrored precision, never glancing at one another. Twins, most likely. But the kind whose connection seemed more trained than natural.

  A few stood in pairs, murmuring to each other. But the way they did it felt... wrong. The words passed between them, but not truly into them. Their eyes were always elsewhere. Their shoulders tense. Their backs never fully turned. Like each sentence was a test, or a performance. Like the conversation was an assignment, not a connection.

  She didn’t move for a long moment.

  It felt like stepping into a scene already rehearsed. And though no one looked at her directly, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her presence had been noticed. This was supposed to be a place for them. For children like her. But it didn’t feel like a gathering. It felt like a collection. Pieces assembled in one place, not people who chose to be near each other.

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  She remained near the doorway, unsure if she was allowed here, unsure if she wanted to be. But the weight of standing still was worse than the fear of being noticed. So she stepped away. Slowly. Quietly. And kept walking.

  It wasn’t until she passed a quiet, rune-lit chamber that she stopped fully.

  Inside, one of the impaired children sat cross-legged, trying to stack rune stones in a pattern that kept collapsing. A girl knelt beside him silver hair just like hers.

  The other Faintborn. She knelt with perfect stillness, her silver hair falling just past her shoulders longer, cleaner, deliberately kept. A porcelain half-mask covered half side of her face, from chin to the bottom of her nose only leaving her eyes, sharp, alert, but not cold. She moved with a precision that felt practiced, even graceful guiding the impaired boy’s hands back to the fallen stones without frustration. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.

  Her uniform was the same standard issue, but she wore it as if it designed specifically for her.

  Older. Taller. More composed. For a moment, the girl watched her own reflection not in glass, but in flesh. Similar. But not the same.

  Their eyes met. For a second, neither moved. Then the masked girl raised a hand. Not in formality or restraint, but with sudden, unfiltered energy. She waved frantically as if calling out to a friend across a river rather than a stranger in a facility built for order.

  Something tugged in her chest not pain, not fear. A pull. A strange familiarity. The mask made it hard to read the girl’s face, but her eyes held no tension, no caution. Just warmth. Like she’d been waiting. They were both Faintborn. She could feel it. Not in the way their mana flickered though it did but in the way they stood in this place. Different, but shaped by the same edges. Subjects molded by ritual and numbers. And yet… the girl across the room was here in a way she wasn’t. She moved like she belonged. Not with dominance, but ease. As if the cold hallways and rune-lit corners hadn’t closed in on her like they did to everyone else. She wasn’t blending into the walls—she was coloring them. stood at the edge, still unsure if she was part of the frame at all.

  Then the masked girl waved again bigger this time, with both arms now, as if the hesitation had only encouraged her. The motion was ridiculous, exaggerated. As if she weren’t just waving to a new arrival, but summoning a best friend across a great distance. There was no shame in it. No restraint. Just reckless sincerity. It was absurd. And strangely… disarming.

  The girl didn’t know why her feet moved. Only that they did. Not quickly. Not confidently. But one after the other, drawing her forward through the quiet space. She didn’t look around to see if anyone else had noticed. She didn’t try to understand what this was. There was a peculiarity about that masked girl, something that bent the cold edges of the room. Not warmth, exactly, but light. Motion. Color. As if the heavy air couldn’t quite settle around her.

  Without speaking, she knelt opposite the masked girl and began helping nudging the stones into place, mimicking the careful movements.

  A nearby staff member watched from the wall, while scribbling observation in a slate. Together, the two girls worked until the child finally built a wobbling, five-stone tower. He clapped, drooling a little. For the first time that day, the girl didn’t feel like a stranger.

  As they finished helping the child stack the final rune stone, the masked girl let out a small, satisfied breath. Her expression remained soft her eyes changed as if she is smiling but the mask hide her emotion.

  Then the masked girl looks at her.

  “You looked so serious back there. I was going to say—”

  A sudden voice rang out from the hallway cutting the conversation short.

  “Subject N number Four, Follow me”

  A white-robed researcher stood at the archway, holding a clipboard. His tone was flat. Expecting obedience.

  The girl stood up quietly. She gave the masked girl a farewell nod. And then she followed the voice.