She stepped out of the chamber. Her limbs moved slowly, but she did not stumble. Halwen walked beside her in silence, a tablet cradled under one arm, his eyes occasionally flicking down to her posture with quiet interest. There were faint scorch marks still lingering around her fingertips, traces of internal strain that hadn't yet faded.

  They passed a hallway illuminated with amber lights. Unlike before, the runes on the walls didn’t seem so harsh. The cold hum of magic was still present, but it no longer gnawed at the edges of her thoughts.

  When they reached the door to her chamber, she stopped. Halwen paused beside her, raising a brow as she turned slightly, hands still clasped before her chest.

  "May I... see the moon?" she asked. Her voice was soft. Almost shy.

  Halwen blinked. The question caught him off guard. He glanced at the tablet, then at her again. The test had gone well. Painfully so. But she hadn’t cried out once. Not a single scream. Just gritted teeth, silent endurance, and eyes that never turned away.

  Halwen studied her again, then slowly nodded.

  “Alright. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt."

  Together, they walked. The corridor opened into a circular chamber of glass and stone. The ceiling curved high above, part dome, part sky, supported by silver-laced beams that caught the light in thin, whispering lines. No furniture. No runes. No restraints.

  Just moonlight.

  It poured in through the glass cool and pale spilling across the polished floor in a quiet flood. The kind of light that didn’t burn. Vierna stood at the threshold, still clutching her hands together, unsure if she was truly allowed to step forward.

  Halwen didn’t speak. He only stood beside the door, eyes unreadable.

  She took a single step. Then another. The light touched her face cool against the lingering heat in her bones. It didn’t erase the pain, but made her forget it for a while. Still, the strain remained. Her fingers tingled, not with sensation, but with absence like the mana had passed through too quickly, leaving the nerves hollow and uncertain.

  Every movement felt slightly delayed, as if her limbs awaited permission from some unseen mechanism before obeying. She didn’t wince. Didn’t speak. But her body told the truth in the smallest ways: a tighter grip on her sleeve, a brief pause mid-step, the way her eyes flinched not from light, but from weight.

  She looked up.

  The moon was high, round and steady, framed by glass and silence. It felt impossibly far away. And yet… close. As if it, too, was watching.

  Her lips parted slightly. But she didn’t speak. Didn’t reach.

  She simply stood there. Breathing. And for the first time since she had become Vierna, she allowed herself a moment to exist without enduring. Wrapped in silence. Bathed in moonlight.

  She felt it, a whisper of change. Her internal mana had stirred during the experiment not wildly, not explosively. But enough. Enough for her to sense the difference.

  She had always known the shape of her emptiness like a cup that rarely held more than a trickle. And now, there it was a water in it, small but its there nonetheless.

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  She breathed and she felt relieve, “it grows” she thinks.

  Her fingers twitched slightly. A name drifted across her mind the one she was born with. Not aloud. Not fully. It felt strange, even in thought.

  The sound of it echoed with memories of the orphanage: pitying glances, soft voices, and a constant distance she could never cross. She remembered the way the staff smiled too gently, how other children shifted their games away from her presence. She had tried to be useful—quiet, efficient, helpful in the ways that didn’t draw attention. Wiping windows, fetching buckets, sweeping steps no one else wanted to sweep. She never asked for praise, only for a place. But even then, she remained invisible. Or worse, seen only through the lens of sympathy.

  She hated that. The quiet pity. The helpless glances. The way her name, when spoken, always landed with a softness that felt like mourning.

  And yet… she still remembered it. Still remembered them. The warmth of the kitchen hearth. Elra’s steady hands brushing her hair. The crack in the wall beside her bed. It hadn’t been enough. But it had been something.

  She realized, with an odd stillness, that she might have forgotten her name completely... if not for Elra. Only Elra had ever said it. But even then, it had always carried the weight of sympathy—a name spoken like a wound. A reminder of the line that set her apart.

  Across the room, Halwen watched

  Vierna’s silhouette looked small against the glass. A child with bandaged fingers, faint scorch marks on her wrists. Her posture was steady, but never at ease.

  She didn’t lean. She didn’t speak. She simply stood, eyes fixed upward, as if the moon might answer what no one else could. Fragile, injured, yet quietly enduring. The sight pierced Halwen like a needle. Not as a handler. Not as a researcher.

  Just as a man. And seeing her like this stirred a sharp ache beneath his ribs a guilt he hadn’t invited, but now couldn’t ignore.

  She shouldn’t have to endure this, a part of him whispered. Not at this age. Not like this. But ideals, in this place, were currency best kept hidden. He had learned that. Still, some part of him refused to die quietly. But then Halwen reminded himself that guilt was only valid if he failed. If this pain led to nothing. He reminded himself of that.

  What he saw in her eyes wasn’t despair. It was longing. Not for escape but for magic itself. She loves it, he realized. Even now. Especially now. And if she was willing to suffer for it, then he would ensure that suffering wasn’t in vain. She would succeed.

  The chamber remained hushed, still untouched by the artificial hum that filled most other corridors. The air here felt thinner, but not cold like a breath held in reverence. Above them, the glass dome stretched high and unbroken, rimmed with filigree silver that caught and refracted the moonlight in delicate halos. The moon itself hung steady in the night sky, distant yet imposing, framed perfectly at the apex of the dome. Its light spilled downward in soft, argent layers, pooling across the polished stone floor like a shallow tide.

  It touched Vierna’s hair with a quiet grace, turning pale strands into liquid silver. Every line of her silhouette was traced in light her small shoulders, the faint tilt of her head, the curve of her back. The shadows softened around her, as though reluctant to cling to something so fragile, so briefly serene.

  The light didn’t warm. It didn’t soothe. But it revealed a kind of perfection only the sky could give. For a moment, the room looked less like a place of procedure and more like a shrine. Not to the Reich. Not to the research. But to a single moment of pause.

  Then Halwen’s voice came, gentle but firm.

  “Let’s go now, Vierna.” Halwen said.

  She didn’t respond, but she turned. Together, they walked back through the corridor away from the moonlight, away from the silence. The soft press of footsteps echoed through the stone halls, faint and steady. The moonlight was behind them now, but something of it lingered in the way she held herself calmer, steadier. Her breath no longer hitched. Her steps no longer dragged.

  Then, without looking at him, she asked.

  “Why can the other Faintborn lift things… but I can’t?”

  Her voice was small. Not bitter. Not ashamed. Just… curious. Like someone asking why the sky changed colors. Why the sun set. Why she was different.

  “She’s been here longer than you,” he said gently. “That’s all.”

  He glanced at her again.

  “Trust us. You’ll get there.”

  Vierna didn’t answer right away. But she smiled. Just a little. Halwen saw it brief, uncertain, but real. At least… that pain before hadn’t been for nothing.