The corridor stretched long and quiet, lined with silver-veined stone that pulsed faintly under the rune lamps. The walls, smoothed to a mirrored sheen, reflected fragments of Halwen’s stride fractured, repeat echoes of his silhouette.

  Here, the air always felt too clean. Magic hung in it, silent and disciplined, like a song no one was allowed to sing aloud.

  He walked alone, but not unwatched. This wing was close to the Arkmarschall’s domain meaning every step was catalogued, measured, judged.

  Halwen’s jaw tightened slightly. He had made this choice. Not the committee. Not the calibration board. Him. And now he would have to explain why letting a test subject bond with another, rather than bleed again under the machine, was the right thing to do.

  He raised a hand toward the reinforced door ahead. A single breath. One pulse of mana. Then the sigil bloomed against the seam, and he stepped inside.

  Inside, the room waited. Cool, clinical, humming faintly with mana-fed instruments. Leopold stood near the central console, cane in one hand, his gaze fixed on the runic scrolls in front of him. Beside him, several handlers adjusted readings. One man stood straighter than the restbroad-shouldered, silver insignia at his collar: Senior Supervisor Drecht.

  “My Arkmarschall,” he said evenly, “I’m fully aware there is another test scheduled for Subject N4 today. However… an unexpected development has occurred. She’s begun forming a rapport with another test subject Designation G-5.”

  The words left his mouth with careful precision, but Halwen felt the weight of them as they landed. He wasn’t defying protocol, he wouldn’t dare but the mere act of offering context before a report felt like stepping toward a cliff’s edge.

  His pulse quickened. The Arkmarschall did not take kindly to speculation. And yet… Halwen believed in the merit of his reasoning. Believed that Leopold, of all people, would recognize utility when he saw it. Even so, the silence that followed felt like standing in the path of a loaded cannon, waiting to see if it would fire.

  “They weren’t engineered to connect. But they did.” Halwen continued “It’s still early to quantify, but they’re beginning to familiarize with one another perhaps even forming the early stages of friendship. That kind of natural alignment rarely surfaces in an environment like this. Disrupting it now would risk compromising a variable we seldom encounter under controlled conditions.”

  The air in the chamber felt denser with each word he spoke. As if the room itself was waiting to see whether he would be cut off or heard. The faint hum of arcane instruments vibrated through the floor, a reminder that nothing said here would be forgotten. Everything was recorded.

  “With all due respect Master Halwen.” The man besides the Arkmarschall began, “This is sentiment, not science. We don’t alter research sequence for emotional fluctuations. Procedure must be preserved. N4’s ignition chart is set. Deviations this early will corrupt the research itself.”

  Drecht’s words broke the brief silence after Halwen’s argument. Each word precise, as if rehearsed. A practiced cadence that suggested agreement was expected not earned.

  Halwen didn’t react immediately. His expression remained neutral. He’d expected this word for word. Drecht was nothing if not faithful to the procedure, clinging to protocol like scripture. Of course this argument would surface.

  “This isn’t sentiment. This is exactly what we’re looking for.” He stepped forward slightly, speaking with the composure of someone reciting not a defense, but a principle. “The final stage of the program has always been about testing initial data against real-world variables. We begin in sterile isolation to get controlled results but we end with integration. We challenge early findings by introducing the most unpredictable and volatile factor we have: human connection.”

  “The only reason we rely on isolated conditions at the start is because creating genuine bonds inside a research facility like this is nearly impossible.” Halwen pressed on, “The children are under constant pressure monitored, evaluated, measured. There's no room for natural interaction. So the data we gather in isolation is useful, yes but limited. It doesn't reflect how they’ll function outside these walls, in a world where connection isn’t optional it’s necessary.”

  “Now we have that. A natural bond. Emerging early.” He continued, “Not shaped by schedule, not forced by suggestion. It’s uncoached. That makes it not a deviation, but a once-in-a-cycle emergence something we could never design, only discover.”

  Halwen met Leopold’s gaze, “We can resume the Ignition protocols at any time. But a genuine connection? That’s not something even the most structured protocols can summon on command. And it’s not something we should risk discarding.”

  He knew what isolation did to the young. He had studied it, charted its decay. But numbers never captured the way silence frayed a child’s will. What he saw in N4 and G5 wasn’t just a variable it was a crack in the glass.

  A way out. As the final word left his mouth, Halwen resisted the urge to exhale. He kept his posture straight, his hands folded neatly behind his back. Outwardly, nothing shifted. But inside, the strain coiled tight beneath his ribs. Not fear he had long since shed that in these halls but a taut, wordless anticipation. He had spoken what needed to be said. But there was no data point to measure how the Arkmarschall would weigh logic against instinct, or order against emergence.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  And Leopold had not yet blinked.

  “With all due respect, Arkmarschall, if we alter the pace of stimulation, we risk—”

  “Supervisor, your point about procedural sequence is noted.”

  He turned his cane slightly in his hand, as if turning the thought with it. “To abandon structure is to lose control. But to ignore emergence is to stagnate. The protocol can support both. Subject N4 will undergo controlled mana infusion therapy today. The procedure is simple. No delays. Go to the classroom. It will be done before the next cycle begins.”

  Without further comments, he leave the room.

  Halwen didn’t move until the sound of Leopold’s boots had fully faded down the corridor. Only then did the coil in his chest begin to ease. He had stood his ground.

  More than that, he had spoken against procedure in a room that did not tolerate missteps. And yet the blade hadn’t fallen which means that the Arkmarschall understood and at least agreed with his point.

  “Master Halwen. Let us proceed.” The voice cut through. Supervisor Drecht’s tone was clipped, almost mechanical. As if reclaiming the rhythm that had briefly faltered.

  They both stepped out of the room. The corridor felt different now. Same arches, same gleam however something did change.

  “That’s either very brave or very naive, Master Halwen.”

  Senior Supervisor Drecht said flatly. Drecht stepped closer, his hands folded behind his back, eyes narrowing slightly.

  “However, right now both N4 and G5 are an unpredictable variable. There are risks that come with this. Risks of failure. Let’s say Subject G5 develops a complication. N4 would feel it. And if it were N4 instead G5 would follow. Bonds like this don’t create resilience. They create shared failure. I’ve seen it before. One child falters, the other follows. Like scaffolding made of paper one crack, and the whole thing folds.”

  “Isolation protects the data. It protects the subjects.” Drecht added, “You’re putting a great deal of faith in this… anomaly.”

  Halwen’s voice came quiet, steady. “Senior Supervisor, why did you join the Einhart research facility?”

  Drecht blinked. The question landed oddly, not what he’d expected.

  “A man of your calibre,” Halwen continued, “surely you could’ve secured a position anywhere. Academies. High guilds. Even private commissions. So why here? Why this work?”

  A long pause stretched between them.

  “I joined the facility because I believed we were trying to improve,” Halwen said. “Not just our firepower but the lives of the subjects too.” His tone remained flat, but something beneath it had weight.

  “I understand your caution. We've both seen what failure looks like.” He pressed on, “The aftermath of it. It's easier to distance yourself after that. Safer. But if failure is all we anticipate, what are we building? What are we enduring it for?”

  Halwen’s gaze now fully met with Drecht’s “The integration phase on the paper is to test data with uncontrolled variables social contact, emotional interaction. But that’s not all it was meant to do. It was built on the idea that some of them might live beyond this place. That we weren’t just shaping weapons, but people who might survive what comes next. If we forget that, if we stop accounting for the human outcome then what exactly are we measuring?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. This argument, it made him either the weakest man in the room one who still clings to ideal, or the most dangerous. That remained to be seen.

  Drecht was silent for a beat. Then, with his usual flat composure he spoke. “You speak with conviction, Master Halwen.” His eyes didn’t narrow, “but perhaps you’ve forgotten Clause 47, Subsection 3. The Reich permits the use of minors in sanctioned arcane research. The law doesn’t concern itself with what happens after. So long as the results are sound, no one asks about the cost. Not even when it’s children.”

  “I didn’t draft the law.” He continued, “But I follow it. We all do. That’s what order is. You speak of giving them a future. I used to believe the same. But every facility I’ve worked in follows one rule: test it until it breaks.”

  “And that’s exactly what makes the Einhart family’s research facility different, Senior Supervisor.” His voice was steady, but there was an edge beneath it now a restrained conviction. “Because Arkmarschall Leopold doesn’t waste lives not from kindness, but because inefficiency is the one sin he doesn’t tolerate.”

  Halwen looked towards the glass, beyond it there was a test subject who drooled as he look upon the ceiling trying to found something there. “Look at the impaired subjects. The ones with reduced cognitive response. We still study them yes, but most of what’s done to them is non-invasive. Stabilizers, enhancers, observation not the chair, not the needle. Because he made it clear. No trials we already know will fail. No waste.”

  Drecht let out a breath not a sigh, but something close. His gaze drifted briefly toward the ceiling before settling back on Halwen. “Trully a nice speech Master Halwen. You always were the one who thought any of this would mean something. Childlike hope like yours is exactly what Arkmarschall Leopold cultivates. The rest of us learned to stop seeing faces years ago”

  Halwen didn’t look at him as he spoke, voice low. “Strange. I remember a certain junior supervisor once protesting a trial over a single unstable reading. Just one, barely recognizable. That kind of risk… not everyone would’ve taken it.”

  For a moment, Drecht said nothing. The sound of their footsteps filled the gap—measured, steady. When he finally spoke, his voice was cold as ever, but something behind it wavered. “I wasn’t being noble, Master Halwen. G2’s readings dropped below threshold in Cycle 7. I protested it. They ignored it. And when she broke, they remembered my protest. That’s why I’m the Senior Supervisor now.”

  Halwen however notice the hesitation and weight behind those words. It was as if a Drecht still question whether he should push harder to stop the experiment back then.

  They continued walking. No more words between them. Just the echo of boots on polished stone, and the quiet hum of a facility where no mistake was ever forgotten only documented. Not camaraderie. Not conflict. Just two men, burdened by different kinds of memory. The air between them held no victory, no agreement only understanding. What they endured wasn’t pain. It was knowing. And still continuing anyway.