As the two girls left the room, Halwen remained behind. The cold, sterile atmosphere lingered—preserved by the Arkmarschall’s presence alone. The scratch of quill against parchment, the low hum of runes shifting beneath his stone slate, filled the silence.
Halwen took pride in his ability to read people. To see past words into intent. But with the Arkmarschall, it was like staring at a wall. He remembered the order clearly: under no circumstances were the supplies to be moved on foot.
And yet, the Arkmarschall had let Vierna off with nothing more than a warning.
Training dressed up as punishment.
Which meant this outcome wasn’t an exception.
It was the plan.
But why?
There was no logical justification for trusting her like that.
And yet, he did.
How could someone so analytical, so calculating, place a bet like a fool—
and still win?
It didn’t make sense.
Halwen frowned. His mind folded in on itself, spinning like a broken compass desperately trying to point North.
If he could foresee a child breaking rank to reroute supplies, why was something as urgent as the daemon subjugation taking longer than it needs to be?
Was the delay deliberate? Another part of some deeper plan?
He couldn’t tell.
Trying to guess what a wall was thinking had its limits.
“The preliminary needs have been assembled. Now we can focus on Operation Ewige Schlange.”
The Arkmarschall’s voice cut clean through Halwen’s lingering thought.
As Halwen and Leopold dabbled in riddles and unspoken intentions, Vierna and Lina walked.
Their boots tapped lightly against the stone floor. They were accompanied by a handler.
The air felt unnaturally clean. Purged by the runic ventilation arrays embedded along the walls. Breathing it in felt like scouring your lungs with silver dust.
It was nearly midday, but no sunlight touched the hall, only the ashen, pale light of glyph-etched stones humming faintly above them.
Eventually, the handler stopped.
A door waited.
Inside were two beds spaced evenly. On the left side, Vierna’s belongings had already been arranged by the handlers. Her desk looked untouched, almost exactly as she had left it because she’d already kept it immaculately ordered. Books were stacked by topic, notes sorted by date or relevance. Even the scattered papers—her drafts, sketches, and half-finished translations—had been restored with eerie precision. It wasn’t hard for the handlers to replicate her order. Everything had its place. It felt less like they had moved her things, and more like they had reconstructed the room itself, dust, air, and all.
The right side, though, was unmistakably Lina’s.
Unlike the ordered precision of Vierna’s quarter, hers looked like a traveling merchant’s cart had exploded. Water skins, dozens of them lined the foot of her bed like a defensive barrier. Only a couple of books lay nearby, both with bent spines and loose pages. A large sheet of paper hung half-folded across her desk, sketched with an anatomically inaccurate but enthusiastic drawing of a camel. Beside it sat two miniature statues, crudely carved but clearly treasured.
There were strange toys, too wooden puzzles, small clockwork figures, a spring-loaded beetle that twitched when tapped.
And on a shelf: two spare masks. Nearly identical to the one she wore.
It was obvious the handlers had struggled. They must’ve given up halfway through trying to make sense of it all—and simply dumped everything where it landed. Vierna almost felt bad for them.
She let out a breath, quiet and thin.
Then turned to Lina.
“Hey… Lina, I—”
“Oh well. So much for my free time. Instead of finishing a decent sketch, I get to train after being poked like a lab rat.”
Vierna winced. “Sorry, Lin. I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your day.”
Lina shrugged. Her voice laced with that familiar tease. “Don’t be. I chose to follow you. Honestly, I expected something worse than training.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Vierna felt relief, but something stuck like a splinter under her skin.
Why was Lina so... tolerant of her?
This never happened.
People usually ignored her. They kept their distance. Stayed out of her mess.
But Lina?
Even after being dragged into one, she stayed.
Treated it like it was nothing.
Vierna’s thoughts crowded in, pressure building until a piece slipped out.
“Hey, Lin… why me?” she asked quietly. “You could’ve talked to anyone. So why someone who just got here?”
The words had formed before she could stop them.
It was the question she'd meant to ask before Lina's storage spell had stolen the moment.
She knew the risk of asking. Knew that question wasn’t supposed to slip out like this.
And now that it had and all she could do was brace for the answer.
“Because you’re pretty and cute of course.” Lina said brightly, her tone teasing.
But the answer didn’t fill the hole in Vierna’s soul. If anything, it made it worse.
Lina looked at her. Vierna’s gaze had dropped to the floor, her face drained of color, eyes empty.
And in that moment, Lina saw it—
not just a friend asking a question, but someone begging for truth.
And she’d answered it with a joke.
She felt like she’d kicked something already broken.
Her bravado collapsed. The smile faded.
So she sat down near the pile of waterskins, grabbed one that was still full, and took a long drink. When she finally spoke again, her voice had changed — no longer masked by the bright, bubbling cheer she wore like armor. This was her real voice.
“I’ve been here for about two years. Every time I talked to someone, it was always the same—just how bad it hurts, how they wanna escape, how awful everything is.”
She glanced at Vierna.
“Then I saw you. Same condition as me. But instead of looking all hopeless when you couldn’t even move that weight in Herr Halwen’s class… you just asked him how to get better.”
Her voice cracked.
“I know we’re stuck here, okay? I know it’s bad. I know it hurts. Every time they stab us, or burn us, or carve into us… it’s like they don’t even care if we’re human.”
“I just—I didn’t wanna talk about it.” Her voice shrank. “I just wanted to think about something else. Like... outside stuff.
I tried getting out. I really did. But nothing ever opens. There’s no keys. The doors move on their own. They always know where we are.”
She swallowed.
“They’re always watching.”
A pause.
“So I gave up.”
“I just wanted to talk about something else.” Her voice trembled now. “Pretend the place didn’t smell like shit for a while.”
Vierna looked at her friend. This wasn’t the Lina she thought she knew, but she felt more real.
“Thank you, Lina,” she said softly. “I’m glad I finally know.”
Her voice held no judgment. Just quiet certainty
But the gratitude didn’t last.
Her voice dropped lower. Her eyes stared ahead—blank, washed of color.
“I’ve been thinking about it.
Back then, I thought Herr Halwen was just lying. Saying the experiment wouldn’t continue just to make me feel better. I didn’t know what to think.”
But then he gave me real tasks. He didn’t stop us when we brought the supply to the front. I thought maybe he pitied me. But that’s not it.
And the Arkmarschall… even when I broke orders, my punishment didn’t feel like a punishment. It felt like a test I passed.
That’s when I understood.
This place, it only cares if you try.”
Vierna’s voice was flat. “And I don’t want to leave a place like that.
I was nothing out there. People didn’t even look twice at me. And if they did, it was always the same look.
Even Matron Elra… she really did try. But I still saw it in her eyes—that look. And if someone like her couldn’t hide it, then no one else out there could.”
She looked ahead. “I want to get stronger. I want to use real magic. I don’t care what it takes.”
Lina hesitated.
There was something in Vierna’s voice that made her stomach twist.
It was like watching someone walk into a hole with no bottom. Eyes wide open.
“This can’t be the only way. There has to be somewhere we can get stronger, and still be seen as more than tools. There has to be—“
“There isn’t, Lin.” Vierna cut her off, “places like that don’t exist for people like us. But here, they see our worth. And I won’t give that up.”.
She finally looked back at her.
“With you here… I don’t need anything else. This is enough. This is heaven.”
For a second, Lina thought she was joking. Just for a second.
But then she saw it in her face.
It was as if she felt every slice of the scalpel as a gentle stroke — a mother’s hand caressing her child. As if the pain brought her joy. Every needle injected, every rune carved, every fragment of her soul modified — it wasn’t suffering to her. It was warmth spreading through her veins like spiced tea in winter. The soft pressure of a hand that never let go. The sharp breath before revelation. The ache that proved something was changing. The silence before a scream that never came. The whisper of power unfolding beneath her skin. Each violation was a prayer. Each wound, a passage. This wasn’t torture. It was transformation.
She meant every word.
And somewhere, buried deep inside, a quiet part of her wished she could believe it too — that this really was heaven.
“Vier... I —“
“It’s okay, Lin,” Vierna said gently. “I know what I feel sounds strange. But like you said — if we keep thinking we’re in hell, then we truly are in hell.”
She reached out her hand, as if waiting for something.
For a moment, it looked like the hand of the devil — waiting for her to sell her soul.
But there were no claws. No scars.
Just smooth, ashen skin. A hand that belonged to someone she knew—yet felt like it came from something else entirely. Someone who still joked back, even after everything.
Vierna’s voice stayed soft.
“So let’s stop thinking about the outside. Let’s just make this place... good. Like our own kind of heaven.”
Should Lina Reach for Vierna's hand?
