Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 14: Glass Lab
The Glass Lab looked like a museum exhibit designed by someone who didn’t trust people with their own hands.
Clear walls. Clear doors. Clear tables with metal frames bolted into the floor. Even the stools were the kind you couldn’t throw without committing to it.
Noah stepped into the room and felt Masking tighten on reflex.
It wasn’t fear of getting caught doing something impossible.
It was fear of being watched while he did something ordinary.
He took a seat at an empty station and set his folder down like he belonged. He’d learned in the last three days that down here, belonging was a performance with rules.
Across the lab, Sienna stood with two other Mirror students. She wasn’t talking much. She listened, precise and still, as if every word was a currency she spent on purpose.
Noah didn’t wave.
She didn’t look for him.
It felt like a weird kind of solidarity.
The instructor entered through a side door and the room quieted.
He wasn’t Mara. He wasn’t Sommers, either.
Dr. Vance had the clean hands and tired eyes of someone who’d spent too many years trying to make dangerous things boring. His hair was going gray at the temples. His voice held no warmth and no cruelty.
“Today is fundamentals,” he said, as if he were disappointed anyone expected anything else. “If you want fireworks, join a club upstairs.” A beat. “In this room, you will demonstrate control.”
He tapped a tablet on his clipboard.
“Sigilcraft Practicum, Entry. Everybody gets the same problem. Everybody has the same materials.” His gaze swept the room, landing on faces like a scanner. “How you fail is the point.”
Noah felt his jaw tighten.
He’d been trained to think of failure as something you hid.
Down here it was a ladder rung.
The overlay hovered at the edge of his vision, quiet but present.
SIDE QUEST: STAY PLAUSIBLE OBJECTIVE: COMPLETE LAB PRACTICAL WITHOUT VEIL BLEED PENALTY: STRESS +10 (ON FAILURE)
Noah stared at the penalty line until the words blurred slightly.
Great.
He’d wanted a normal class. He got a timed minefield.
Dr. Vance walked them through the exercise.
“You will inscribe a hold-sigil on the glass plate at your station.” He held one up as a demonstration: a thin rectangle of glass, edges beveled, faint etching lines barely visible under the overhead lights. “Not to impress me. To be consistent. The output threshold is low.”
He set the sample plate down with a soft click.
“You will anchor it with a single breath and a single touch. Then you will step back.” His eyes sharpened. “If you keep feeding it because you like the feeling of control, I will stop you.”
Noah’s palms went damp.
He could already imagine the temptation.
The way Aether sense made the room feel like a pressure gradient, like he could lean into something invisible and watch it respond.
Dr. Vance distributed packets of chalk pencils and a small vial of conductive ink. The ink smelled faintly metallic, like old pennies.
Noah opened his packet and forced himself to breathe low.
Breath Discipline.
Slow inhale. Hold. Exhale.
He drew the first line the way he’d been taught: steady, not elegant. He followed the etched guide on the glass plate and let Sigilcraft do what it did best when he didn’t overthink it.
The chalk dragged against the glass with a dry whisper.
Across the room, someone cursed softly.
Noah didn’t look.
Read the Room wanted him to.
The skill snapped his attention toward every twitch of frustration, every subtle surge of pride, every practiced calm that didn’t quite fit.
He reined it in.
Being able to see leverage was one thing.
Feeding it was another.
He finished the circle. Added the cross-stroke. Placed a tiny mark at the center that wasn’t a dot so much as a decision.
The sigil looked boring.
That was the goal.
Noah picked up the vial of ink and traced the completed lines with a brush that was too fine to be comforting.
His Focus ticked down in the background.
Masking. Sigilcraft. The constant low-level effort of not looking like effort.
When the ink dried, it darkened into a thin, almost black sheen.
Dr. Vance moved down the aisle behind him.
Noah’s shoulders tried to tense.
He forced them loose.
“Anchor,” Dr. Vance said, and the room obeyed.
Noah set two fingers against the center mark. He inhaled, held the breath at the bottom, and let the Aether flow through the line he’d drawn.
For a fraction of a second, the glass plate warmed under his fingertips.
Not heat.
Feedback.
The sigil caught.
Noah pulled his hand away immediately.
The air above the plate shimmered so faintly it might have been his eyes.
The hold-sigil didn’t glow. It didn’t hum.
It just sat there, quietly doing what it was told.
His pulse steadied.
He’d done it.
No fireworks.
No tell.
Just a small, clean success.
Dr. Vance paused at Noah’s station.
Noah didn’t look up.
“Better,” Dr. Vance said.
No praise. No warmth.
Still, Noah felt it land like a point.
Dr. Vance moved on.
Noah let himself exhale, slow.
The overlay updated.
SIDE QUEST COMPLETE: STAY PLAUSIBLE REWARD: NONE NOTE: CONSISTENCY NOTICED
Noah almost laughed.
He didn’t.
He watched his own hands instead, steadying them against the tremor of adrenaline that had nowhere to go.
Across the lab, Sienna’s plate held a sigil as clean as a printed diagram.
She noticed him looking and lifted her chin a fraction.
Not approval.
Acknowledgment.
Noah looked away.
They were released in clusters.
The corridor outside the Glass Lab smelled like old stone and someone else’s deodorant. Students drifted out in small groups, talking in careful tones that held more evaluation than conversation.
Noah was halfway to the commons when a voice slid in at his shoulder.
“Mercer.”
Noah stopped.
Cassian Wren stood beside him like he’d been waiting, posture relaxed enough to look polite. His hair was tidy. His expression wore a faint smile practiced for rooms like this.
“Wren,” Noah said.
They’d only been introduced in passing at induction, but names mattered down here.
Cassian’s gaze flicked to Noah’s hands.
“You draw like a technician,” he said.
Noah kept his tone even. “I draw like someone who wants it to work.”
Cassian’s smile widened a fraction. “Sure. But you don’t lead with your blood.”
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