Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 15: Seeding Match
The athletics center smelled like rubber mats and chlorine and the kind of cleaning solution that promised to erase blood.
Noah followed the signs to a door that wasn’t on the public map.
There was no placard.
No “Authorized Personnel.” No warning.
Just a brushed-metal reader with a faint sigil scratched into the corner.
He swiped his Annex access.
The lock clicked.
The pressure in his ears thickened as he stepped through.
Shielded space.
Masking bit harder here, as if the Veil itself demanded a cleaner lie.
FOCUS: 81/106
Noah kept his expression calm and walked into the ring.
It was a circular room with tiered seating and a raised mat at the center. The lights were bright and flat, designed to make shadowless truth.
Ladder seeding.
Noah had spent the last week practicing the same fundamentals until his shoulders ached and his mind went quiet around the edges.
Not because he wanted to be the best.
Because he wanted to be boring.
If people couldn’t tell a story about him, they had to work harder to make one.
Sienna sat two rows up, near the end of a bench where she could see the whole mat without looking like she wanted to. She met his eyes for a breath.
No nod.
No smile.
Just that same clean acknowledgment.
Honesty later, she’d said.
Win now.
Noah took a spot along the wall with the other Mirror students. He recognized a few faces by now. Names were harder.
The instructor for the night wasn’t Dr. Vance.
This was a different kind of room.
A woman with a tablet and a bored expression stood at the edge of the mat. An attendant wore gloves with sigiled seams, ready to reset wards if anything went wrong.
And up in the front row, angled like she owned the air, Dahlia Crowne watched the ring.
Noah didn’t know her voice yet.
He knew her attention.
Read the Room didn’t make it louder.
It made it precise.
Dahlia wasn’t here for spectacle.
She was here to classify.
Noah felt his pulse tick up and forced it down with breath.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Breath Discipline.
He rolled his shoulders, loosened his hands, and watched the early matches with the careful calm of someone learning a new ecosystem.
Legacy students fought like they expected the mat to forgive them.
Non-legacy recruits fought like the mat was a witness.
Noah fought like someone had put a price tag on his spine.
“Mercer.”
The voice came from behind him.
Cassian Wren.
Noah turned.
Cassian looked the same as he had in the Annex corridor: tidy, polite, eyes too sharp for his easy posture.
“We drew each other,” Cassian said, as if the matchup were a coincidence that amused him.
Noah kept his voice even. “Yeah.”
Cassian’s gaze flicked to Noah’s wrists, then to his face.
“You nervous?”
Noah almost laughed.
“No,” he said.
Cassian smiled. “Good. Then you won’t mind if I make it interesting.”
“Interesting is how you get a story told about you,” Noah said.
Cassian’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s not always bad.”
“For you,” Noah said.
Cassian’s smile tightened like he’d been nicked.
“Come on,” Cassian murmured, leaning closer just enough to be heard over the room. “You can move. I saw it in the spar. If you hold back in seeding, they’ll assume you’re weak.”
Noah met his gaze.
“Or they’ll assume I’m hiding,” he said.
Cassian’s eyes brightened, pleased.
“Exactly.”
Noah didn’t like how much Cassian enjoyed the game.
He also didn’t like how good Cassian was at naming it.
“Keep your tempo,” Cassian said softly. “I’ll try to take it.”
Noah felt the challenge settle, clean and sharp.
“Try,” Noah said.
Cassian’s grin flashed.
Then the attendant called their names.
The mat felt different under Noah’s bare feet.
Not just the texture.
The awareness.
The way a hundred eyes turned and tried to make him into an idea.
Noah stepped into the center circle and faced Cassian.
They bowed.
Not respect.
Procedure.
The woman with the tablet lifted her hand.
“Start.”
Cassian moved first.
Fast, light, confident.
He closed distance with a feint that dared Noah to flinch.
Noah didn’t.
He waited.
Cassian’s grin widened as if Noah had taken the bait.
He shifted into a spinning kick, smooth enough to be pretty.
Noah stepped inside it and caught the leg at the calf, not hard enough to injure, just enough to steal the momentum.
Cassian landed off-balance.
Noah didn’t capitalize with force.
He reset, breathing steady.
He could feel the temptation to end it quickly.
To show output.
To win in a way that made people shut up.
Noah refused it.
He watched Cassian’s stance.
Cassian favored his right side, the way he’d hinted in the corridor.
Speed forward.
Angle out.
Make it look effortless.
Cassian came in again, faster, trying to pull Noah into chasing.
Noah stayed boring.
He took small steps, kept Cassian in front of him, and let Breath Discipline do its work: oxygen in, panic out.
Cassian’s smile vanished.
He threw a quick combination, hands and feet moving like a rehearsal.
Noah blocked, absorbed, redirected.
Read the Room snagged on the audience.
The small forward lean of Mirror students.
The still, hungry attention of Crownline.
Dahlia Crowne’s gaze, flat as a knife.
Noah pushed it away.
He didn’t need their reactions.
He needed timing.
Cassian overcommitted on a step-in elbow, aiming to crowd Noah’s center.
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