Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 28: Choosing Sides
By December, the dorm quad looked like a postcard someone had decided to weaponize.
Frost on the grass. Breath in pale clouds. Students in knit caps and puffer jackets moving between brick buildings as if finals were the only thing that could hurt them.
Sienna watched the surface world from a bench near the path to the library, notebook open on her lap.
The official story had arrived fast.
Gate incident, rewritten as a facilities fault.
An old pressure line. A minor evacuation. A brief power glitch.
No injuries worth mentioning.
No names.
No Underquad.
Contain the leak, they called it.
Sienna could see the containment in the way people spoke.
Up here, everyone repeated the same adjectives, like they were reading from the same email.
“Weird.” “Scary.” “Maintenance.” “Probably nothing.”
Below, in the Annex, the story was spreading anyway.
Not the true story.
The useful one.
Mercer opened a thing.
Mercer stole a beacon.
Mercer is why the Veil stuttered.
Mercer is why Crownline looks nervous.
Mercer, Mercer, Mercer.
Sienna turned the pen between her fingers until her knuckles ached.
Noah hadn’t asked her to do this.
He’d never asked her to shield him.
He’d asked her to be a witness.
Witnesses were inconvenient.
They were also leverage.
Sienna heard footsteps behind her, then a pause that felt deliberate.
She didn’t look up.
“You’re writing again,” Dahlia Crowne said.
Sienna kept her gaze on the notebook.
“I’m studying,” she replied.
Dahlia’s laugh was small. “Always.”
Sienna looked up.
Dahlia stood in front of the bench with her coat perfectly fitted and her expression perfectly mild.
As if she’d just happened to be walking by.
As if Sienna hadn’t felt her watching from inside the Annex for weeks.
“Park,” Dahlia said.
“Crowne,” Sienna replied.
Dahlia sat without asking.
Sienna didn’t move her notebook.
“How’s your friend?” Dahlia asked.
Sienna’s jaw tightened.
“He’s not my friend,” Sienna lied.
Dahlia’s eyes sharpened. “Don’t insult me.”
Sienna held her gaze.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Dahlia folded her hands in her lap.
“Order,” she said. “The Gate event created noise. Noise creates opportunities.”
Sienna stared.
“That’s a nice way to say predation,” she said.
Dahlia’s mouth curved. “That’s a childish way to say politics.”
Sienna let the word politics sit between them like something that could cut.
“Mercer is a liability,” Dahlia continued. “The board tried procedure. Meridian tried containment. Neither worked.”
Her pulse ticked up.
“So you want to handle it yourself,” Sienna said.
“I want you to handle it,” Dahlia corrected.
Sienna went still.
“No,” she said.
Dahlia blinked once.
“Think,” Dahlia replied.
“I did,” Sienna said. “It’s still no.”
Dahlia’s expression stayed mild.
“I’m offering you protection,” she said.
Sienna almost laughed.
“From what?” she asked.
Dahlia’s gaze slid toward the dorm path, where a pair of students walked by talking about finals.
“From being collateral,” Dahlia said.
The word hit.
A cold line settled along her spine.
Dahlia leaned closer, voice dropping.
“You can keep your clean conscience,” she murmured. “All you have to do is stop standing next to him. Give us one statement. One witness note. Something that frames him as the source of the interference, not the victim of it.”
Sienna stared.
“And in exchange?” she asked.
Dahlia smiled thinly.
“You keep your access,” she said. “You keep your patron happy. You keep your future.”
Anger flared.
Not at the offer.
At how well Dahlia understood the shape of her cage.
“He saved someone,” Sienna said.
Dahlia’s eyebrows lifted.
“He caused the danger that required saving,” Dahlia replied.
Sienna stared at her.
The lie was clean.
It was also coordinated.
Dahlia hadn’t invented it.
She’d been handed it.
Sienna’s eyes narrowed.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked.
Dahlia’s gaze didn’t change.
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