The orphanage was quiet at night not the gentle quiet of sleep, but the deep, hollow silence that settled over old wood and worn stone like a second layer of dust.
The halls creaked faintly beneath her feet, even when she moved carefully, barefoot and deliberate. The lanterns had long since been extinguished, leaving only the faint silver wash of moonlight spilling through high windows to guide her steps.
Doors were closed. Shadows long.
The kind of stillness where even the air felt like it was listening.
She knew the places where the boards groaned the least.
Where the light wouldn't catch her face.
Where no one would bother to look because no one ever had.
She was smaller than the silence.
And she moved through it like someone who belonged to it.
Then she turned the corner, and disappeared into the dark.
She slipped through the side door, the one that stuck in the cold but always gave way with a gentle pull if you knew how to coax it. The night air greeted her with a soft bite not harsh, but enough to make her pull her thin sleeves closer around her arms.
Outside, the orphanage stood behind her like a shadow with windows tall, old, and still, its chimneys quiet, its stones silvered under moonlight.
The courtyard stretched ahead, small and overgrown, edged by a low stone wall half-covered in moss. Weeds swayed gently in the wind, brushing against the hem of her skirt as she walked. Beyond the wall, the land sloped gently into open field patches of dry grass and distant trees, outlined in pale blue beneath the sky.
The stars were out.
The moon, round and high, followed her like it always did.
She stood still for a moment, breathing in the cold.
No voices. No footsteps.
Just her and the hush of a world that never waited.
She followed the narrow path with careful steps, keeping close to the outer wall, where the moonlight couldn't quite find her. The air grew colder here not from wind, but from the way the buildings leaned, blocking warmth and sound alike.
Then she reached it. The hiding place wasn't much.
Just a half-collapsed shed behind the storehouse wall roof slanted, floor uneven, the smell of old rope and damp stone clinging to everything. A forgotten corner no one used, where the wind didn't quite reach and no footsteps ever passed.
The others probably didn't even know it was there.
But she did.
The shed was little more than a crooked skeleton of beams and sagging wood, its roof patched with old tarp and rusted nails. One wall leaned too far inward, supported only by a stack of stones she'd placed there herself. Gaps in the planks let in slivers of moonlight, tracing pale lines across the dirt floor like silent warnings.
But it was clean.
The dust had been swept to the corners. Broken tools stacked neatly against the back wall. A threadbare blanket folded beside a crate that served as a stool. Even the cracked window too high to see through, too small to matter had been wiped free of grime.
This place might have been forgotten by the rest of the orphanage.
But not by her.
She had claimed it. Tended to it.
Made it hers in the only way she could.
At the center of the space, six objects lay in a neat line three river stones and three patched buckets, each carefully marked in uneven strokes:
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12
Their weights weren't perfect. But they were close close enough to train by.
She had found the scale tucked in the back of the old supply closet, half-buried beneath broken tools and a cracked broomstick. It wasn't mechanical not with gears or balances but magical. A square of faded brass, etched with old sigils, and a faint glowing rune on its base. When touched, it pulsed once, then displayed the weight in shifting green numbers across its surface.
It still worked.
The display flickered sometimes, and the rune dimmed if she pressed too hard, but it read true. She tested it again and again with the same objects until she was certain.
The first three were stones, smooth and dense pulled from the river's edge and dried under the sun. She picked them for feel and shape, then used the scale to label them as 2, 4, and 6 kyns.
The last three weren't stones.
They were old metal buckets dented, mismatched, their handles wrapped in cloth to silence the creak. Inside each, cement that had long since dried, solid and unmoving, poured and shaped by her own hands. One bucket at a time. One evening at a time.
She'd weighed each with an old magical scale, half-buried under the supply crates. It still worked its glow faint but reliable, flickering like a tired star. With its help, she'd filled each bucket to roughly match the next steps in her training:
8 kyns. 10 kyns. 12 kyns.
These weights weren't perfect. But they were close enough
If she dropped one and she often did it wouldn't spill. Wouldn't stain. Would just hit the floor with a quiet, dusty thud.
Her own crude curriculum. Built from things no one missed.
She weighed them every few nights. Checked them meticulously.
The scale was quiet. Steady. Like a secret that still believed in her.
And above them, scraped into the cleaned stone wall, five short white lines stretched horizontally. Beside the top one higher than the rest was a crooked upward arrow and, beneath it, in misshapen, cramped letters:
"Up to here."
She knelt before the line of weights.
The air was still, thick with the scent of old rope and damp stone. Her breath came light and shallow. She was sore always sore from the day's activity. Her body ached from trying to keep pace. But here, there was no one to see her stumble.
No one to compare her to.
Just her, and the marks she'd carved into the stone wall behind the buckets: five white lines, each spaced five lems apart. A crooked upward arrow next to the topmost one
First: 2 kyns.
A warm-up. The stone rose clean, smooth, steady to the first line and a little beyond. It hovered briefly before lowering in a gentle arc. She didn't count it as progress. She'd passed this one weeks ago.
Second: 4 kyns.
Her hands never touched it.
Her mana, faint as always, crawled outward not like a flame, but like mist searching for form. It wrapped around the stone like thread stretched too thin.
It lifted. Hesitant. Twitching.
Then up past the second line and further.
Six lems.
She breathed out. Still hers. Still within reach.
Third: 6 kyns.
A stone she once thought impossible.
Now it trembled in the air before her, her arms shaking from the effort not because she used them, but because even channeling hurt now.
Upward. Bit by bit.
One lem. Two. Three. Five.
Six. Just barely.
It wobbled, then held for a full breath then dropped.
Her head sagged, sweat at her brow.
But it had risen. And met the mark.
Fourth: 8 kyns.
A bucket this time. The metal cold, its shape warped slightly from age. Dried cement filled its base hardened smooth and flat.
She steadied herself.
Her mana quivered thinner now. Straining.
The bucket lurched up, not clean, not graceful.
But it climbed.
Four lems. Five. Almost—
It dipped. She caught it. Pushed harder.
Six. Just enough. Then down.
She gasped, chest tight. Her fingertips numb.
Still... she had made it. Barely. But she had.
Fifth: 10 kyns.
She looked at the next bucket.
It sat squat and silent, its handle wrapped in old cloth. A crack ran down its side where the cement had dried too fast but it held.
She had never lifted this one. Not once.
She crouched, jaw tight, stomach turning with a familiar pressure. Her mana was frayed nearly threadbare but she reached anyway.
A twitch.
A tilt.
But the bucket didn't leave the floor.
She grit her teeth. Tried again.
Nothing.
Her knees buckled slightly from the silent strain.
Still nothing.
But she didn't cry.
She stared at the floor for a long moment. Then wiped the sweat from her lip.
And turned her head slowly toward the last object.
Sixth: 12 kyns.
She had never tried this one.
She had always known better.
Sixth: 12 kyns.
She had never tried this one.
She had always known better.
It wasn't there to be lifted.
It just stayed there squat, unmoving to remind her of what she was supposed to be able to do.
What five-year-olds in the training halls already could.
What the instructors whispered about in numbers and benchmarks.
What the world expected of her body but never asked if it was possible.
The bucket sat still, the dried cement inside hardened to a solid dome. Its rim was chipped. Its weight, unforgiving.
She looked at it anyway.
Then reached anyway.
Not with hope. Not even with defiance.
Just... acknowledgment.
It didn't move.
Not even a twitch.
She didn't expect it to.
But she kept her gaze on it, even as her legs began to shake and her vision dimmed slightly at the edges.
Because if she couldn't lift it tonight—
That didn't mean it had won.
She would return.
Again. And again.
Until even this weight would remember her hands.