Location:Obsidian Academy — Workshop, Second Segment → Private CourtyardDate/Time:15 Infernorest, 9939 AZI
Realm:Lower Realm
Jayde's hand slammed the workbench.
The sound cracked through the workshop like a bone breaking. The practice parchment jumped. An ink pot rattled. An essence stylus rolled off the edge and hit the floor.
The impact was pure instinct — below thought, below identity, below all three voices. Something wired into the brainstem. Not recognition. Rage. The white-hot, reflexive fury of a woman who had spent sixty years fighting to be more than a serial number branded into her soul by the corporation that made her, who had watched her brother — her brother — use that designation while standing over her with a smoking blaster, who had died with that designation ringing in the air like a death sentence because the man she trusted most had never once called her by the name he'd given her when it mattered—
"Doc, just how many times—"
