The silence of the service corridors was a thin glass, easily shattered by the growing desperation of the Zaqor estate.
With Ralph's public rejection and Rrejy's fury threatening to tear the household apart, Tere's elegant veneer had degraded into a razor-sharp hostility. She could not afford to let her son's future crumble, nor could she shake the persistent, itching suspicion that Nard—the pathetic, magicless boy—was somehow at the center of the anomalies during Marquis Vance's visit.
The opportunity to test her theory came on a bleak, mist-shrouded morning. Nard was summoned not to the servant's passage, but to the deepest, most dangerous wing of the conservatory—the Obsidian Orchid glasshouse. It was a restricted zone filled with lethal, high-tier toxic flora that feed on raw mana, a place where even experienced Tier 3 gardeners wore protective heavy armor.
Tere stood near the entrance, her pale-violet silks replaced by a high-collar leather coat. Beside her stood Ralph, his face pale and eyes twitching with malicious anticipation, and two heavily armed estate guards.
"Nard," Tere murmured, her voice smooth but lacking any of its former feigned sweetness. "The Obsidian Orchids are choking on a wild mana-leeching weed. The common servants are too clumsy to handle such delicate, toxic stems. Since you have no magic for the orchids to feed upon, you are the perfect choice to prune them. Go to the rear arbor and clear the weeds."
Nard bowed his head, his shoulders slumped in his usual, pathetic defeat. "Yes, Stepmother."
He knew it was a trap. The Obsidian Orchids did not just feed on mana; they violently expelled toxic spores when disturbed by a living presence. For a magicless human, breathing those spores was a death sentence. But Nard kept his face completely blank. Under his worn sleeves, his dual-core Tier 2 heart beat steadily, and the tiny Ironwood seed rested in his palm.
As Nard stepped into the humid, dimly lit glasshouse, the heavy iron door slammed shut behind him. Through the reinforced glass, he could see Tere and Ralph watching him like hawks, waiting for the inevitable.
The air inside was thick, smelling of rotting wood and sweet, suffocating poison. Purple mist drifted from the dark, jagged orchids that hung from the ceiling. The moment Nard approached the rear arbor, the orchids stirred. Sensing a living body, several thick, thorny vines of the mana-leeching weeds whipped out from the shadows, aiming straight for his throat.
"Do not move, Nard," Beru's voice whispered in his mind. The small, scarred bird was perched on a branch outside the glasshouse, his amber eyes watching through the window. "This is your test. If you use conventional magic, Tere will detect the mana fluctuation through the warding stones. Use the Silent Cast. Cut them through the void."
Nard took a deep breath of the poisoned air. He didn't let the toxic spores enter his lungs; instead, he created a localized vacuum around his mouth and nose, soundlessly filtering the air before it touched his throat.
Then, he held out his right hand.
With absolute focus, Nard pulled the ambient energy inward, forming a pocket of nothingness around his palm. Inside the vacuum, he spun a thread of his destructive white-hot light, shaping it into four razor-thin, spinning discs of pure mana. There was no sound, no spark, and no fluctuation of energy in the humid glasshouse.
The thorny vines lunged, inches from his face.
Nard flicked his wrist. The vacuum dissolved, and the four discs of silent, compressed light shot forward like crescent blades.
*Swish!*
The silent blades sliced through the thick, thorny vines with surgical precision. The severed weeds fell to the ground, instantly blackening as Nard's light disrupted their internal structure. Not a single trace of mana leaked into the glasshouse's warding stones. To anyone watching from the outside, the vines simply fell apart as if they had suddenly withered on their own.
Outside the glass, Ralph's jaw dropped. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, muttering, "What... what happened? Why did they just die?"
Tere's cold violet eyes narrowed. She stepped closer to the glass, her passive perception straining to find any ripple of magic. But the air was completely still. There was absolutely nothing. Nard stood there, appearing to tremble in fear, clutching a pair of ordinary rusty shears, looking as if he had just miraculously dodged a falling branch.
"He... he didn't use magic," Ralph whispered, his voice laced with frustration. "He's just lucky! The weed must have withered!"
Tere did not answer. Her hand tightened against the cold iron of the door handle. She knew something was wrong, but the absolute lack of any magical signature left her completely blind.
Inside, Nard slowly bent down, pretending to prune the dead stems with his shears. Behind his slumped shoulders, his lips curved into a cold, terrifying smile.
The snare had failed. The venom of the Zaqors could no longer touch him. And in the silence of the void, the weaver's web was growing wider.