The girl's breath hitched as the paralysis took full effect—her limbs grew heavy, her skin paled beneath the glamour spell, and her pupils dilated wide from a combination of fear and mana backlash. Her body was trying, and failing, to purge the toxic cocktail Martin had tailored with the same attention to detail he gave his spells: efficient, layered, inescapable.
"F-family," she rasped, her voice strained, like she was speaking through sand.
Martin's eyes narrowed. "Which one?"
She blinked. No answer came.
With an annoyed sigh, Martin placed a fingertip on her forehead, just above the brow. A thin stream of his Animus flowed into her—a tendril of awareness shaped like a needle, slipping into the pathways of her mind. The Animus didn't invade the way brute mental magic did. No, it mapped, interpreted, slid across her thoughts like frost over glass. Truth shimmered beneath.
"Which one?" he repeated, voice like stone.
"…House… Vercyne…"
Martin frowned. That name didn't immediately ring any bells, and that was rare. He knew most of the power players in the Marlo Kingdom—the old-money Houses, the upstarts, the industrial splicers, the black-market alchemists with family crests. But this one? Nothing.
Which meant they were either very new, or very good at staying beneath the notice of people like him.
"Never heard of them," Martin muttered.
The girl was going glassy-eyed. Mana shock combined with the Animus strain was causing her to slip into unconsciousness. Martin clicked his tongue, dispelled his illusion ward with a flick, and tossed her limp form into his room like a sack of undercooked meat. She landed with a thump.
"Don't pass out, you idiot," he said, more annoyed than angry.
He sent a stabilizing pulse of Animus to shock her system back into semi-awareness, then bound her in place with a spell—limbs suspended a few inches off the floor, held in tight invisible threads. Once stable, he delivered a sharp slap to her cheek.
"Explain. Who is this group of idiots?"
"They're… minor nobility," she said weakly. "Sub-house under House Calseras. Little territory, no prestige…"
Martin raised a brow. "Calseras I've heard of. Old warhorse lineage. Blood-soaked tradition and all that. Makes sense they'd have parasites orbiting them."
The girl winced. "Vercyne was given land five years ago after a border skirmish. They've been expanding since."
Martin tilted his head slightly. "So they're new upstarts. But why target me? I haven't even made political waves yet."
"They… wanted to cut problems before they flower."
Martin let out a short laugh. "What am I, a weed?"
The girl didn't answer. She didn't need to.
"Petty nobles trying to climb the ladder through assassination and coercion," Martin muttered. "What's next, bribing invigilators with fruit baskets?"
"They're… trying to form a silent faction," she added, eyes downcast. "From independent students. I don't know the full goal, but they're recruiting discreetly. Offering resources, protection, backing. A fallback family for those without one."
Martin exhaled. That was a clever move. Independent students were dangerous, but also volatile. Offering them support and direction—especially the kind that didn't come with institutional strings—could build a loyal army. Or at least a deniable one.
"Anything else?"
She hesitated. "No."
"Then next question." Martin leaned forward. "Why send you? You don't exactly scream 'assassin.' Just a glamour, some light pheromones, and diluted venom? Amateur hour."
"I was told… to bring proof of strength," she whispered. "That if I could handle you, they'd grant me a research grant. If not… then they'd learn your limits."
"So I was bait. An experiment."
"Yes."
Martin's expression didn't shift, but his mana spiked faintly—causing the air to buzz and the girl's suspended body to tremble.
"Funny how quiet things get right before they turn to fire," he muttered. "Tell House Vercyne this: if they try again, I'll file a formal challenge. I don't need an excuse."
The girl blinked slowly. "You… won't kill me?"
"You're not worth it," Martin replied coolly, already lowering the spell bindings. "I've had morning cramps that put up more of a fight."
The bindings unwrapped. She slumped to the floor, gasping softly, but didn't dare move yet.
"Now go," Martin said, turning his back to her. "Before I change my mind and use you to test a new curse recipe I've been working on."
She left silently. No glare. No threat. Just a ghost slipping through the door and into the stone halls of Varncrest, heart racing and soul shaken.
As the door clicked shut, Martin leaned back against the wall and exhaled, the tension bleeding out of his limbs. His room, lined with alchemical clutter and scrawled spell diagrams, suddenly felt too quiet.
A silent faction. Independent students. Someone's stacking pieces on the board.
That was the part that annoyed him.
Not because he didn't understand chess.
But because he was terrible at it.
Martin didn't like games that required patience, or subtlety, or the ability to care about losing pieces. His strategy was simpler: flip the board, set it on fire, and walk away while everyone argued about the rules.
Still… House Vercyne wasn't the first to try something like this. There were always shadow moves beneath Varncrest's shifting towers. Factions rose and fell, masks got swapped, alliances traded like rare spell ingredients.
But this time, he was involved. And that changed the game.
Martin's smile curled into something sharp.
"If Vercyne wants to test the waters," he murmured, opening a drawer and pulling out a vial filled with glowing green fluid, "then I'll just fill the pond with poison."
He held the vial up to the light. The liquid shimmered like bottled moonlight and nightmares.
"Let's see how many fish they lose before they notice the stench."