The basement was a cathedral of silence, broken only by the rhythmic, taunting snip-snip of the red-haired woman's serrated blade.
Tristan remained tied to the post, his weight pulling at his shoulders until the joints felt like they were being slowly unseated.
His face was a mask of dried blood and grime, his silver hair matted and dull.
"You're quite the stoic, aren't you?" the woman asked, circling him like a shark in shallow water. "I've asked you sixteen questions, Tristan. Who sent you to the garden? What is the 'Eschaton'? How does a man with one circle of mana manifest a conceptual blade? And my personal favorite: what did Leonardo da Vinci—sorry, Mordecai—leave behind for his successor?"
Tristan didn't blink. He didn't even grunt.
He kept his gaze fixed on a crack in the stone floor. He knew that any word he spoke was a thread she could pull to unravel him. Silence was his only armor.
The woman sighed, a sound of genuine disappointment.
She leaned in, her fiery red hair brushing against his ear. "I admire the dedication, truly. But everyone talks eventually. It's just a matter of finding the right volume of scream."
The Vane Estate – Alaric's Study
The atmosphere in Alaric Vane's study was thick with the scent of anxiety and expensive tobacco.
Sylvara stood by the window, her silhouette sharp against the moonlight, her hand white-knuckled around the hilt of her staff.
Selene was seated on the edge of a chair, her eyes red-rimmed, while Garrick—his shoulder heavily bandaged and his face pale—leaned against a bookshelf for support.
Alaric was pacing, his usual whimsical demeanor replaced by a sharp, academic focus. He had maps spread across his desk, weighted down by heavy brass instruments.
"Think, Alaric!" Sylvara's voice was a whip-crack. "Who has the resources to abduct a Silverbrook from the heart of the capital? This wasn't a street gang. These were professionals. They bypassed the Night Watch wards and utilized a Shadow-blink escape through the sewers."
Alaric stopped pacing and looked at them, his spectacles reflecting the lamplight. "You are looking for a grudge, Sylvara. A personal enemy. But Tristan doesn't have personal enemies—he hasn't been in this world long enough to make any."
"Finnegan?" Selene suggested, her voice hopeful for a simple answer.
"No," Alaric shook his head. "Finnegan is a petulant child, but he lacks the tactical depth for this. No, this smells of geopolitics. Valdoria has been the dominant arcane power for three centuries because of our control over the mana-veins. But our neighbors, the Empire of Solmere, have been starving. They've been watching our borders. They know the legends as well as we do."
Garrick growled, a low sound in his chest. "Spies? You think Solmere sent a hit squad for the kid?"
"Why not?" Alaric countered. "If a Silverbrook appears, the status quo changes. Either they want him to save their empire from the coming Breach, or they want to make sure he never saves ours. If he's in the hands of Solmere's 'Shadow-Hand' operatives, they won't kill him. They'll bleed him for every secret the Silverbrook line possesses."
Sylvara turned, her eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity. "Where would they take him? They can't leave the city—the gates are locked down."
"If anyone knows which warehouses or vaults have been leased out to 'foreign interests' under the table, it's my brother," Alaric said, his expression turning grim.
"Benedict Vane. He's the Master of Imports and Exports. He's the one who controls the flow of coin and goods in the capital. If there's a rat in the cellar, Benedict knows which hole it's hiding in."
Sylvara didn't wait. She headed for the door, her cloak billowing like a storm cloud. "Then we pay Benedict a visit. If he's hiding anything, I'll burn the truth out of him."
The Basement – Two Hours Later
Tristan was no longer tied to the post.
He was sitting on a heavy wooden chair, his hands bound behind his back, positioned in front of a small, rickety table.
A single plate sat before him—a hunk of stale, grey bread and a bowl of watery cabbage soup that smelled of old dishwater.
The room was filled with men now. There were six of them, all large, scarred, and wearing the utilitarian leather of high-end mercenaries.
They stood in the shadows, their eyes fixed on Tristan with a mix of boredom and casual cruelty.
The red-haired woman stood by the table, her arms crossed. She looked at the untouched food, then at Tristan.
"Eat," she commanded. "I don't want you fainting before the next session. We're moving on to the fingers soon, and I need you conscious for that."
Tristan stared at the bread. His stomach was a hollow pit of acid, and his 10 IQ Durability meant his body was rapidly reaching its breaking point. But he didn't move. He didn't acknowledge her.
"The Pretty Boy is being stubborn," one of the mercenaries mocked, a massive man with a broken nose and breath that smelled of sour ale.
He stepped forward, the floorboards groaning under his weight. "Maybe he's used to being fed by hand? Is that how the Princess does it, Silverbrook?"
The other men laughed, a coarse, ugly sound that echoed in the vaulted ceiling.
"I said eat," the woman repeated, her voice turning cold.
Tristan remained a statue.
The large mercenary let out a snort of derision. "He needs a lesson in manners." Before Tristan could react, the man reached out with a hand the size of a dinner plate, gripping the back of Tristan's neck.
With a sudden, violent surge of strength, he slammed Tristan's face down into the table.
CRACK.
Tristan's forehead hit the wood, and his face was buried into the stale hunk of bread. The rough crust scraped against his nose and lips, and the impact sent a fresh wave of dizziness through his skull.
The mercenaries roared with laughter. "Look at him! The Savior of Valdoria, face-first in the dirt!"
The large man held him there, his fingers digging into the back of Tristan's skull, grinding his face into the table.
Tristan felt the humiliation burning in his chest—a heat that was more intense than the pain.
He was being treated like a dog. Like a joke. He was Archimedes, Da Vinci, and Genghis Khan's successor, and he was being muffled by a piece of stale bread.
I can't... I can't do this, he thought, his 100 IQ spiraling into a dark, desperate place. I'm too weak. I'm going to die here as a joke. The System... the System lied to me. I'm just a gooner in a pretty suit.
Suddenly, the world went silent. The laughter of the mercenaries seemed to slow down, the sound stretching out into a low, distorted hum.
A sharp, crystalline ping echoed in the center of his brain. It was louder than any notification he had ever heard, a sound that felt like a bell made of pure mana.
[ EMERGENCY PROTOCOL DETECTED: USER SURVIVAL AT 5% ]
[ HIDDEN CONDITION MET: THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD ]
[ NEW ABILITY UNLOCKED: HEAVENLY FLOW ]
Tristan's eyes went wide beneath the surface of the table. A flood of text scrolled across his vision in a blinding, golden font.
[ HEAVENLY FLOW: A technique of the Ancient Silverbrooks. By forcing the soul to over-synchronize with the physical vessel, the user can ignore the limitations of their current Circle. ]
[ EFFECT: Multiplies all Physical Stats (STRENGTH & DURABILITY) by 10. ]
[ DURATION: 5 MINUTES. ]
[ WARNING: HEAVENLY FLOW PLACES A CATASTROPHIC BURDEN ON THE BODY. TOTAL COLLAPSE OR PERMANENT DAMAGE IS LIKELY UPON TERMINATION. ]
Tristan felt it then. Deep in the core of his being, a spark of white-hot light ignited. It wasn't the thin, flickering mana of a 1st Circle mage. It was something older. Something terrifying.
"My turn," Tristan whispered, and for the first time, his voice carried the weight of a god.
[ HEAVENLY FLOW: ACTIVE ]
[ 04:59 REMAINING ]
[ CHAPTER END ]