Tension hung thick in the corridors of House Smith. Whispers slithered along the cold stone walls like snakes, soft and venomous. Servants lowered their gazes. Footsteps slowed when he passed.
Logan.
"He shattered Darius's ribs with a palm strike."
"At nine years old? Without mana?"
"No elemental affinity… no access to magic… then how?"
"Is he even human?"
And as always, fear gave birth to stories.
"Maybe it's a cursed bloodline. Some forbidden technique. Or worse—he could be practicing black magic."
[Black mages are sinners. They worship demons and wield wicked spells. Some are Seers, able to glimpse fragments of the future. They don't draw from mana. They use curses, wrath, souls, and blood.]
Logan walked these halls in silence. His eyes calm, shoulders relaxed. He had known whispers before—ones laced with mockery or indifference. But these… these were different.
These were laced with fear.
He had become a contradiction. A boy with no known magic, no political favor, no noble mother's bloodline. And yet, the same boy had struck down Darius Smith—heir of the house, favored son, tri-elemental prodigy.
Not with tricks. Not by accident. But with terrifying control.
No one dared say it aloud, but they all felt it:
The balance of power had shifted.
Lord Rudeous's Study – That Afternoon
The fire crackled softly. Outside, snow blanketed the world in white. Inside, tension simmered.
Abraham stood rigid, fingers trembling as he spoke.
"This… isn't natural," the court mage said. "My lord, please listen."
Rudeous remained silent, staring out the tall window toward the frost-draped gardens.
Abraham paced. "A boy with a sealed core shouldn't be able to do this. No magical enhancements. No spells. And yet—he shattered reinforced bones. That's not talent. It's something else."
Rudeous finally spoke, voice flat. "Such as?"
"There are ancient whispers," Abraham said urgently. "Lost arts, heretical cultivation, powers untouched by modern arcana. He might be—"
"He might be my son," Rudeous interrupted calmly. "And he won a duel. One that Darius demanded."
"But he held back!" Abraham insisted. "He struck clean. Controlled. He didn't miss. That's not instinct. That's experience. Battle-worn, lethal experience."
Rudeous turned now, his expression unreadable. "You think he's a threat."
"I think he could become one. And even if he means no harm… others won't see it that way. The capital. The Stevens family. What happens when they learn a boy with a sealed core broke their heir in a duel?"
Rudeous stared long and hard at the fire, Logan's expression still lingering in his thoughts—calm, quiet, without ego.
"I'll handle it," he said at last.
Mirena's Quarters – That Night
The flames danced in the hearth, casting tall shadows against the crimson drapes.
Mirena stood before them, fury in every breath. In the next room, Darius lay swathed in bandages. Silent. Humbled.
"How could Rudeous dismiss this?" she hissed. "A public humiliation, brushed off like a scuffle in a nursery!"
Adlan, her cousin, watched from the side. "You need to move carefully. If you push too hard—"
She cut him off. "Do you think they'll forget what happened? That nobles and guards alike watched my son bleed before a child? My son—the heir—defeated by a half-blood with no magic!"
Adlan frowned. "So what do you intend?"
Mirena turned, crossing the room in swift strides. She unlocked a drawer and withdrew a pendant—an iron charm etched with red runes that pulsed faintly in the firelight.
Adlan's eyes widened. "That's a Veiled Circle relic… You promised never to use—"
"I know what I promised," she said coldly. "But promises are for safe times. This is war."
"There are eyes everywhere, Mirena. If someone learns you've kept contact with the Circle—"
"They won't," she snapped. "There's a man in the lower district. A 'healer'—so they say. But he owes us. He served the Circle before going into hiding."
"You want him to kill the boy?"
"No." Her smile was thin, dangerous. "I want him to test him. Agitate him. See what Logan really is. And if the child dies in the process?"
She paused, then said softly, "Then we call it what it is—an accident. An unstable child with an unnatural condition. It won't be questioned."
Adlan hesitated. "And if Logan survives?"
"Then we'll know for certain," she murmured, "what kind of monster we're dealing with."
Logan's Chambers – Later That Night
Moonlight spilled in slanted lines across the floor.
Logan sat cross-legged beneath the frosted window, shirtless, breath fogging in the cold. The night wrapped around him like a shroud, but he was still. Steady. A silent flame in winter.
He sank into meditation, guiding his Qi with practiced ease. The Void Soul Sutra flowed through him like a silver river—unseen, but powerful.
He recalled the duel.
The power he'd shown. The gasps. The silence afterward.
"I should've held back more," he whispered.
But he hadn't. Because Darius wouldn't have stopped until someone bled. He knew that. And Logan refused to be the one left bleeding.
Even so, the consequences were unfolding fast. Servants hesitated near his door. Alice watched him with worry—not for herself, but for him.
Because she knew what it meant to be feared.
And Logan…
Logan felt it too.
A presence. A watching.
He opened his eyes.
"I'm being watched," he muttered under his breath.
His instincts—honed in another life—were never wrong.
Outer Courtyard – Few Nights Later
Snow blanketed the world in silence. Not peace. Just quiet. The kind that buried secrets and softened screams.
A hunched figure crept through the outer courtyard, wrapped in woolen layers. A satchel hung at his side, clinking with tools and bottles.
He walked slowly, every step deliberate.
Then he stopped beneath a dark tree at the edge of the estate.
His eyes scanned the shadows.
A voice came, quiet and smooth from the black beyond the hedges.
"I am here."
To be continued…