The evaluation chamber is small.

  Windowless.

  Bare.

  A black stone table stands in the center.

  Always clean.

  Because nothing enters here that is not strictly necessary.

  Gaheris is already standing there, hands folded behind his back.

  The Chain cloak falls without a wrinkle.

  He has not sat down.

  He does not need to.

  The sensomancer waits in the corner.

  Young.

  Pale.

  Eyes still unsteady.

  I enter without announcement.

  They already know.

  Gaheris is the first to speak.

  「Telmira’s report is as follows: No survivors. No bodies. No blood. Damn woman is always the same. She could stand to use more than one sentence.」

  「Nothing?」

  「Nothing recognizable as human.」

  I turn to the sensomancer.

  「And on the energetic side?」

  He swallows.

  「There was no explosion. Not in the technical sense.」

  「Then what was there?」

  「A void.」

  I say nothing.

  He draws a deeper breath, as if recalling it costs him energy.

  「The mana was not released. It was… swallowed. As if the flow collapsed inward. There was no environmental resonance. No rebound. No echo.」

  「Magical containment?」

  「No, my lord. There was no barrier. No ritual. It is… as if something absorbed the entire field accidentally.」

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  Gaheris places something on the table.

  A curved fragment.

  Black.

  Almost organic.

  The overhead lightstone shivers as it touches the surface.

  Spelarita.

  Or what is left of it.

  It is warped.

  Not broken.

  Not scorched.

  Simply… undone.

  「From Link Ten’s weapon. It was the only piece they found that hadn’t completely disintegrated.」

  I say nothing.

  I step up to the edge of the table.

  Touch the shard with two fingers.

  It does not vibrate.

  Does not pulse.

  It feels as if its core has simply given up.

  「This wasn’t a disruption,」 I murmur.

  「This was a discharge with no catalyst. A synchronization with no stabilizer—either failed… or perfect, but blind.」

  Gaheris does not comment.

  The sensomancer barely breathes.

  「Location.」

  「Outer ring. Three kilometers from the Training Tower. On the slope.」

  Far, yes…

  but not so far that no one should have noticed.

  And yet, there are no witnesses on record.

  Only a mark in the earth.

  And a silence that swallowed five men without making a sound.

  「Presence of the heir confirmed?」

  Gaheris nods.

  「There were traces. Residual energy matching her signature. Very faint, but genuine.」

  He brings his right hand to where his left arm should be.

  So she is alive.

  Or was, in the moments after impact.

  「You may both withdraw.」

  Gaheris inclines his head.

  The sensomancer almost stumbles in his hurry to leave.

  When they are gone, I look again at the twisted Spelarita shard.

  I recall certain old texts.

  Reports sealed in the lower archive vault.

  Records of exceptional aptitude for channeling, limited to specific bloodlines.

  Not from training.

  From inheritance.

  A clean disappearance.

  No blood.

  Almost no residual mana.

  And a piece of armament that returns… deformed.

  I allow myself the faintest of smiles.

  「An interesting move.」