"Madam Noelle , the latest report from the Veldryn estate has arrived."
The woman seated behind the mahogany desk continued reading the document in her hands.
"Put it there."
Her assistant placed the report beside the others. He hesitated for a moment before adding, "It concerns General Judith Veldryn."
The matriarch finally looked up.
"Is she finally dead?" A glint of satisfaction flickered across her face.
"Quite the opposite, madam. General Judith has made a complete recovery."
The pen in her hand stopped moving.
"...What?"
"The Soul-Anchor Curse has reportedly been removed. The healers who attended her were unable to accomplish anything, but an unknown healer managed to cure her completely."
The woman slowly set down her pen.
"An unknown healer?"
"Yes, madam. Our informants have identified the individual by a peculiar title. The One-Silver Healer."
She stared at her assistant.
"The One-Silver Healer?"
"Yes. Apparently, this healer provides treatment for a single silver coin, regardless of the severity of the injury."
For several seconds, the room was silent.
Then the matriarch swept the glass from her desk.
It shattered against the marble floor.
"Damn that family!"
Her assistant lowered his head and remained still.
The matriarch rose from her chair, her expression darkening.
"Of course. Of course Judith would recover now. Just when those vultures were looking for another opportunity to expand their influence."
She paced toward the window overlooking the Garsion estate.
House Veldryn.
The name had been a source of irritation for years.
They controlled a considerable portion of the empire's weapons manufacturing industry. Their factories supplied weapons and military equipment, while their reserve forces and connections to the royal household gave them influence that few noble families could challenge.
They were already powerful enough to shape military policy.
Yet they continued reaching into industries beyond their traditional domain.
Some years ago, their attention had turned toward mana extraction and the factories that supplied essential materials to potion manufacturers and the Healer Guild.
More specifically, they had been looking at Garsion property.
And now Judith Veldryn, one of the family's most influential military figures, had recovered from a curse that the finest healers had failed to treat.
The matriarch pressed her fingers against the window frame.
"If this healer is as capable as the reports claim, Veldryn will do everything in its power to secure their services."
"Do you believe the healer will join the family, madam?"
"I don't know. But I know the Veldryns."
Her voice sharpened.
"They don't like leaving valuable things in someone else's hands."
She turned back toward her assistant.
"Find out everything about this healer. Her identity, her movements, her companions, and the towns she has visited. I want a complete report."
"Yes, madam."
"And keep the investigation discreet."
The assistant bowed, but before she could leave, the matriarch spoke again.
"Tell me something. Do we still have any reliable information about the route the Veldryn family has been taking to expand its influence?"
"Yes, madam. Their interest in our mana extraction facilities has not diminished."
A bitter smile appeared on her face.
"Of course it hasn't."
She returned to her chair.
"Then perhaps this little miracle has arrived at a rather interesting time."
---
The Noelle hostility toward House Veldryn was not merely the ordinary resentment of one powerful family toward another.
It had a history.
Several years earlier, the Garsion family had possessed a valuable mana extraction factory that processed monster cores into materials used throughout the empire. Its production supplied potion manufacturers and other businesses, while its commercial relationships with the Adventurers' Guild provided a steady flow of raw materials.
The factory had been one of the family's most important assets.
Then her daughter committed a crime that brought the entire household under investigation.
After drinking excessively, the young woman had entered the servants' quarters and sexually assaulted a boy employed by the household.
The family initially attempted to suppress the matter.
The boy's mother was offered a substantial payment. The Garsions assumed that the money would persuade her to remain silent and that the household's influence would discourage further complaints.
But the boy later died by suicide, leaving behind a note describing what had happened to him. The matter would have been suppressed if not for the suicide note left by the boy.
The investigation attracted widespread attention, and under pressure, the empire decided to investigate the matter to appease the people. The police began questioning servants and stopped the family's attempts to contain the scandal.
The officer who took charge was Edwina Veldryn, Helena's youngest sister and the chief of the imperial police.
She was experienced, politically astute, and entirely familiar with the ways powerful households attempted to protect themselves.
Edwina did not need to invent evidence or manufacture an accusation. The case already contained enough damaging material to threaten the Garsions.
Instead, she made certain the investigation proceeded without giving the family an easy way to bury it.
Witnesses were questioned. Payments were traced. Attempts to silence the boy's mother became part of the evidence rather than a solution to the problem.
Eventually, the Garsion daughter was arrested.
The scandal threatened to spread beyond the immediate crime. Commercial partners began reconsidering their relationships with the family, while rivals seized the opportunity to question whether Garsion could be trusted.
This was all a trap, after all—Edwina had under the table threatened to make matters worse.
The Garsions wanted to contain the damage. Veldryn wanted something the Garsions possessed.
A valuable mana extraction factory changed hands as part of the settlement.
Officially, it was a commercial transaction connected to the resolution of the dispute. In practice, it was a crushing price to pay at the very moment the family was most vulnerable.
The Garsions lost an important industrial asset.
Veldryn gained a foothold in an industry it had long wanted to enter.
The immediate scandal eventually subsided under Edwina's leadership, and the Garsion family received a clean chit.
However, Noelle, the matriarch, had never forgotten the humiliation.
Nor had she forgotten the role Edwina played in it.
"Edwina Veldryn," she muttered. "That woman never wastes an opportunity."
Her assistant, who had heard the story many times, remained silent.
---
The factory was only one part of the reason the scandal had become so explosive.
The deeper problem lay in the society that had made such crimes possible in the first place.
In this world, boys were rare, and their rarity had given them a peculiar place in human society.
They were treasured, protected, and frequently treated as symbols of family prestige. A household fortunate enough to have a son might devote extraordinary resources to his upbringing.
But the privileges associated with being male often concealed a cruel contradiction.
Boys were valued without necessarily being respected.
Their rarity made them desirable, but it also encouraged people to regard them as possessions.
In wealthy households, a boy might find himself surrounded by servants and guardians, with every aspect of his life carefully managed. His safety could become an excuse to restrict his movements. His future could be decided by relatives who believed they understood his needs better than he did.
In poorer households, the situation was often far worse.
A family struggling to survive might accept money in exchange for sending its son to work for a wealthy patron. Some arrangements provided legitimate employment, education, and security. Others concealed coercion behind contracts that the boy had little ability to refuse.
A desperate mother might believe she was securing her son's future, only to discover that the agreement placed him beyond her protection.
Some households treated boys as domestic servants whose objections could be dismissed as ingratitude. Others exploited their economic dependence, forcing them into arrangements that deprived them of meaningful control over their own lives.
There were also establishments that effectively rented boys to wealthy women for private companionship, treating access to another person's child as a purchasable privilege.
The language used to justify these practices varied.
The imbalance of power did not.
A noblewoman could invoke a contract, a guardian's permission, or the supposed protection of a boy's interests. A poor boy could struggle even to make his own account of what happened to him heard.
And the consequences extended beyond individual incidents.
Boys who grew up in such conditions often learned to fear confrontation. Some were taught that refusing a woman's wishes was ungrateful or dangerous. Others were repeatedly told that they were too fragile to make decisions for themselves.
Over time, the distinction between protection and control became blurred.
A boy who was constantly told that he needed others to decide for him might eventually struggle to recognize that he had the right to refuse.
A boy who was punished for speaking about abuse might learn to remain silent.
And a boy who had no trustworthy person to turn to might come to believe that his suffering was simply the price of being born male.
Not every household behaved this way. Many women genuinely protected the boys in their care, and some devoted their lives to ensuring that young males could grow up safely.
But good intentions could not erase the power imbalance, particularly when money and status allowed wealthy offenders to avoid consequences.
The resulting tragedies became increasingly difficult to ignore.
Reports emerged of boys fleeing abusive households, disappearing from their communities, or harming themselves after prolonged mistreatment. Some cases were concealed by families concerned about their reputations. Others were dismissed as private misfortunes.
As the number of boys continued to dwindle, public pressure eventually forced the empire to introduce stricter laws.
Assaults against boys became serious criminal offenses. Killing a male attracted particularly severe scrutiny, and the authorities were expected to investigate such deaths closely.
The reforms were an acknowledgment that the existing system had failed.
Yet the law did not instantly change society.
A poor family could still struggle to obtain an investigation. A wealthy household could still intimidate witnesses, hire influential advocates, and delay proceedings. Some perpetrators exploited legal distinctions between assault, guardianship, debt, and domestic service to disguise coercive arrangements.
The law could punish an offender when the evidence was established.
It could not guarantee that every victim would be believed.
Nor could it prevent people from using the language of protection to justify control.
That was why the Garsion scandal had become so damaging.
Edwina had recognized the significance of that evidence.
She had also understood what the case could mean for House Garsion's political and commercial position.
The matriarch's anger did not arise from a belief that her daughter had done nothing wrong.
She knew what had happened.
She knew the boy had died.
What she could not forgive was the way her family's disgrace had become an opportunity for its rival to acquire an important piece of its industry.
The two facts existed together, and neither erased the other.
---
"Matriarch, why can't we just ignore this matter? Why must we investigate?"
Noelle took a fresh sheet of paper.
"There are many noble families currently holding major power, excluding the royal family."
She drew three small marks on the paper.
"House Veldryn has military strength. House Laimna controls much of the empire's financial sector. We control a substantial part of the monster-core extraction industry and maintain important commercial ties with the Adventurers' Guild."
She drew three small marks on the paper.
"Each of us has a different foundation of power. None of us can afford to ignore the others."
The assistant nodded.
"And this healer?"
"Could become an asset. Could become a threat. Or could become the source of an opportunity."
She set down her pen.
"I want to know where the healer is actually heading. Find out which towns she has visited, what the local authorities know, and whether the Healer Guild has already made contact."
"Should we approach the healer?"
"Not yet."
The matriarch's gaze hardened.
"If Veldryn intends to secure the healer, I want to understand its plan before we interfere. Acting too early would reveal our interest without giving us any advantage."
She glanced toward the window.
"Let them believe they are the only ones paying attention."
Her assistant bowed.
"And if the reports prove accurate?"
"Then we will have to decide what this healer is worth—and what we are willing to do about it."
She paused.
"Do not approach the healer without my permission. I will not have some overeager subordinate turning an investigation into another scandal."
"Yes, madam."
When the assistant had left, the matriarch remained seated for a long time.
The One-Silver Healer.
Someone capable of accomplishing what the finest healers could not, yet apparently willing to offer treatment for a single silver coin.
If the reports were true, the healer's existence could disrupt established interests far beyond the Veldryn family.
The Healer Guild would want answers.
Veldryn would want access.
Other noble houses would begin calculating the advantages of securing such an individual.
And somewhere along the road, the healer might still believe that helping people was a simple matter of seeing someone in need and offering a hand.
The matriarch almost envied that innocence.
Almost.
"Let the Veldryns celebrate their general's recovery," she murmured.
Her gaze shifted toward the map of the empire.
"For now, we will watch."
A faint smile appeared on her face.
"And when the time comes, we will decide whether to help them, hinder them, or make them regret believing they have the situation under control."
Far away, Arin continued his journey toward Aldenmoor, unaware that the news of a single miraculous healing had already reached another powerful household.
He had saved Judith Veldryn's life.
He had not intended to become a piece in the struggle between noble families.
But in a world where power determined who could command, who could heal, and who could choose their own future, even a simple act of mercy could attract the attention of people who saw opportunity where others saw only a miracle.