Chapter 13: Pruning

Chapter 13: Chapter 13: Pruning

Jason pushed the door open with his shoulder, arms still full of bags, and stepped into the quiet of the house. The hush inside was different from the comfortable stillness he was trying to get used to, this one had weight to it,pressing against his ears the moment he crossed the threshold.

Novaria sat where he’d left her that morning, wheelchair angled toward the television, her back to the door. The screen flickered through the day’s Gate listings, standard programming, the kind that scrolled newly opened Gates by region and threat rank in a flat, automated voice, utterly unremarkable.

The background noise that played in half the households in Mordania and commanded no one’s real attention. And yet she hadn’t moved, hadn’t so much as reached for the remote to change the channel, in what looked like a long while.

Jason set the bags down by the kitchen counter as quietly as he could manage, the glass vials of spirit spring water clinking faintly despite his care, and crossed the room toward her.

Even without the blessing of the syst returning his perception enhancing talent. Something in the set of her shoulders gave it away plainly enough. The rigid line of her back.

The stillness of her hands, folded too neatly in her lap, like she’d arranged them that way on purpose to keep them from shaking.

’She’s not watching that. She’s not watching anything.’ He came to a stop beside her chair, close enough that his shadow fell across the armrest, and said nothing. Waited. He’d learned that much about her already, that pushing for an answer before she was ready to give one only made her retreat further behind whatever wall she was building.

The silence stretched. On the screen, a monotone announcer read off coordinates for a newly manifested D-Rank Gate somewhere in the northern district, recommending Hunters of appropriate rank report for clearance duty. Novaria’s eyes didn’t track any of it.

She spoke first, her voice even, controlled in the particular way that meant it was costing her something to keep it that way. "The Gate that hound escaped from." A pause, just long enough for Jason to register the tightness underneath the calm. "It was ours. Agnello territory. Ours to seal, ours to maintain." Her fingers pressed briefly into the fabric of her sleeve, then released. "Ours to answer for."

Jason said nothing, letting her get to it in her own time. He shifted his weight slightly, leaning against the side table near her chair, close but not crowding her.

"Normally a government representative retrieves the core crystal when something like that happens. Negligence gets logged, fines get issued, it becomes a matter of public record, a black mark that follows the clan’s name for years."

Her mouth twisted, not quite a smile, more like the ghost of one that had long since curdled into something bitter. "But my family’s reach is a little too long for that kind of accountability. A few calls, a few favors owed to the right people in the right offices, and the whole thing disappears before it ever reaches a desk that matters.

No public record. No black mark. Just a quiet little butler slipping in and out, and by tomorrow it’ll be as though that Gate never breached containment at all."

’So that’s what he was doing here.’ Jason’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. ’Not even pretending to check up on her. Cleaning up after themselves, making sure their negligence never had to cost them anything.’

He thought of the hound’s claw freshly healed beneath the skin of his own thigh, of the seizure medication he’d had to administer with shaking hands in the middle of the night, and said nothing of it. Now wasn’t the moment for his own grievances.

Novaria finally turned her head toward him, and now she looked at him directly, something brittle sitting just behind her eyes, not quite tears, but close enough to the surface that he could tell she was holding them there through sheer will.

"That wasn’t all he came to say." Her hands curled slightly tighter in her lap, knuckles pale. "The Agnello family is cutting ties with me. Officially, this time." A short, humorless breath escaped her, more exhale than laugh. "Unofficially, they’d already done it the moment they signed me over in that marriage contract.

Everyone in that house made that much clear without ever having to say it outright. This was just," she gestured vaguely toward the door, toward the space where the butler had stood, "the paperwork.

Making it permanent. Making sure there’s no ambiguity left for anyone to exploit later. No inheritance claim. No family obligation.

Nothing left connecting my name to theirs, in case my condition ever becomes inconvenient enough to matter to someone with a long memory."

Her voice didn’t break, but it thinned at the edges, worn down by the effort of keeping it steady. Jason watched her carefully, cataloguing the small things, the way her thumb pressed hard enough against her palm to leave a mark, the way she kept her gaze fixed somewhere just past his shoulder instead of meeting his eyes fully.

Something low and quiet settled in his chest, the same simmering thing he’d felt watching the man walk past him on the front steps without so much as a flicker of acknowledgment, as though Jason were beneath even the effort of contempt. He tucked the feeling away rather than let it show. She didn’t need his anger stacked on top of her own right now.

Novaria studied his face for a moment, as if gauging something in his silence, some measure of whether he could be trusted with what came next. Then she asked, quieter than before, "Have you ever heard the full story? How I actually ended up like this?"

Jason shook his head slowly. He’d heard fragments over the years, the way anyone in their circles eventually did, a misclassified Gate, paralysis, meridian damage, the scattered pieces that got passed around in hushed tones at gatherings neither of them had particularly wanted to attend. But never the whole of it, stitched together in order, and never once from her own mouth.

He said nothing, only settled more fully into the space beside her chair, giving her whatever time and silence she needed, and waited for her to speak.