The chair still held the warmth of your body when you stood up. The discreet sound of the cutlery being placed on the table seemed almost too civilized for the tension that, for minutes, had been crushing the room with enough weight to stifle any words.

“Excuse me.”

You turned without hesitation.

Nozel didn't question you. He didn't stop you. Nor did he immediately follow you—although something in his expression darkened the instant you turned away. You crossed the vast dining room with measured steps, feeling everyone's gaze upon you like invisible blades. The place was spacious, impeccable, excessively refined, and every detail seemed to reinforce the cold grandeur of the Silva house. All that nobility meant nothing.

Your presence receded from Nozel's reach. And, when he turned his gaze back to the table, his two violet orbs were already fixed on the siblings in front of him: Solid and Nebra.

He didn't even get to look at Noelle for very long.

For the first time, that girl wasn't the target of his anger.

“Are you two finished?” — Nozel's voice came low, controlled, icy. That characteristic tone that didn't need to rise to dominate the room.

Solid and Nebra exchanged glances before letting out a short, barely disguised laugh.

“If she can't stand to hear it…” — Solid began, in a tone of disdain disguised as playful contempt.

But the rest of the sentence died before it was born.

A thin blade of mercury emerged with almost silent precision and pressed against his cheek, firm enough to silence him without breaking the skin. There was no hurry in that gesture. Just a warning. Just a threat.

Nebra raised her chin, irritated by the interruption.

“We're just being realistic, brother… She doesn't—”

Nozel tilted his head slightly, and the look he gave his sister was so cold that it made the word itself seem dirty before it was even finished being spoken.

“Realists.”

The way he pronounced it carried enough revulsion to turn the term into an insult.

The mercury then spread across the table in sinuous movements, contouring plates, mirroring silverware, sliding along the edges of the polished wood until it surrounded the two of them. The atmosphere grew denser. Even the air seemed to stop circulating.

“Realism…” Nozel continued, his voice still low, but now sharp as a blade. “It would be you recognizing your own insignificance outside the name you bear.”

He paused briefly.

Just long enough for humiliation to enter, sit at the table, and take its place between them.

“And yet,” he continued, as the mercury tip next to Solid pressed a little harder, without actually hurting him, “you choose to direct it at someone who cannot defend themselves in this house.”

Another pause. Longer. More cruel.

“Someone who, unlike you, doesn’t hide behind a surname to appear bigger than they really are.”

Then, slowly, Nozel stood up.

The movement was calm, controlled, but there was something definite about it, something that made it clear the discussion wasn’t just being interrupted—it was being ended.

The mercury receded. It didn’t disappear.

“If any of you repeat this kind of behavior in her presence again…”—his voice dropped even lower, and that made it worse.—“You won’t be answering as my brothers. You’ll be answering to me. As captain.”

The silence that followed was absolute.

Solid and Nebra didn’t dare laugh. Didn’t dare retort.

Cold. Cutting. Irrevocable.

Nozel then walked away from the table and followed you down the corridor, without looking back for a second.