Morning had barely passed, the afternoon still creeping its way in, when Nicolas made his way down the hallway.
It stretched long and dim ahead of him, lined on both sides with the kind of opulence that had long since stopped meaning anything to him. Gilded frames around paintings no one looked at. Polished floors that reflected the light of chandeliers nobody bothered to admire. Furniture chosen to impress guests who rarely came.
He walked through it all without a glance, his pace steady, his expression carefully neutral.
When he reached the door at the far end, he raised his hand to knock, but before his knuckles could connect, a voice came from the other side.
"Come in."
Flat. Cold. The kind of voice that didn't invite so much as command.
A flicker of irritation crossed Nicolas' face, there and gone in an instant, smoothed over before he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The study was large and well-furnished, the kind of room designed to make whoever stood in the center of it feel small. A wide window dominated the far wall, its curtains drawn shut, and in front of it sat a man behind a heavy desk, eyes down, reviewing a document with the unhurried focus of someone who considered his own time the only time that mattered.
Nicolas stopped just inside the doorway and waited.
The man at the desk was his father, Edmund, Magistrate of Lirath, the man responsible for law and order within the barony's walls. Not the highest authority in the city, but close enough to it that few dared test the boundaries of his reach. He had built his reputation on discipline and results, and had very little patience for anything that fell short of either.
He treated Nicolas the way he treated everyone beneath him, with the same measured distance, the same absence of warmth. The fact that they shared blood had never seemed to factor into it.
The silence stretched. Nicolas kept his posture straight, his hands at his sides, while in the back of his mind a familiar irritation began to simmer.
'This bastard… calls me here and then ignores me? Am I so worthless in your eyes that you can't even spare me a glance?'
He didn't say any of it, of course.
Edmund set the document down and looked up.
"Do you know why I called you here?"
No preamble. No greeting. Just the question, delivered in that same toneless voice, his eyes carrying no particular intent, only the faint, practiced patience of a man who had already decided what this conversation would look like.
Nicolas kept his expression even. "No," he said. "I don't."
Something shifted in Edmund's face, not anger, not quite. More like the quiet settling of a disappointment so familiar it had stopped surprising him.
"Do you know who came to see me this morning?"
He didn't wait for an answer. "The Commander."
Nicolas said nothing, but something tightened in his chest.
The Commander of Lirath's garrison was not a man who made personal visits without reason. He oversaw the Squad Leaders, managed the city's military operations, and answered directly to the Baron, just as Edmund did.
They were equals in standing, each governing their own domain, which was precisely what made his personal visit unusual. For him to come himself, not send a message, not delegate, meant something had gone wrong enough to warrant it.
Edmund's eyes remained on his son, steady and unreadable.
"Apparently, last night, ten people disappeared. The only trace left of them was their blood." He paused, letting that settle. "What's strange is that every single one of them belonged to that sadistic lunatic's crew."
Another pause.
"And the lunatic himself is nowhere to be found either."
He picked up the document again, glancing at it briefly before setting it back down.
"You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the last person any of them were seen speaking to… was you."
The study fell quiet again. Edmund's gaze had sharpened now, fixed on his son with the kind of stillness that didn't need words to press down on a person.
Nicolas hadn't moved. But inside, the pieces were falling into place, and none of them were landing well.
Jack.
That crazy bastard.
He was the one Nicolas had sent after that girl a few days ago, the girl who had somehow managed to walk out of the forest alive.
The fact that she had ignored his advances, brushed off everything he had offered her, and then had the nerve to survive on top of it all had lit something ugly in him. Something that wanted her to regret it. And what better way to make that happen than to send the most feared madman in the city after her?
He had actually been planning to reach out to Jack today, to go and see for himself what had become of her.
Instead, here he was, being questioned by his father about the very same lunatic he had hired just a few days ago.
'For fck's sake! What the hell did that lunatic do to drag the Commander into this?'
***
While Nicolas was growing frustrated over the troubles that were about to come, back at the Langton manor, Evan, having just finished his daily duties, took a brief moment to have breakfast
It was his only meal of the day, and although it wasn't much, it was better than nothing. In life, one had to learn to appreciate even the smallest things, a lesson he had learned since his previous life.
That said, his mind was elsewhere entirely as he ate.
'I just hope that girl isn't doing anything reckless,' he thought, his attention drifting along the faint thread in his soul that stretched outward from him, traveling a good distance in the direction of the forest before settling on a feminine figure, breathing hard, the blade in her hand dripping red.
Around her lay countless beast carcasses of every kind, wolves, bears, and other creatures typical of the Greystone Forest. Their ranks ranged from F all the way up to Advanced-Stage E-Rank.
It was Luna, of course.
She had apparently just finished taking out a good portion of her rage on the unfortunate wildlife of the forest, which had done absolutely nothing to deserve it, save for the misfortune of crossing her path.