Sancta Lodo International Airport. Day nine. 10:40.
The aircraft was larger than Celine's. A wide-body corporate jet, the kind that announced its owner's status without requiring a logo on the fuselage. Morne family. National-tier. Unmistakable.
Aldric Morne descended the boarding stairs slowly. Eighty-three years in his knees, his spine, his grip on the handrail. But his eyes — his eyes were younger than the rest of him by decades. Sharp, dark, steady. The eyes of a man who'd built an industrial empire from a regional workshop and buried a grandson without a body to bury.
Behind him: Cornelius Morne. Forty-one, husband of the patriarch's granddaughter-by-marriage, appointed successor after Kael's death. Tall, professionally composed, wearing the particular blankness of a man who'd learned to show nothing in rooms where power was distributed. He didn't know why the patriarch had insisted he come. He thought it was a business opportunity in Sancta Lodo. He was wrong.
Celine waited at the terminal. Pearl earrings. Professional posture. When Aldric reached her, she didn't offer the deferential gesture the family expected. She looked him directly in the eye.
"He knows you're coming. He agreed to meet."
Aldric nodded once. No questions.
"The boy's items are in the black case," he said. "Take me to him."
---
Shadow Financial. Sancta Lodo regional office. Private conference room. 14:00.
Caspian stood at the far end of the table. Black suit, no tie. His forearms were covered — long sleeves buttoned at the wrist. The Law patterns dormant but present.
The door opened.
Aldric Morne entered first. Walked the length of the conference room without assistance, without hesitation. Stopped three meters from Caspian.
He looked at the face.
Twenty years of that face as a baby, a toddler, a boy. Five years of birthdays, scraped knees, bedtime stories told in the old northern dialect. Then three years of absence. A death certificate with no body. A bedroom converted to a study, drawers sealed, a name no one spoke.
Now the face stood in front of him. Alive. Older. Wearing an expression the boy had never worn — a stillness that wasn't calm but control, the kind of control that came from managing something enormous pressing against the inside of the skin.
Aldric's jaw tightened. The only visible response.
"Turn around."
Caspian turned. Slowly. Aldric studied the profile — the ear, the hairline, the angle of the jaw. Everything matched. The face was his grandson's face, aged forward, stripped of softness.
"Turn back."
Caspian turned. Aldric's eyes locked onto his.
"Your eyes." The old man's voice was rougher now. "His eyes were brown. Warm. A boy who believed everything he was told until the day he stopped being told anything." A pause. "Your eyes are violet. And they look like they've weighed the cost of every person in this room and found it acceptable."
"He's dead." Caspian's voice was flat. "I'm the person living in his body."
"What are you?"
"Something that doesn't have a word in your language."
Aldric held his gaze for five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. The conference room was silent — Celine by the door, Cornelius two steps behind his grandfather, Elena monitoring from the adjacent room.
Then Aldric did something no one in the room expected.
He sat down.
Not dramatically. Just pulled out a chair and sat, the way a man sits when he's decided to stop standing for the sake of formality.
"I'm eighty-three years old." He placed both hands flat on the table. "I've survived three corporate wars, two economic collapses, and one assassination attempt that left a bullet in my shoulder. I've buried a son and a grandson. I don't have time for things that don't matter."
He looked at Caspian.
"You're wearing my grandson's face. His body. Something in his genetics responded to you — or to what you are. That stone, the one with the violet vein — Kael picked it up from a riverbank when he was five. He wouldn't let go. Cried when I tried to take it for cleaning. I kept it for twenty years because I didn't understand why he chose it." His voice dropped. "Now I know. His body was drawn to something it recognized, even at five years old. Someone designed him."
"You're correct."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
Aldric absorbed this. His hands didn't move on the table.
"My grandson is dead." Not a question. A confirmation. "The body remains. You're using it. I can't undo that. I can't bring him back by wishing the person wearing his face was someone else."
Cornelius shifted behind him. A small movement — the acting heir uncomfortable with where this conversation was going.
Aldric continued: "So here's what I'll do. My family's resources — military-industrial, energy, logistics, intelligence networks — are available to you. Not because you're Kael. Because whoever designed my grandson's body to carry whatever you're carrying had a reason, and that reason intersects with whatever you're trying to accomplish. I want to know who did this. And I want to know who killed him to take the body back."
He leaned forward.
"Find the people who murdered my grandson. Give me their names. In return, you have the Morne family behind you. Quietly. Completely."
Caspian studied the old man. Omega Exchange ran background: cardiac rhythm elevated but stable, cortisol levels consistent with controlled stress, no deception indicators. Aldric Morne was making a deal. Not out of grief — out of the particular clarity that came from having nothing left to lose.
"Agreed." Caspian sat across from him. "One condition. Cornelius Morne stays in Sancta Lodo for the duration of our collaboration."
Cornelius stiffened. "Why—"
Aldric raised a hand. Cornelius stopped.
"You want my acting heir where you can see him." Aldric's eyes narrowed. "You think he had something to do with Kael's death."
"I think the acting heir's appointment followed Kael's disappearance. I think the current succession benefits from Kael remaining dead. And I think you know this already, which is why you brought him here instead of leaving him at the estate."
Silence.
Aldric's expression didn't change. But something in the geometry of his face shifted — a door closing behind his eyes.
"Cornelius," he said without turning. "Wait outside."
Cornelius hesitated. Then walked to the door. Closed it behind him.
Aldric looked at Caspian for a long time.
"I've suspected for three years," he said quietly. "But suspicion without evidence is just grief looking for someone to blame. If you find proof — if you confirm what I've been afraid to confirm — I'll handle my family's internal matters myself."
"Understood."
The old man stood. Extended his hand.
Caspian took it. Aldric's grip was firm — the grip of a man who'd spent sixty years making deals and knew that the handshake was the only part of any agreement that couldn't be forged.
"My grandson's body." Aldric released his hand. "Whatever you do with it — don't disgrace it. He was a kind boy. He deserved better than what he got."
"I don't do kindness."
"I know. But the body remembers kindness even if you don't."
Aldric walked to the door. Paused. "Celine stays with you. She'll be my eyes in whatever you're building. And she'll report to me directly — not through family channels."
"She already works for me."
Aldric's eyebrow rose a fraction — the only surprise he'd shown since entering the room. Then he nodded once and left.
Celine remained by the door. She'd watched the entire exchange without speaking — her loyalty to the patriarch and her position as Caspian's Vessel occupying the same space without collision.
"He knew," Caspian said. "About Cornelius."
"He's known for three years. He just couldn't prove it without the kind of resources that would tear the family apart." She straightened her blazer. "You just became his proof."