The bedroom was quiet except for the soft sound of steel against cloth.
Alaric stood before the full-length mirror, his katana held loosely in one hand, his military combat uniform laid out on the bed behind him.
The blade caught the lamplight, reflecting his face back at him with perfect clarity.
His expression was cold.
Not the usual warmth he showed his family, not the gentle patience he displayed with his children, not even the stern authority he used in public.
Just cold, flat emptiness that belonged to a man who'd killed so many Monsters that the count had stopped mattering decades ago.
Ezra's words echoed in his mind, replaying on an endless loop.
'Someone is manipulating events around your son.'
'How many of Kaiser's disciples lived past twenty?'
'They're all betting Damian will die.'
The katana's reflection showed a man whose eyes had gone distant and calculating, measuring the violence required to solve problems that words could not fix.
