"My Lord."
Lord Callous did not turn immediately.
He stood still, his presence alone enough to hold the entire space in place. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, almost gentle, but it carried an authority that pressed into everything around it.
"My beloved, Vaelor… what have you brought for me?"
Vaelor straightened just enough to extend what he carried.
A scroll.
Old, worn at the edges, not because of time, but because it had been handled, studied, and rewritten. Information layered over itself, refined again and again.
"Everything we could gather on the boy," Vaelor said, his tone even. "His patterns, history, environment… and what little exists of his origin."
Callous took the scroll without urgency.
There was no impatience in him. No visible curiosity either. Only a quiet, deliberate interest as the parchment unfurled in his hands on its own, responding more to his presence than his touch.
"Kim Hae-joon…" he read softly.
The name lingered in the air for a moment longer than it should have.
His gaze moved across the contents, steady and precise. Each detail was absorbed, not skimmed. A life, reduced to observations.
"Orphaned," he murmured. "No parental records. No documentation of origin."
A pause.
His fingers stilled against the page.
"Even the institution that raised him has nothing," Vaelor added. "No name. No history."
Callous didn't respond immediately.
Instead, he continued reading.
"Lives alone. Works. Studies. Repeats."
There was something almost… mundane about it.
Routine. Predictable. Human.
And yet...
the longer he looked, the more that simplicity began to feel wrong.
His gaze sharpened, just slightly.
"…Consistently among the highest in his academic field," he continued, quieter now. "but short tempered and acts impulsively if bothered..hmm."
Another pause.
Then..
a faint shift in his expression.
Not quite a smile.
Not quite recognition.
But something close to both.
"I knew you had it in you, boy"
The words were soft.
But they carried weight.
Vaelor's eyes lifted, watching him carefully now, though his expression did not change.
Callous closed the scroll slowly, his thoughts no longer on the surface details.
"He's stable," Vaelor said. "Unaware. No signs of activation."
"Of course he isn't," Callous replied, almost absent-mindedly. "He was never meant to be aware this soon."
Silence settled between them.
Callous turned slightly, his presence shifting with the movement.
"Then this should be simple," he said.
Vaelor didn't interrupt.
"Find him," Callous continued, his voice calm, almost indifferent. "And bring him in."
A brief pause.
Then, more quietly..
"Before anything interferes."
Vaelor inclined his head.
"It will be done."
But something in the air had already changed.
"Go," he said.
Vaelor didn't hesitate.
He turned, his form dissolving back into the mist as seamlessly as he had entered, leaving no trace of movement behind.
Only stillness.
And a name...
lingering in the space like something that had already begun to matter far more than it should have.