Lucien Valcrest continued flying over the city until the urban landscape began to change beneath him. The dense buildings, the saturated avenues, and the areas where the concrete seed to have been placed out of necessity rather than taste were gradually left behind, replaced by a cleaner, wider, quieter expanse. From the sky, with invisibility still active and the boots releasing beneath his feet an almost imperceptible translucent propulsion, he observed how the city stopped showing itself as a mass and began to arrange itself into chosen sectors, protected by money, design, and distance.
There, the streets did not seem to open for ordinary traffic, but to preserve an artificial sensation of freedom. They were wide, polished, bordered by rows of perfect vegetation, trees pruned with almost clinical precision, and gardens that did not grow: they obeyed.
The modern houses occupied the land with a cold elegance. Glass facades, pale stone, dark steel, and treated wood combined with indoor pools, open terraces, private patios, and walls high enough to suggest security without ruining the beauty of the whole. Beyond them stretched beautiful condominiums, separated from one another by clean paths and green strips that gave the impression of a life without friction, without noise, without nearby threat.
People walked below without visible concern, dressed in expensive sportswear, moving along impeccable sidewalks with that calm of those who have confused protection with innocence. So carried fine dogs, animals with well-kept fur and elegant leashes, walking them among gardens that had never known abandonnt. Luxury vehicles crossed the avenues smoothly, without urgency, as if even speed in that area had to behave with politeness.
Lucien did not slow down because of that. The scene did not impress him. It belonged to him more than to those who inhabited it. For him, that order was not beauty, but proof. The world could beco clean when soone paid enough to remove from sight everything that was not convenient to look at. It could seem free when the borders were well disguised. It could seem peaceful when the violence that sustained it was exercised far away, in other neighborhoods, in other bodies, in other layers of the system.
His face, hidden by the camouflage, showed no theatrical contempt. He did not need to. There was in his gaze a drier coldness, a cruelty without gesture, as if every peaceful life beneath him were rely a demonstration of how easy it was to dosticate the environnt when one possessed the right tool.
He slightly increased his altitude and crossed above a central avenue bordered by low palm trees and discreet lighting. In the distance, among the high-end buildings, the skyscraper he was heading toward appeared. It was not the sa kind of tower he had left behind at the beginning of the morning. This one did not seem built for private residence or to exhibit pleasure. It had another nature: more corporate, more sealed, closer to a vertical installation than to a ho.
Its nearly one hundred floors rose in a column of luxurious glass and dark tal, with clean lines that reflected the afternoon without allowing the light to enter completely. From the base to the crown, the building transmitted a sensation of restricted access, of administrative power hidden beneath an impeccable aesthetic. It was beautiful, yes, but not kind.
Lucien descended toward the upper part. The helipad extended over the rooftop like a clean circle marked by clear lines, surrounded by low railings, discreet sensors, and signal lights that had not yet fully turned on under the clarity of the afternoon. There were no aircraft at that mont. There was no visible personnel. Only wind, height, and a surface prepared to receive arrivals that should not pass through common doors.
Lucien arrived above the center of the helipad and reduced the propulsion of the boots until he remained suspended for a few seconds over the main mark. Then he descended. His feet touched the ground with controlled softness. The translucent energy beneath the boots went out in layers, first like a slight vibration around the soles, then like an almost nonexistent glow that finally sank into the light-blue material of the footwear.
The camouflage remained active for one more instant, correcting the edge of his silhouette against the rooftop, the sky, and the glass of the building. Then Lucien brought his hand to the circular device fixed over his chest and pressed the translucent button.
Invisibility withdrew from him like a skin of air. First appeared the edges of his figure, an imprecise outline deforming the light. Then the ivory white of the suit recovered presence, followed by the golden details, the light hair barely moved by the wind of the height, the clean features, and the green eyes, cold, still. In a few seconds, Lucien beca visible again in the center of the helipad, impeccable to any distant gaze. Only up close could one notice the minimal dust that the battle and the displacent had left over parts of his clothing, traces almost offensive precisely because they seed not to belong to him.
He lowered his gaze toward his sleeve. With two fingers, he shook a faint line of dust from the suit. Then he passed his hand over the front of the jacket, removing another almost invisible residue near the chest. The gesture was brief, exact, more similar to correcting a breach of etiquette than to cleaning himself after a fight against a colossal entity inside the Veil. There was no anxiety in him. Nor triumph. The clothing had to be in order again because everything in him had to present itself in order, even when sothing inside his thought continued adjusting the asure of Narka, his pressure, his unknown energy, and the need to return with superior tools.
When he finished, he advanced toward the access door located at the edge of the helipad. The entrance was integrated into a low structure of reinforced glass and dark tal. It had no visible handle. Only a security panel, narrow, polished, waiting for a code. Lucien stopped in front of it, and for a second the reflection of his face appeared divided over the black surface of the device. He did not lean in too much. He did not need to approach like soone asking permission. He extended his hand and entered a long sequence with chanical precision. Each number responded with a faint light, silent, without unnecessary sound.
The system validated access. The door opened inward with an almost imperceptible pneumatic pressure, revealing an interior corridor of cold lighting, clean, uninhabited, built with the sa luxurious sobriety as the exterior. Lucien did not look toward the city before entering. He did not turn his gaze back to the sky or to the path traveled. The flight, the fight, the withdrawal, and the thought had already fulfilled their function. Now it was ti for sothing else.
He crossed the threshold. The door closed behind him, sealing the wind of the rooftop and leaving outside the afternoon, the rich zone, the empty helipad, and the city that continued believing, beneath its perfect order, that everything important happened in plain sight.
The interior corridor of the skyscraper did not have the warm luxury of a residence nor the false breadth of spaces designed to impress visitors. It was colder than beautiful, more exact than comfortable. The walls of dark glass and polished tal returned clean reflections under a white lighting that did not leave enough shadows to hide fatigue, error, or carelessness. Lucien advanced without altering the rhythm of his steps, with the ivory-white suit already recomposed over his figure and his face closed in a serenity that did not invite itself to be read. The minimal dust had disappeared. The battle remained outside his skin, but not outside his calculation.
As he descended through the first access section from the rooftop toward the interior levels, people began to appear. Administrative personnel, assistants, guards in dark suits, technicians with silver credentials, employees who moved with that silent discipline of those who work in a place where making a mistake does not an receiving a reprimand, but being marked. They all recognized him. So bowed their heads. Others made more formal greetings. A few stepped back half a step before speaking, as if the simple fact of occupying too much space in his path could be considered a fault.
—Mr. Valcrest.
—Welco, sir.
—Second Hamr.
The voices were low, respectful, contained by a fear that tried to disguise itself as protocol. Lucien did not respond. Not because he had not heard them, but because hearing them did not make them relevant. He passed beside them with the sa indifference with which he had previously flown over the city: without haste, without effort, without granting true existence to those who moved aside to leave him a path. No one insisted. No one tried to accompany him. In that building, respect was not courtesy; it was a form of survival.
The hallway opened at the end into a sober antechamber where a private elevator waited. The structure stood out even within that polished environnt. It was silver, with a smooth surface, with white edges worked in clean lines that did not seem like ornantation, but a seal of authority. It had no visible buttons on the exterior, only a thin biotric reading strip integrated into the side and a luminous fra that remained off until Lucien approached.
Then the system recognized his presence.
The doors opened without announcent.
Inside the elevator there was a man.
He must have been around forty-five years old. He was bald, with clear white skin, a well-kept face, and a straight posture, dressed in a buttoned suit uniform in light blue, with silver details on the collar, the cuffs, and the front line. His shoes were black, clean enough to reflect the light from the floor, and his hands were covered by white gloves. He did not seem like a simple elevator operator. In a place like that, even that function had an almost ceremonial solemnity.
Upon seeing Lucien, the man made a brief, exact bow, without raising his gaze more than necessary.
—Mr. Valcrest.
Lucien entered. The doors closed behind him with a low sound, sealing away the corridor, the voices, and the employees who had remained outside. For an instant, only the two of them remained inside the silver cabin. The operator did not ask anything. He waited. Lucien looked forward, toward his own fragnted reflection on the polished surface of the doors.
—UL Level —he said.
The man bowed his head.
—Yes, sir.
He turned toward the internal panel. Unlike the exterior, there was a series of visible commands there, though few. They were not marked with ordinary numbers. Each button had letters, symbols, or access codes. The operator extended a gloved hand and pressed one marked with the letters UL. The button’s light turned on in cold white. Then he placed two fingers on a second validation plate, and the elevator accepted the order.
The cabin began to descend.
The movent was smooth at first, almost imperceptible, but the duration revealed that they were not heading to an ordinary floor. The skyscraper seed to extend downward with the sa ambition with which it rose toward the sky. For several minutes, the elevator descended without stopping. There was no music. There were no announcents. Only the muted hum of the internal machinery and the controlled breathing of the operator, who remained standing beside the panel without looking directly at Lucien. The man knew how to occupy his place. That was a minor virtue, but a useful one.
Lucien did not speak during the descent. His gaze remained still, although his mind was not. Narka. The Veil. The unknown energy. The insufficient Vertices in standard state. Each piece of data returned with unpleasant precision. The building descended around him as if it were carrying him not toward a basent, but toward a more real layer of the power that sustained the luxurious surface of the city. Above, there was glass, helipads, and high-society zones. Below, sothing else. What did not need to seem kind.
The elevator finally stopped.
The doors opened onto a narrow and long room, built like an antechamber without alternatives. There was no reception, windows, or decoration. Only a straight path illuminated by white lines embedded in the ceiling and the floor, guiding the gaze toward the opposite end. The walls were smooth, dark, reinforced with panels that did not entirely try to hide their defensive function. That space had not been designed to receive people; it had been designed to conduct them.
Lucien stepped out. The operator remained inside the elevator, motionless, with his head slightly bowed while the doors closed behind his back. Lucien did not look back. He advanced along the only available path, and each of his steps was accompanied by the progressive lighting of the lights in front of him. There were no visible guards. They were not necessary. The absence of apparent surveillance was, in itself, a more elegant warning.
At the end, a steel door waited for him. It had a dark tile-blue color, cold, almost mineral, with a surface without marks except for a vertical line in the center and a small side panel integrated into the wall. It was not enormous, but it transmitted a weight that did not depend on size. Lucien stopped in front of it, with his face just as serene, the white suit impeccable, and his green eyes set on the steel as if what lay behind it were not a destination, but the next necessary instrunt to correct an offense.
The tile-blue steel door responded to Lucien’s recognition with a slowness too precise to be simple chanism. A white line lit up in the center, descended from the upper part to the floor, and then opened toward both sides without noise, letting out a clarity different from that of the corridor: warr, more golden, but no less cold in intention. Lucien did not stop at the threshold. He entered with the sa clean step with which he had crossed the building, and the door closed behind him, separating the narrow hallway from a circular room that seed to have been built to hide an extravagance beneath layers of authority.
Everything there had a silver glow. The curved walls reflected the light from the rings installed in the ceiling, and those rings did not illuminate with clinical white, but with a controlled gold that bathed the place without softening it. The tal, the glass, and the polished surfaces returned the clarity in layers, creating the sensation of being inside a chamber suspended between luxury and confinent. There were no windows. There was no view of the city. Only a circular breadth, perfect, too asured, as if the room had been designed so that any conversation spoken there would remain trapped inside its own shape.
The floor was made of reinforced glass. Beneath that transparency extended an aquarium several ters deep, so large that it did not seem like decoration, but a small world enclosed beneath the feet of those who gathered above. Corals of vivid tones grew over carefully arranged artificial formations. Fish of different sizes moved among columns of filtered water, marine plants, and gentle currents that precisely imitated the breathing of a real ecosystem. There was beauty there, but not freedom. Everything was alive within a perfect limit. Everything swam beneath a surface that others stepped on without looking down.
On the glass, near the center of the room, were the two won.
They were adults with a youthful appearance, around one ter sixty, dressed in a dark punk aesthetic that contrasted with the silver luxury of the room. Black leather, red details, chains, chokers, buckles, dark stockings, heavy boots, and leather miniskirts ford an aggressive composition, almost streetlike, but too carefully maintained to belong to real abandonnt.
One of them wore ssy black hair with reddish strands and a haughty attitude that seed to occupy more space than her body. She was sitting in a wide armchair, slightly reclined, with a cigarette between her fingers and a red gaze fixed on Lucien, without bothering to correct her posture. The smoke rose from her hand in a twisted line before being absorbed by the invisible ventilation system.
The other woman was beside her, curled up on the sa armchair. She did not share the haughtiness of the first. Her body remained gathered in, her shoulders sowhat sunken, her hands near her chest, her head barely tilted against the other, as if seeking protection even inside a room where no one truly seed to offer it. She also wore black and red leather, but on her that aesthetic did not look like defiance, but like a skin imposed over sothing more fearful. Her eyes lifted toward Lucien and lowered almost imdiately, not out of ceremonial respect, but because of a more instinctive reaction, similar to that of a small animal that recognizes a dangerous presence before understanding it.
The third occupant was not in an armchair.
He was sitting directly on the reinforced glass, with his legs tucked beneath a black cloak that covered almost all of his clothing, showing a height of around one ter and fifteen centiters. He was a middle-aged man, with skin too white, almost pale from lack of sun, and a face marked by wrinkles that did not take away his hardness, but seed to have been carved by years of vigilance and ill will. His white hair was pulled back, clean, tense, leaving visible the severe structure of his face. A black patch covered his left eye. The right one, black and sharp, watched Lucien with a dry aggressiveness, without greeting, without inclination, without any need to pretend courtesy. He did not seem comfortable on the glass. He seed chosen to be there, as if the discomfort of others were one of the ways in which he understood presence.
Lucien swept the room with a single glance.
He was not surprised by the aquarium. He did not stop on the won. He granted no visible reaction to the man sitting on the glass. His face remained cold, impeccable, with that clean cruelty that did not need to show itself as anger to impose distance. The ivory-white suit remained intact over his body, the golden details barely captured the light from the ceiling, and his green eyes, stiller than calm, settled first on the woman with the cigarette, then on the curled-up woman, then on the man with the patch. He asured them all without haste, as if each one belonged to an already known category within an order he had no interest in explaining.
No one spoke.
The haughty woman exhaled smoke slowly, keeping her gaze on him with a calculated insolence that did not quite reach full defiance. The other remained curled up, barely moving her fingers against the dark fabric of her skirt. The man with the patch did not change posture. The water beneath the glass continued moving with artificial calm, and several fish crossed beneath Lucien’s shoes like colored shadows trapped in a life without surface.
The door remained sealed behind the Second Hamr.
Inside the circular room, the four remained together for the first ti that afternoon: Lucien standing, newly arrived from the Veil and the city; the two won occupying the sa armchair beneath a mixture of defiance and fear; the pale man sitting on the glass like an old threat. There was no greeting. There was no question. There was no imdiate explanation. Only gazes crossing in silence over the living aquarium, while the golden light from the ceiling bathed the silver of the room and turned that eting into sothing too clean not to hide rot.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
The circular room remained suspended in a stillness too clean, bathed by the golden light that fell from the rings in the ceiling and broke into reflections over the silver walls. Beneath the reinforced glass floor, the aquarium continued moving with an almost offensive calm: fish crossing columns of water, corals breathing inside their small enclosed world, soft shadows shifting beneath the feet of four people who had nothing soft about them.
Lucien Valcrest remained standing near the entrance, impeccable, white and gold beneath that artificial lighting. The haughty woman remained reclined in the armchair with the cigarette between her fingers, her smile barely hinted behind the smoke. The woman curled against her did not fully raise her head. The man with the patch continued sitting on the glass, with the black cloak covering his body and his only visible eye fixed on Lucien like an old blade.
The silence was not discomfort. It was asurent.
Lucien swept over those present with a cold gaze. There was no surprise in his green eyes. Nor true courtesy. Only that clean evaluation of soone who finds even what others would consider a high-ranking eting insufficient. The absence of the other Hamrs weighed more than the presence of those who had actually arrived, and that lack was, to him, a form of disorder.
—So —he said at last, with a low, clear voice, without raising a single note—, only four of the Nine Hamrs managed to coordinate a eting.
The phrase fell over the glass like a piece of tal.
The haughty woman was the first to break it.
She let out a violent, haughty laugh, too alive for that room of cold luxury. The cigarette trembled between her fingers as she threw her head back, and from her mouth ca great mouthfuls of smoke that rose in dense spirals before being absorbed by the invisible system in the ceiling. She did not try to contain herself. Her laughter filled the room with deliberate insolence, as if she had been waiting from before for the exact mont to drag a fingernail over Lucien’s pride.
—Not all of us have free ti to waste the afternoon playing with children, Mr. Second Hamr —she said, still smiling, her eyes lit by cruel amusent.
The woman curled against her tensed slightly. The man with the patch did not move. Neither did Lucien. But sothing changed in the room.
The killing intent ca out of him without any broad gesture. There was no explosion, shout, or theatrical movent. Only a cold, precise pressure that extended from his body and made the air between the armchair and the entrance heavier. The golden light seed to thin over his white suit. The fish beneath the glass scattered suddenly, fleeing toward the corals as if even the enclosed ecosystem had felt a variation it could not understand.
Lucien tilted his head slightly toward Nixia, and when he spoke, his voice no longer preserved any social softness.
—Nixia Vhalmont, Fifth Hamr. Do not push your luck —he said—. I do not have ti to endure your stupidities.
Nixia smiled wider.
She did not step back. She did not lower her gaze. Lucien’s threat seed to touch her not as a warning, but as nourishnt. She tapped part of the cigarette ash into a small black ashtray placed beside the armchair and looked at him again with a sharper, dirtier joy, almost happy to have managed to make sothing move beneath that unbearable neatness.
—I do not care —she replied—. I would gladly tear your face off, Mr. Second Hamr.
The tension closed over them.
The circular room stopped feeling spacious. The gold of the light beca harder. Lucien did not take a step, but his very posture announced that he could. Nixia remained seated, although the way her fingers held the cigarette made it clear that her stillness was not calm either.
The woman curled up finally raised her head, and under the golden light her face was revealed more clearly: she had the sa facial shape as Nixia, the sa beautiful and sharp foundation, but without the haughty violence that turned the Fifth Hamr into an abrasive presence. In her, the features seed to fall toward a nervous fragility. Her eyes had a sunken unease, a defenselessness that did not harmonize with the dark punk clothing she wore nor with the place where she was sitting.
The man with the patch raised his gaze a little.
It was a minimal movent, but enough to declare that he too had perceived the exact point where provocation could turn into rupture. His black eye shifted from Lucien to Nixia without haste, aggressive, old, almost irritated by the noise of both.
Then the ceiling opened in light.
No person descended. No face appeared. From the upper center of the room, a clean vertical holographic screen was projected, suspended above them with transparent edges and a cold glow. In the image, there was no emblem or human figure. Only a glass of whisky with fresh ice could be seen. The golden liquid moved barely inside the glass, as if soone, sowhere else, had just left it on an invisible surface. The ice reflected the light with a calm clarity, and that simple image imposed more silence than any weapon.
The voice that ca from the screen was masculine, distorted, and deep. It had no anger. It had no hurry. It needed no emotion other than authority.
—Enough.
A single word.
It was enough.
Lucien stopped releasing killing intent. Nixia stopped smiling with the sa breadth. The woman curled up straightened a little, still pressed against Nixia’s body, but forced by the weight of that remote presence to raise her head. The man with the patch barely inclined his face toward the screen. Even the smoke from the cigarette seed to beco thinner under the holographic light.
For the first ti since Lucien had entered, everyone obeyed the sa center.
The screen continued showing only the glass of whisky. The ice floated inside the golden liquid, fresh, intact, indifferent. That absence of a face made the authority feel worse, because no one there needed to see him to recognize him. The First Hamr did not have to show his eyes to stop Lucien Valcrest. He did not have to raise his voice to contain Nixia Vhalmont. He did not have to physically occupy the room to turn the others into pieces around his word.
Lucien bowed his head.
Nixia did the sa, with a less docile slowness, but without defying. The woman beside her lowered her gaze quickly. The man with the patch held the inclination as if it were an old custom, learned not through kind respect, but through hierarchical survival.
The four spoke at the sa ti.
—Glory to the First Hamr.
The phrase filled the circular room and descended over the reinforced glass, over the aquarium, over the corals and the fish enclosed beneath their feet. The hologram remained suspended in silence, showing the golden glass, while the entire room remained subjected to an authority that had not needed to appear to remind them all who stood above the Nine Hamrs.
_____________________________________________
END OF Chapter 103
The path continues...
New Chapters are revealed every
Sunday, and also between Wednesday or Thursday,
when the will of the tale so decides.
Each one leaves another scar on Sebastián’s journey.
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