Valentina stood up.
She was across the desk and moving toward him before he had fully finished the sentence. For a mont, Rex assessed the specific quality of her movent—the involuntary speed of soone who has had sothing touch a nerve that controls the whole system.
He remained exactly where he was, which he knew was the correct choice.
"How did you co by that na?!" she exclaid, her voice losing its usual asured quality. Though not entirely stripped of control, there was enough tension for Rex to sense the underlying emotion.
"Kregg," Rex replied as he had anticipated. "Before he died, he entrusted with the na, the docunt, and the ring, and then the engagent concluded."
"He confird it twice," Rex said. "Once under pressure and once voluntarily."
"That na," Valentina said, "is not a na that leaves this room."
"That’s why I ca here first," Rex said. "Before Elizabeth, before the review, before anyone else."
"Because I know that you probably know who Celestina really is..."
She looked at him with the full force of an evaluation that was not the one she applied to students or to professional contacts but the one she apparently reserved for situations where the stakes had shifted into a register she took seriously.
"You know what that na ans," she said.
"I know it’s a Von Starlight," Rex said. "I know she founded an organization that has operated for thirty years to eliminate reincarnators from Erosyne."
"I know she’s operating from a kingdom called Solmordia that doesn’t appear on public maps." He held Valentina’s gaze steadily. "I know that the na is the most sensitive piece of information I brought back from that canyon, and that how it’s handled in the next several weeks will determine whether it’s an asset or a liability."
Valentina looked at him for a long mont. Then she turned and walked to the window and stood with her back to him, looking at the water.
"The Key," she said. "Alexander told it was lost in the canyon."
"Oh? He managed to tell you that, huh?"
"Well, guess what? It was destroyed," Rex said. "Not lost."
"I can explain the operational reason if you want it now."
"The Legion had it and was prepared to move it," Rex said. "Their relay network would have been notified before we cleared the canyon system."
"Retrieving the item was feasible; however, ensuring that it remained intact and secure during the return was not possible due to the tiline and the monitoring infrastructure outlined by Kregg." He paused. "The decision was made in the field."
"By you," Valentina said, still facing the window.
"Yes," Rex said.
"Not by Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth was not in the canyon at that point," Rex said.
Valentina was silent, processing the information as capable individuals often do: not with haste or theatrics, but through a sustained internal effort that remained concealed beneath the surface.
"Alexander was responsible for the Key at the ti of its destruction," Rex stated. "He made an error. Since the incident, Elizabeth has been shouldering that burden."
He let a beat pass.
"If the review process focuses on Alexander’s mistake as the cause, Elizabeth carries it too," Rex said. "If the review understands the operational context, the decision to deny the Legion continued access to the artifact can be frad accurately."
Valentina turned around. Her expression had settled back into sothing more composed, though the composure was sitting over a different substrate than it had been when he entered the room.
"You ca here," she said, "with the na that will determine how my family has to operate for the foreseeable future, with the intelligence that will define the next phase of the Legion investigation, with the account that protects my daughter’s reputation, and with a destroyed artifact that needs a political solution."
Valentina’s expression was neither anger nor fear, but it contained elents of both beneath a controlled surface that seed to be working harder than anything Rex had observed from her during the briefing up to that mont.
"Who else heard it?" she said.
"No one," Rex said. "The exchange was private."
"The expedition team—"
"Your expedition team was not present for the final phase of the interrogation," Rex said. "The na was revealed during a one-on-one exchange, and Kregg selected his mont with great care."
’Even though that ice princess is there... I fucking bet she won’t tell her after what happened to her because of .’
Valentina studied him with the intense scrutiny of soone weighing the truth of a statent, fully aware that the consequences of her decision could be significant. Then she sat back down, this ti with deliberation, reflecting the choice of soone who understood that standing was not aiding her thought process.
"She is my sister," Valentina said.
She expressed it as if saying sothing that had remained unspoken for a very long ti, and the quality of her words shifted from the professional tone she had maintained throughout the briefing. It wasn’t quite confessional. It was more like the careful release of a truth that had been held under pressure for so long that the muscles had forgotten what it felt like to relax.
’Fucking knew it.’
"And to confirm it even further..."
"She’s my half-sister," she added. "She was born eight years before and has a different mother."
"My father acknowledged her but then took significant steps to ensure that acknowledgnt remained hidden from the public record."
Rex said nothing.
"She was talented," Valentina said. "More talented than , in several disciplines, and she knew it."
"Our father knew it and did not act on it in the ways she needed him to." She paused. "She left Aethelgard thirty-two years ago."
"I only received one letter. After that, nothing."
"And you knew she hadn’t simply left," Rex said.
Valentina looked at him.
"I suspected," she said. "Not the extent of what she had built. Not the scale of it. But I sensed the direction."
"Because you knew her," Rex said.
"Because I knew what our father’s choices had made her," Valentina said, and the precision in her voice had a different quality now, sothing older and more worn in it. "The reincarnators who started arriving in significant numbers twenty-five years ago—those who entered Aethelgard wielding power they hadn’t earned and claiming positions that should have taken decades to attain—she held strong opinions about what they symbolized."
"What they displaced. What they took from those who had dedicated their lives to building sothing, only to have a newcor arrive and effortlessly surpass it." She paused. "While she wasn’t entirely incorrect about the displacent, she was utterly misguided about the solution."
Rex looked at her with the focused attention of soone carefully receiving information. ’Interesting...’
"Do you even know that forty-three reincarnators were eliminated," he said. "Over thirty years."
"I know the number," Valentina said.
"Ohh, I see how it is... You’ve been tracking her but didn’t tell anyone about it."
"I’ve been monitoring what I could from a distance, without having enough information to take action." She t his gaze directly. "Until now."
Rex held her gaze and said nothing.
"Rex Rexilion," her voice had the quality of soone who had decided a thing and was now delivering the result of that decision. "I need to understand your position precisely."
"You ca to with this directly, without going through standard review channels, without bringing Elizabeth into the room."
"You gave the intelligence in full and held nothing back." She paused. "That is not the behavior of soone who intends to use this as leverage."
"But you are also not an honor student who does things without a reason, and I have been watching you operate in this institution long enough to know the difference between a person who acts on instinct and a person who acts on calculation."
’Huh. She’s quite keen about it.’
’So much for a grandma.’
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