The first light of morning rolled across the Legion Lot, spilling slow gold across the rows of descending estates. The hum of hover rings filled the air, low and resonant, vibrating through the ground like a song too deep to hear. Mansions eased into their allotted places with careful precision, each one a floating monument to lineage and authority. The Lot stretched wide beneath them, black and white platforms laid out in perfect symmetry, a place of exact order and absolute quiet.

Vaeliyan's estate broke through the thinning mist, its white hull glinting in the early light. Identification codes pulsed along the frame as it moved into its reserved space beside the Sarn stronghold. The hover rings slowed, their glow fading from sharp silver to muted amber as the mansion settled gently onto the Lot. The sound was like a sigh, steady and controlled. When the rings dimmed, a ramp extended with mechanical precision, locking into place with a clean metallic click.

Vaeliyan stood at the edge of the ramp, arms folded, watching the world unfold below. His mansion looked humble among its peers, white stone and dark wood warmed by faint morning light. The air around it carried a crisp chill, sweater weather, cool enough to wake the skin, comfortable enough to feel alive. It looked like a home built to be lived in, not displayed. It didn't command attention; it existed quietly, solid, unpretentious. Around it, the other estates gleamed with the marks of old bloodlines. Some were palatial gardens, others glass towers or sculpted fortresses. Every one of them said the same thing in its own language: power, permanence, and the arrogance to anchor them here.

To the west sat Josephine and Isol's estate, a piece of living art disguised as countryside, streams, fields, and sunlight, perfect and serene, the image of peace amid war. Not far from it shimmered Lisa and Deck's home, radiant and open, built to catch and reflect the sun. Both were works of deliberate restraint compared to what waited beside them.

The Sarn estate did not float, it ruled. A castle of blue-green sapphire and stone, immense and radiant, it dominated the eastern side of the Lot. Its walls were smooth and flawless, their color shifting with the light from deep ocean hues to the brightness of shattered glass. The surface seemed alive, moving faintly as though the whole structure breathed. Towers thrust upward in symmetrical ranks, capped with silver spires that caught the dawn and turned it into weaponized beauty. Every inch of it was precision, wealth, and legacy made visible. Even among the powerful, House Sarn's estate was excessive, an echo of a world that never knew limits.

The air itself changed as they crossed the short stretch between homes. Vaeliyan's crisp chill faded into something warmer, the kind of air that sat on the edge of spring surrendering to summer. It wasn't hot, but it carried the promise of it, long-sleeve weather that could easily slip into shortsleeve comfort. A soft breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle and bourbon, rich, sweet, indulgent. Every estate had its own perfect atmosphere, and the Sarns' was no exception. Their castle breathed comfort and control, adjusted for pleasure rather than practicality.

Just beyond it stood The Verdance's estate, a floating skyscraper carved from gold and glass, its base tapering into a single glowing pillar before expanding into a city suspended in air. It towered over everything else, absurdly vertical, defying balance and gravity alike. The mirrored surface reflected both sky and Lot, creating the illusion of endless height. It was a blade of ambition, a reminder that some Houses wanted to be seen from everywhere, even in heaven.

Vaeliyan's own home felt human by comparison. Clean lines, quiet presence, no attempt to impress. It looked small, but it looked honest. The Complaints Department stood on its ramp, out of place in a field full of grandeur.

Elian joined Vaeliyan at the front, jaw clenched tight. "At least they brought the small house," he said.

Vaeliyan did not look away from the sapphire stronghold. "That's the small one?"

Elian blinked, then let out a breath, half amusement, half resignation. "Yeah. The travel home. You should see the main house."

Varnai joined them, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. "You'd think a family of spies and tacticians could manage subtlety."

Roan gave a humorless snort. "Subtle doesn't get remembered. Besides, if I owned that thing, I'd show it off too." He shielded his eyes with one hand. "How much power do you think it takes to keep that in the air?"

Vaeliyan's tone was even, but something sharp lived beneath it. "Enough to remind everyone how small they are."

They walked the short distance to the Sarn estate, the faint hum of power deepening as they drew closer. The castle loomed ahead, its sapphire walls reflecting them as they approached. The Citadel's distant shadow stretched across the horizon, a red silhouette against the morning.

Lessa's gaze wandered as they moved. "You ever think it's strange," she said, "how much the Houses pretend they're still human?"

Jurpat glanced at her, his mouth twisting. "They don't pretend. They remember just enough to fake it."

Vaeliyan said nothing. His eyes stayed on the castle. The world here wasn't made for men like them; it was built to remind them where they stood.

At the entrance to the Sarn estate, attendants in night-gray waited in two perfect lines. Their movements were too precise, too rehearsed. Faces blank, hands folded, eyes sharp. The air smelled faintly of polish and ozone mixed with that same cloying hint of honeysuckle and bourbon. When the Complaints Department reached them, one stepped forward and bowed, the gesture exact and unbroken. Its voice was smooth, perfectly modulated.

"High Imperators," the attendant said, tone polite. "House Sarn awaits your arrival."

Vaeliyan's gaze flicked to Elian, whose jaw tightened but whose posture didn't shift. The exchange needed no words. Vaeliyan inclined his head once. "Lead the way."

The attendant turned and guided them toward the towering archway. The sapphire walls caught the light and reflected it inward, the glow swallowing the brightness of morning until the Lot outside vanished. For a heartbeat, the only sound was their boots on the polished floor and the low hum of power running through the castle's structure.

Then, the doors of House Sarn opened with slow, deliberate force. The Complaints Department stepped inside, leaving the world of sky and silence behind.

The Complaints Department was led through the towering doors into an open-air patio lined with dark stone columns and draped with creeping ivy. The morning light slanted through the upper arches, scattering across polished marble and the surface of a long obsidian table large enough to host a banquet. It could have seated twice their number. The edges of the terrace opened to the city below, the air carrying the faint, honey-rich scent of bourbon and honeysuckle. Somewhere beyond the walls, water ran in slow, patient streams, the sound folding into the silence until it became part of it.

Elian and Vaeliyan took their seats at the head of the table, directly across from Elian's parents. The rest of the squad spread out down the sides, maintaining formation without needing orders. No one spoke at first. Even breathing felt measured, cautious. The air around them seemed heavier than it should have been, like the patio itself was aware that this meeting mattered.

Vaeliyan finally broke the stillness. He leaned forward, resting both forearms on the table, voice edged but steady. "So, can we just cut the bullshit? We all know what this is about. What we owe. And even then, I'm still opposed to the idea that we owe anything for something we can all agree was the right thing to do."

Elian's father regarded him with that particular calm that only men who had ordered executions could master. His hands folded neatly, fingers steepled before him. "Ah, Vaeliyan," he said, tone even but resonant with command. "I understand where you're coming from. And yes, we shall dispense with the formalities. We've no wish to waste your time nor ours."

He gestured lightly, and a small holo flared to life above the table, amber light against black stone. Lines of script scrolled upward, filled with signatures and shifting contract seals that shimmered with embedded encryption. "We have come to an agreement with House Sable," he said, "to gain recompense on their behalf for the fragment that was lost during the incident."

Vaeliyan's mouth curved into something between a sneer and disbelief. "Yeah. The incident being that Michael tried to murder one of us, and then we made sure he couldn't do that again. And somehow that means we owe credits to the House that protected him? You're going to have to help me understand how the hells that makes sense."

Chime spoke from farther down the table, her tone quiet but cutting through the stillness. "He's right. It's absurd."

Elian's father turned his attention toward her, polite but assessing. "You are not wrong, Miss Chime. The situation is... unusual. But the laws are clear, or as clear as they ever are when nobles are involved." He leaned back slightly, his expression grim. "You were cadets when you killed a sub-instructor. The law forbids that. No matter the justification, no matter how monstrous his behavior, the law would have sided with him. Had he killed you, nothing would have been done. But you took the law into your own hands. I commend your courage," he added, glancing to Vaeliyan, "but courage doesn't erase consequence."

Vaeliyan's brow furrowed. "So, what, we're being punished for fixing your mess?"

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Elian's mother's voice slipped through the space between them, smooth, composed, with just enough frost to make everyone sit straighter. "You misunderstand, Vaeliyan. No one here is claiming you were wrong. We are saying you were young." Her eyes flicked to her son. "The Legion protects its own, but the Houses protect their interests. Those are not the same thing, and they never will be."

She leaned forward slightly, resting one hand on the black glass surface. "You could have come to us, Elian. We would have handled it discreetly. Instead, you and your team turned vengeance into theater."

Elian didn't flinch, but his knuckles whitened. "If we had waited," he said, "someone would have died. I wasn't going to let that happen."

His father nodded once, slow. "And I do not fault you for it. But this is where things grow tangled. It wasn't the killing that created the debt, it was the destruction of the fragment. House Sable had insurance on that item, and there's no proof one of you didn't recover it." His gaze moved deliberately to each of them before settling back on Vaeliyan. "There's no way to prove you don't still have it."

Jurpat muttered, "Why would we need to prove anything? If an enemy attacks and we win, what's his weapon becomes ours."

Elian's father inclined his head slightly. "True, in war. But this wasn't war. This was on Citadel grounds, under Legion law. You were cadets, not combatants. You had no right to kill a sub-instructor, let alone destroy his fragment. Now that you are High Imperators, those laws no longer apply to you, but the recompense owed still stands."

He paused to let the silence breathe before continuing. "It would have been far worse had the Legion not intervened. They paid a massive sum to House Sable in compensation for the instructors who've since returned to the field. The Last Testament's redeployment calmed the worst of Sable's fury, but not all of it. A debt remains."

Elian's mother folded her hands. "You are fortunate," she said quietly. "Had you still been cadets, we would have had no choice but to erase you. Now, you are far too valuable for that." Her eyes softened for the briefest moment, then hardened again. "I do not say that lightly."

Her husband continued, his tone grave. "We've spent months negotiating the lowest possible reparation. It was difficult, but your avoidance of this meeting bought me time to make it bearable. For that, I am grateful. I did not wish to be the one to carry out my son's execution."

The words sank like stone. Even the wind through the arches seemed to hold still, as if unwilling to intrude.

After a long pause, he spoke again. "Fortunately, that will not be necessary. You've succeeded where others would have fallen, and the Legion sees value in that. But House Sable still demands payment, of a different sort. This is their final offer, the only one they will accept. Complete it, and the matter is done."

He reached forward and tapped the holo. The screen shifted, revealing a sealed directive marked with Sable's sigil. Its crimson light painted every face at the table, sharp against the stone.

"This," Elian's father said, his voice dropping lower, "is what they're demanding."

The holo flickered, its encrypted message waiting to be read. No one moved. Even Vaeliyan stayed silent, though the tension in his jaw made it clear he was already calculating what it might cost them.

The holo collapsed to a single column of plain text above the obsidian. It read like an invoice, a list of requisites:

Locate and eliminate Lyra and Tyran Sable, recover their fragments. Recover the two children alive, if possible, and return them to House Sable. If children cannot be recovered, extract and return their fragments for House Sable verification. Return all property to House Sable. Discretion mandatory.

Vaeliyan read each line twice. By the second pass, his stomach had folded into itself and he felt suddenly, horribly sick of this place and its people. He swallowed and said the words aloud because it felt, perversely, better to hear them than to let them linger in that clean, red light. "They want us to kill two people who left their house and bring their children back like cargo."

Silence answered him. The patio seemed to shrink, the ivy pressing closer to the stone, the distant sound of water like a metronome counting the heartbeat of something that had gone awry.

Elian's father met Vaeliyan's gaze with a look that was not unkind. "They are Sable blood. The children are property of the House unless the House relinquishes that claim. The parents took what was not theirs to take. This is restitution, returning what was stolen."

"They left to save themselves," Sylen said, voice tight. "To save their children. They aren't criminals. They just wanted peace."

"Peace is an illusion," Lady Sarn answered, voice cool and steady. "To the Houses, blood is legacy. When lineage is endangered, the House reclaims its own. That is all there is to it."

Chime leaned forward until her palms rested on the table. "You want us to hunt down a family who wanted to live in the Wilds and kill their parents for the crime of taking their children with them?" She sounded like someone drowning in disbelief.

Jurpat's laugh was small and ugly. "So, we're debt collectors now. We kill, steal, and hand back heirs to make House Sable whole. Charming."

Vaeliyan felt bile at the back of his throat. He had done things he'd been ashamed of, things he would not name aloud, but this felt different, like being asked to turn a child into the sort of thing he'd once thrown stones at. "There's no location. There's no timeframe. You expect us to, what, wait for a call until some whisper points to a hut in the Wilds?" Vaeliyan asked.

Elian's father shook his head slowly. "We are not part of House Sable's search. We were able only to bargain the settlement on your behalf. If we receive any sighting, if anyone reports someone matching their description, we will send it to you. That is all involvement we will have in this situation."

"They left without face changes," Lady Sarn added, voice flat. "They did not, or could not, alter themselves. If you see people matching their faces in the Wilds, it is likely them. That is why House Sable accepts this solution, they do not expect you to take the field unless fate brings them across your path."

Vaeliyan let out a short, humorless sound. "Good thing the Wilds are so fucking vast because I don't plan on searching it."

Elian's father gave a tight, mild smile that did not reach his eyes. "That is precisely the point. This payment is structured so it is unlikely you will have to fulfill it by hunting. But the responsibility now rests with you. If you encounter them, by chance, by tip, by whatever, the obligation is yours to act and return the property to House Sable. The House will not expend its own resources on this recovery when you are available to do so."

Vaeliyan sat back and closed his hands into fists. The patio's honeysuckle and bourbon-scented air tasted suddenly metallic in his mouth. He pictured children asleep in a hut; he pictured the moment they were plucked like fruit and carried away. He wanted nothing to do with that image.

Vaeliyan found he could not make words of consent fit his mouth. There would be no acceptance here, not from him, not from any of them. This was not an offer; it was a burden placed on them.

"We will not hunt the Wilds for ghosts," he said flatly. "When you forward a sighting, we will act. Until then, this responsibility sits with us, whether we like it or not."

Elian's mother watched him, her face unreadable. "We will forward any sightings we receive," she said. "We are not leading the search. We negotiated this because it was the only settlement House Sable would accept."

"So why can't House Sable do this themselves?" Sylen questioned.

Elian's mother, voice calm and deliberate: "Because killing runaways and dragging children home never looks good on a noble crest. They want the fragments, they want the children, but they do not want the optics. You're the perfect shield. They get to punish you for what they think you did to them, and use you to punish someone else. It keeps their hands clean and their pride untouched."

"So, they make us the scapegoat. Teach us to kneel. Pretend it's justice." Jurpat said bitterly.

"Exactly. If the family stays buried in the Wilds, the matter dies with them. But if they surface, you'll act. And when it turns ugly, Sable will make sure the story says it was your failure, not theirs." Elian's mother replied.

Elian's father added, his voice even as stone, "Do not mistake leniency for forgiveness. Should this obligation be ignored or proven to be neglected when an actionable lead appears, the House will demand greater recompense. This arrangement spares you for now; refusal later will cost you far greater."

Vaeliyan stood. The movement cut the air like a blade. Around the table, the squad rose with him, automatic, a single organism obeying an unspoken cue. There was a weight in their silence that the Sarns' words had not pierced: they would do this if fate put the family in their path, and they would shoulder what needed to be shouldered, but they would not look for it as hunters.

Elian could not meet his parents' eyes. He kept his head down, feeling the bond tighten like a rope around them all. The others felt it too, a low, communal ache that hummed through them, answering in mutual recognition. None of them liked what was asked, but none of them pretended otherwise. They left the patio together, a procession of restraint and obligation, and the Sarns watched them go with expressions the squad refused to read. The directive's glow lingered on the table, a stain on an otherwise ordered morning.

As they made it back inside Vaeliyan's estate, the tension followed them like static. The doors closed behind the squad and silence hung until Sylen finally broke it.

"So that was bullshit, right? We're not doing this. Even if we come across them, right? If we do this, we're evil."

She rubbed the back of her neck, pacing near the table. "I mean, we're not exactly the good guys in the first place, but still, no. We're not doing this."

Torman nodded. "Even if we're trained killers, I'm not killing a family whose only crime was leaving their house and taking their kids. That's not justice. That's rot."

"Yeah, no, that's fucked up," Fenn added flatly.

Xera leaned against the wall. "This is why I'm glad I'm Legion, not nobility. At least when we do something awful, it's fast. Genocide might be mass murder, but it's not personal."

Wesley frowned. "That's literally what genocide means. It's targeted."

"You know what I mean," Xera said. "It's not hunting down one family in the woods because some pompous bloodline got their feelings hurt."

"I don't know if genocide is better than kidnapping," Wesley muttered.

"Neither's good," Xera said. "But either way, we're not doing it."

Vaeliyan stayed quiet for a long moment, then said, "Unless they threaten to kill all of us, I'm not touching this. I'm not going after innocents just because someone with credits said so. That's not what we're going to be."

He looked around the room. "Can we all agree House Sable is officially on our shit list for this? Because first Michael, now this?"

Every hand went up.

"Good," Vaeliyan said. "House Sable. Shit list."

Xera raised a brow. "Do we actually have a shit list?"

"We do now," Vaeliyan said. "Add the Sables."

Xera tilted her head. "What about House Sarn?"

Vaeliyan shook his head. "No. Elian's family just delivered the message. They didn't make the demand. House Sarn stay off."

"Right," Xera said. "Good clarification."

Vaeliyan smirked. "Anyone else we're hating today?"

He thought for a moment, then said, "I would've put the Electrical Union on there, but that's no longer necessary."

"Fair enough," Fenn said. "We'll keep it open. People come and go, but I don't see House Sable coming off anytime soon."

Vaeliyan leaned back in his chair. "Also, can you add the Stones? Those guys are pieces of shit. Every single one of them. Haven't thought about them in a while, but I still don't like any of them."

Xera snorted. "Yeah, I can see that. I don't know if they're on the same level as House Sable, though. They're kind of just a bunch of assholes."

"Fair. But assholes all the same," Vaeliyan said. "Put them on, maybe number twenty rather than the top ten."

Xera grinned. "That's a good way to do it."

Vaeliyan nodded. "Good. Also, fuck House Sable."

The squad echoed him without hesitation. "Fuck House Sable."

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