Zatch was a remarkably successful man when it came to running the Hathaway business. His associates would all attest to that much.
Despite being a family that had never produced a single Eminent, the steady economic and political leverage it held throughout the local sectors of Simulum secured them a predictable cycle of influence, power, and wealth.
Most impressive of all was Zatch's overwhelming rate of success through the "arrangements" he preferred to conduct strictly on his own turf.
If his associates were to describe the experience, they would claim it felt as though their thoughts were being sifted through.
As if their motivations, intentions, and limits were laid plainly before him like a platter he could leisurely inspect.
More unsettling, was the silent child always in the corner of whichever room Zatch occupied, clutching a stuffed, white-bearded toy soldier in an unyielding grip.
Earlier in his life, Zatch's escapades had resulted in numerous illegitimate children, forming ties he severed quickly when he eventually regained a sober mind.
More often than not, those severed ties ended in the disposal of whoever might bear witness, or whoever might have been born as a result. Yet his most recent and final, long-term entanglement produced an exception.
Though the unfortunate mother had not been spared, the two sons she left behind managed to keep their lives.
The elder survived long enough to reach adolescence before being discovered. By then, he had already been initiated into the HLA, placing him firmly beyond Zatch's reach, since the Hathaway influence could only extend so far.
The younger one, however, survived for a different reason. He possessed an innate quality that Zatch recognized at first glance, for better or for worse.
At the sight of a five-year-old in Zatch's arm and a jumbo-sized doll of an army colonel in the other upon his return, his consigliere was puzzled, to say the least.
"What do you hope to accomplish?"
That was the only question she could muster at first sight.
The question became all the more reasonable when he took a decorative sword from the wall of his office and drove it straight through the doll, piercing from the head down and burying the blade's full length inside the stuffing.
"That is–"
"This is the one," he said, placing the impaled doll into the arms of the child sitting quietly on the floor.
"Why are you still banking on that artifact? Hathaway hasn't produced a wielder in generations, and the family has done perfectly well without one. Your gambles are pointless if it simply wasn't fated."
"Times are changing, Anne. Rigid methods are easy to replace, but ensuring a legacy worth preserving requires we change with the world. The Family cannot thrive in this society without its own supply of Eminents. Mercenaries won't suffice anymore."
He rubbed the child's head in the manner of a merchant admiring his golden goose before continuing.
"Hope and fate have never factored into how I restored this family to its former glory. Success has always depended on how effectively you can twist the luck and circumstances of others to your advantage, even if that means cutting their journeys short. To do that, all you need is overwhelming strength. Fate is merely an excuse for failures, and hope is simply a crutch for the helpless. What I've secured here is a definitive weapon."
She regarded the boy with open skepticism, and he met her gaze without hesitation.
He was an unnervingly reciprocal child, moving only when he urged to. Yet his stare made her skin crawl in a way she couldn't quite define.
"For you to have spared one of your past mistakes, am I to assume something about him is exceptional? A potential for awakening perhaps? Better yet, is he possibly already an Eminent?"
"Not quite."
Zatch strolled toward her and took one of her hands, placing an object onto her palm with deliberate weight.
"This is…"
When she opened her hand, she found a gold bracelet smeared with blood.
"It crossed my mind, for the briefest moment after she drew her last breath, that the bracelet on her wrist was the one I bought her on a whim." He took the child's small right hand between his thumb and index finger, mimicking a firm handshake. "But that was all it took for this one to take notice. He then offered a down payment for our forthcoming partnership."
"With all due respect, sir, you can't expect me to believe a five-year-old would remove a bracelet from his mother's fresh corpse in exchange for his own survival. Even if he grasped an inkling of the value of gold, or any sentiment you've attached to that bracelet, such an act wouldn't make him wise. It would make him a monster."
"Then tell me, Anne," he replied, "how many Eminents can you confidently claim possess the sanity of a human?"
Annabeth couldn't dispute the blunt reasoning. The most common early sign of a potential awakening in a child was a mind already diverging from natural human instinct without any discernible outside influence.
And as for how far this illogical gamble would take Zatch, it surpassed even his own expectations.
…
Yonar, since he became able to think, possessed a talent that was nothing short of frightening.
He showed no academic giftedness, and his physique matched that of any ordinary child.
Yet something beyond comprehension set him apart. As though an extra membrane coated the lenses of his eyes, he could see subtle signals coursing through the bodies of others at all times.
Whether they mimicked electrochemical exchanges between the brain and the body or some form of cellular communication was unclear. But as far as Yonar could tell, they simply indicated life.
Living things carried them. Those he watched die, bugs, birds, and even rodents crushed beyond recognition, only lost them gradually until they vanished altogether.
After hearing what her child claimed to see, Corlette sought professional help to understand the issue.
"He's a perfectly healthy human child," a licensed physician assured her, with test results confirming Yonar lacked any trace of Authority, within a 0.02 percent margin of error.
The oddities only deepened as he developed the habit of staring at others for uncomfortably long periods. Eventually, Corlette was forced to pull him from kindergarten entirely, choosing to homeschool him until he could better assimilate into society.
Her first son had been driven from home by a deeply rooted hatred for Eminents, and she refused to let history repeat itself. Leaving Tenert's heart to wander unguided had been her life's greatest mistake, one she would not allow with her second child.
In time, she discovered the cause behind Yonar's fixation. He was learning. He was unconsciously attempting to cultivate an ability not naturally granted by his talent.
By memorizing the patterns of these signals as they rippled like waves through others' bodies, he was teaching himself to read things no child should have been able to.
Heightened emotions. Habitual instincts. Even the involuntary physiological shifts that reveal lies hidden inside spoken words.
It was a revelation that terrified her, and would terrify anyone else who discovered it.
Even if he never became an Eminent, he would inevitably grow up beneath the weight of the misconceptions and stigma tied to such abnormalities.
In his room, decorated with every book, toy, and craft she hoped would sprout into a proper hobby, Corlette taught him as gently as she could.
She guided his eyes in a way that would never allow him to diminish the worth of a life, no matter how much filth he might one day see within others.
"Everyone carries some form of evil inside them, some more than others," she would tell him. "But just the same, there's something in each person that can warm the heart, something worthy of equal nurture, even if you can't see it. Even if they aren't people you hold dear."
Corlette never knew the right way to impart those ideals, and she couldn't honestly claim to be the most qualified to instill a sense of morality.
Every time she spoke those words, an uncomfortable itch crawled through her mind, because she saw herself as entirely unfit to utter them.
Whenever those thoughts took root, Yonar would notice faint traces of those signals gathering toward her left wrist.
"Ok, Mum," he would finally say the words that soothed her heart, as much of a lie as they were.
It wasn't that he failed to understand her meaning. But with how little exposure she allowed him to have with the outside world, her untested ideals were bound to fall upon deaf ears.
And on that night, when she left his room to answer the doorbell, those ideals would falter even further within Yonar's mind.
She moved down the hallway with a lightness in her step, waltzing, humming, buoyed by rare optimism at the first sign of progress he had shown, never stopping to consider that they weren't expecting visitors.
"Hello–"
The instant she opened the door, her smile vanished and she collapsed backward, clutching her abdomen.
A bullet from a silent pistol had torn through her without warning, and the culprit stepped inside, locking the door behind him to prevent any unwanted interference within the apartment.
"There's no reason you should be confused right now. You knew this day would come."
The gunman's voice carried across the room as Corlette scrambled away, throwing whatever she could reach, an umbrella, shoes, even tipping over racks and shelves, in a frantic attempt to slow him down.
All just to reach the hallway leading to Yonar's room.
Another bullet pierced her flank, and she fell across an oddly placed compartment in front of the door.
"What I don't understand," the man continued, standing over her with the gun still leveled, "is why you'd hide them from me, even after learning exactly what kind of man I was."
"But I'm not without mercy." He lifted the pistol. "Kill it yourself, and you walk away alive. Erase every trace of us, and your journey continues."
She didn't respond.
Though he'd ensured she wasn't dead. Her stillness unsettled him enough that he stepped closer.
As soon as he did, he was caught off guard as she summoned every remaining shred of strength to strike him in the chest with something that hadn't been in her hands before.
It resembled a shock unit, and as she pushed with the weight of her body, it discharged several thousand volts directly through his body, sending him against the wall and rendering him fully stunned.
Bleeding and gasping, she crawled toward the door to her son's room, her trembling hands slipping on the knob, slick with blood.
At last, she managed to twist it open, only to hear approaching footsteps behind her, punctuated by a groan, all too soon.
"Using a weapon meant to protect you from Eminents against a human… you're as feisty as I remember. No matter. I didn't come here intending to underestimate you," he said, opening his charred coat to reveal a defensive vest beneath.
Another shot rang out, bouncing harmlessly off the shutting plated door.
Corlette had long anticipated a day like this, yet at the moment of truth, most of her countermeasures were ineffective, limited, or unavailable.
Even knowing that her son had hidden himself as planned when he heard the commotion, it only struck her now how naïve her threat assessment had truly been.
"Yon… come out, sweetie…"
After a long pause, a heavy piece of the wall fell aside, and the child crawled out to sit before her, as he always had during her lectures.
This time, however, he had to lower his gaze to meet hers.
"They are leaving… the lights…"
Corlette gasped sharply, followed by a weak, cheerful chuckle.
"That's seven words in one day. My baby boy's getting better. Maybe…"
Her hands reached out, touching his cheek. It stained his face with blood, but neither of them registered the color.
"…you're ready for your first homework assignment. Normal teachers give those, you know? Hehe, what am I even saying?"
She leaned closer as the sound of her voice grew fainter.
"Your first assignment from your teacher is to leave through that door without a scratch."
A heavy impact rammed the door behind her, shaking the room.
Another followed. And then another, each thud repeating in a relentless rhythm, while she kept his gaze fixed with her hand.
"I know you can do it… because my baby's a genius, isn't he? Even Mommy can't hide anything from you."
Her voice began to quiver despite her best efforts, tears falling before she could stop them.
"I'm so sorry…" she said as the door thudded for every precious second she had left. "Your mum really is a liar. Those things I kept telling you were just excuses to justify keeping such dangerous and sinful love in my heart for so many years. Even now… I still can't feel a trace of hatred. And when I saw him again, there wasn't a damned thing I could say to his face. Looks like your mother just has horrible taste in men, right?"
She pulled his head closer to hers till their foreheads touched.
"Yonar… please live a long, happy life, okay?"
The signals flowed, tracing every point of contact, leaving every other part of her, settling in her hand and head.
"Use your gift for… no, just use it in a way that makes you happy. I trust you more than anything. You'll be alright."
The warmth of her hand faded, the signals within it dissipating slowly but surely.
"Thank you for putting up with me, and… I'm sorry I wasn't a very good mother."
The last thought that crossed Yonar's mind when the world lost Corlette was a simple question: Compared to what?
He had no other mothers, no point of reference, no way to gauge her success against her own standards.
What had she truly lacked?
"Psychotic, wasn't she?"
At some point, the door had been broken through. The gunman now stood over them, watching to ensure her final moments.
"Honestly, this course of action is less about loose ends and more because she was a potentially direct and immediate threat. Yet not a single moment of her ordeal was spent cursing me. What a way to spite me to the very end."
Then, the barrel was leveled at Yonar.
"It's not personal. You've done nothing wrong… only been born into this world. Now, for my sake, your journey must end early."
On November 11, 5 A.C.D., Yonar met his father for the first time.