The House of Kaelen was not a home; it was a fortress dressed in silk.
On the night of Lord Valen Kaelen's annual Foundation Day Gala, the manor glowed with the icy, expensive light of a thousand chandeliers. Every guest was a political asset, and every conversation was a transaction.
Commander Joric Tahl stood positioned by the main receiving hall, a pillar of quiet competence in the tide of noise and jewelry. He wore the immaculate, unadorned black uniform of Kaelen Security's executive command - a stark contrast to the baroque excess surrounding him. His job was to be the unmoving shield, anticipating threats before they materialized as whispers.
Joric was thirty-two, built for endurance, and defined by a rigid sense of duty. He had served the Kaelen house for five years, not out of loyalty, but out of absolute necessity. Every coin he earned, every bonus, every small increase in hazard pay, went directly to the specialized medical facility housing his younger sister, Elena.
Elena suffered from a rare respiratory condition, a consequence of living in the city's heavily industrialized lower wards. Her complex treatment was expensive, and Valen Kaelen's coffers were the only source deep enough to sustain it.
Tonight, his duty was strained. He watched Valen, holding court, his hand resting possessively on the shoulder of his oldest son, Cassian. Cassian, the primary heir, was a study in careless entitlement - loud, perpetually amused, and entirely unaware of the machinery that supported his leisure.
Joric felt a familiar, cold wave of disdain for the entire dynasty. They were corrupt, wasteful, and casually cruel, but they paid well. His moral line was clear, if perpetually compromised: protect Elena first, follow orders second.
A flurry of hushed activity drew his attention to the rear service entrance. Valen's personal assistant, pale and flustered, rushed towards Joric.
"Commander, we have an issue. A breach, minor. A data packet intercepted a few hours ago, routing through an unsecured municipal server. It's nothing, but it threatened Lord Valen's keynote speech time."
Joric's mind immediately went to the perimeter defenses. "Where did the intrusion originate?"
"The City Records Bureau, sir. Some sort of administrative audit update, flagged by an old protocol."
"Administrative," Joric repeated, dismissing the threat but logging the detail. It was probably a clumsy attempt at espionage, but nothing that warranted interrupting the gala.
Lady Anya Kaelen, Valen's wife, glided over, her smile sharp enough to cut glass. "What troubles my Commander, Joric? Everything is peaceful, no?"
"A minor bureaucratic anomaly, Lady Anya. Handled."
Anya watched him, her eyes shrewd. She recognized that Joric was a professional asset, a man whose integrity was for sale, but whose skill was unparalleled. "Excellent. The Patriarch needs a solid shield, Joric. Do not let anything - or anyone - breach it."
"Nothing will breach the House of Kaelen, Lady Anya," Joric promised, the vow feeling heavy and false on his tongue. He was paid to be the impenetrable wall, but he knew the walls were only as strong as the secrets they concealed.
Later that night, long after the guests had departed, Joric stood alone in his small, functional security office within the manor. He pulled up the security anomaly report. A municipal audit update originating from the Historical Records Bureau, flagged for attempting to check Kaelen's financial scheduling.
He zoomed in on the time stamp and then cross-referenced the shift log. One name was attached to the access point at that time: Veridia, Chief Archivist.
An archivist trying to peek at financial schedules? It was bizarre. Joric filed the incident away, not as a threat, but as a curiosity. He would follow up. He had an instinct for patterns, and the sudden appearance of a meticulous, highly educated 'ghost' in the city's paperwork piqued his professional interest. He would find this Veridia. It was only a matter of time.