He came to Brother Aen.
Forty-seven years old. Six confirmed high-tier kills. Quiet, careful, patient in the way of someone who had been doing this long enough that the urgency had settled into competence.
He anointed him.
He looked at him.
'He believes,' Caldris thought. 'Every word. This is the work, to him. This is the necessary thing.'
He came to Mira Vale.
Twenty-three. Fast. The specific precision of someone who would either become exceptional or discover that exceptional wasn't enough for what she was asking her precision to carry.
She looked at him with the eyes that had found the gap in four minutes.
He anointed her.
'She believes too,' he thought. 'But she also thinks. Both at the same time. That's the rarer combination.'
He read the closing text.
He put the book away.
He looked at them.
