Legacy Protocol

THE DARO GALA

Arin learned the house in pieces. Corridors were like a language he did not yet speak, full of subtle grammar: who smiled for whom, which portraits were left unrotated, which doors stayed closed. Lucan introduced him to the staff with the efficiency of a man assigning ranks. Everyone bowed. Everyone watched. The staff treated him with an odd mixture of curiosity and professional indifference, as if he were a new piece of furniture that might, at any time, be reclaimed by the estate.

The Protocol narrated small facts into his skull, plain and unemotional. DAY 1. VOSS SHELTER: ACTIVE. TRUST BUILD: 2/5. It also supplied a list of skills, most of which he did not understand until he found reasons to use them. A simple interface presented itself as options: social calibration, basic surveillance, lock familiarity. He accepted what felt useful and left the rest unresolved.

Evelyn watched him during meals. She sat like someone who had been trained to take up minimal space, which made her presence larger. Across from him she was controlled and deliberate. When she spoke she chose neutral topics, everything from the house ledger to books she had not actually read. He learned quickly that civility with her was a game with rules he would spend a long time learning.

“Do you remember anything about the docks?” she asked once, her voice low enough to avoid being overheard. They were in a side salon, where a thin winter afternoon slanted through tall windows and lit the dust motes like little violations.

He swallowed. The Protocol had given him fragments, not a map: a smell of diesel, a rag soaked in something acidic, a face turned away. He kept the image of it because it hurt in a place that felt like memory, which made it feel real.

“Only bits,” he said. “A lot of pain. A name that keeps flashing. Daro.”

Her eyes cooled. She had known it would be that name. She had known, so calmly, that any path leading to the docks would be a path to the city’s old resentments. “The Daro family runs the port districts,” she said. “They sell favors and make enemies. If you were found near their territory it can mean a dozen different things.”

“And one of them is that someone wanted me dead,” Arin said.

She did not reply immediately. When she finally spoke, she folded her hands and put on a face that made her look younger. “You should not go down to the docks by yourself,” she advised. “You are important now, in a way you do not understand. The gala is a surface for something deeper. Treat it accordingly.”

Arin filed the warning without promising to obey it. He had to learn the map of allies and threats for himself. The Protocol, blunt and clinical, added: GALA MISSION COUNTDOWN: 7 DAYS. MANDATORY PRESENCE: SUGGESTED. The word mandatory felt like a ceiling. He had been given direction, which was both relief and a trap.

Lucan assigned him an aide. The man’s name was Corvin Mara. He was lean and quick, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. Corvin introduced himself as a handler of small matters and then stayed as a handler of larger ones. He did not ask about Arin’s last life. Instead he taught him how to stand at a reception and make strangers believe they had known him for years.

“People like confidence more than truth,” Corvin said. “If you look like you belong, they will let you belong. If you look afraid they will test you.”

They practiced introductions, the tilt of a chin, how to make a passing remark that landed like a stitch. The Protocol fed corrections in the margins. SOCIAL CALIBRATION: +10% when Arin took Corvin’s advice. The system rewarded small successes with tiny bright counts of points, like coins dropped into a jar.

Outside the manor, the city had a different breath. Arin walked with a Voss escort through markets and along the riverwalk. Men of different loyalties watched and let their gazes slide away when the Voss crest showed. The world learned to split into those who bowed and those who pretended not to see. Both behaviors were meaningful.

He went to the archive one afternoon, a low-ceilinged room behind Lucan’s private study. Shelves smelled of old paper and metal. A librarian with thick glasses moved with the economy of someone who handled secrets professionally. Arin found himself allowed into restricted stacks, rows of ledgers and boxed artifacts labeled in neat script. He felt a little ridiculous, like someone sneaking into a memory room where he had no right to stand.

A thin box caught his eye. It was labeled Daro Correspondence, two years prior, and the leather strap that held it had a faint salt stain. He slid it open with a careful hand. Inside were letters and invoices and a scrap with a map of docking routes. The handwriting on one note was familiar in a way he could not place. Someone had written in quick strokes: “Tessera shipment delayed. Watch House 47.” The word Tessera echoed in the Protocol like a bell.

PROTOCOL: MEMORY SHARD: CODE-TESSERA. VALIDATION: PARTIAL. The system pulsed in his head as if touched by the box. He realized this was the first time the Protocol and the estate had pointed to the same name. Tessera. Shard. Daro docks.

That night he dreamed of the docks and woke with the taste of salt. The house at night tightened its own jaw. Staff moved in whispers and the portraits seemed to observe him with arithmetic eyes. He was not the only one in motion. Evelyn’s door opened in the hall and closed with a sound that told him she had not gone far.