Aldrec Cendal

In the Night Veil they call him grandfather.

It isn't out of affection. Well, not only.

Aldrec Cendal is the oldest of everyone who came on their own two feet. He has seen three heads of the Veil come and go. He has buried almost everyone who knew him young.

He doesn't remember any of them well. He says it's his age. Nobody believes him.

He was born a Tiefling, outside the Veil, in a village where the white moon lit everything. His mother prayed to Obsidia under her breath, with the shutters closed. She taught him to do the same.

One winter she caught a fever that wouldn't break.

The Elyri knocked on the door. Lights on, hands clean, never asking which moon the house prayed to.

They healed her. In three nights.

His mother got out of bed, thanked them, and that same week stopped praying to Obsidia.

There was no shouting. No one to blame. Just a woman who woke up one morning looking at the other moon.

Aldrec never forgave it. Not her. Them.

One night he took down his grandfather's sword, the one nobody in the family had touched since, and walked to a shuttered house. He knocked. They opened.

He has guarded those houses ever since. That was his debt. He has never said it twice.

He still carries the same sword. It was already old when it was his grandfather's. He has made it older.

Others in the Veil fight with claws, with daggers, with whatever their blood gave them. Aldrec fights with the only thing he brought from home. He says a sword can't be healed of anything. That's why he trusts it.

He always walks one step behind the rest.

The young ones think it's his age. It isn't.

The old who walk in front never get old.

From behind you see everything. Who opens the gap. Who drops their guard. Where the enemy is looking.

And the enemy is never looking at grandfather.

Every time one of his own strikes, Aldrec is already there, on the same body, with a second blow nobody saw coming. Every time a Tiefling risks their life on a feat, Aldrec hits someone else, anyone, so nobody is watching the kid.

And on the way, he closes their wound a little. Without a word. The way it was done in the shuttered houses.

He looks at the Tiefling the way he looked at the horned children sleeping in the straw. He taught them to step aside in time. When he's there, they step aside better.

Every one of them at his side makes him harder to bring down. And every blow one of them takes, Aldrec feels in his blood. Like a debt still owed.

He doesn't hate the Elyri. It's worse. He has had an open account with them since that morning in the village.

When he reaches one, he doesn't try to kill them first. He wants something else. He tears out the blessing, the calm, the borrowed strength. Everything Elyra gave them.

The Elyri stands frozen, not understanding what's missing. Just like his mother, standing there saying thank you.

And Obsidia's shadow grows a little more under their skin.

He was the one who opened the door the night an old vampire left Morwen on the threshold. He asked no questions. He stepped aside and let her in.

He was with Selene before Selene was in charge. He stood behind the previous head of the Veil. Now he stands behind her.

If one day he stands behind Ilvana, it will be because Selene is gone.

Or because grandfather has decided she's no longer needed.