Mor Den Kaltar

Mor Den Kaltar, the second son who chose the black moon.

In the Williamson house, every eye went to the eldest: Kenton, golden, promised to the dawn and the Ordo Aurorae. The second son got the rest, the ledgers, the stables, the thanks no one remembers to say. One day he dismissed the master saddler, a man of real worth, for no reason but that he could, and felt only a cold clarity. The Circle of Shadows, a small order on Asthate's path devoted to Hyloth, the moon no one sees, did not have to corrupt him. It named him. Kaelus Williamson never came home again. Each season, though, a letter reaches the estate, never signed.

Describe him

Dark clothes without a single gleam, cut with the exact line of a great house. He stands straight but never at the center, always a step back, near a wall or a door. Slender hands, still, gloved even at table. He looks at people the way one rereads an account. His voice never rises, his courtesy never slips. After a while, you forget he is there.

Play him

Place him in the room, then forget him. Give him no line until he has chosen his moment. Be courteous, always, past the point of comfort. The more gracious he gets, the nearer the blow. When the players turn to someone else in the scene, have him answer in their place with one soft, exact sentence that proves he heard everything from the start, while no one remembered he was there. What holds him beneath the grace: no one has ever seen him coming, and he means to keep it that way.

What he says (rarely)

"No one ever looked at me. I made an altar of it."
"Merit, kindness, good work weigh nothing against whoever holds the power."
(very softly) "But please. After you."