the empty treasury

The Cost of Kin

Eleanor’s Home, That Evening, 7:00 PM

The Valen home—Eleanor’s home, at least—was a small, comfortable brick house, utterly devoid of the towering, chilling luxury of Arthur’s penthouse. It was filled with the warm, lived-in clutter of a modest life: stack of novels, a slightly lopsided lamp, and the comforting scent of a dinner that was more nourishing than expensive.

Diana Valen, Arthur’s younger sister, sat at the kitchen table nursing a mug of tea, the steam blooming around her face. She possessed a faded version of the sharp Valen features, but unlike her brother, she had warmth around her eyes, etched there by years of fighting for her own happiness rather than seizing others'. She had paid a heavy price to escape her brother’s orbit.

"How was economics today, El?" Diana asked, stirring her tea. She had learned to keep the conversations light, avoiding the financial demons that had poisoned her childhood.

"Fine. Mr. Pelf was talking about systemic debt," Eleanor replied, her fork pushing uneaten vegetables around her plate. She looked troubled, her gaze fixed on a distant point.

Diana noticed the cloud around her daughter. "Systemic debt? Sounds riveting. Did you learn how to avoid becoming a titan of industry?" she asked, with a laugh that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Mom, I asked him a question after class," Eleanor said, finally meeting her mother's gaze. The casual atmosphere instantly evaporated.

"About what?"

"About Uncle Arthur. Not by name, exactly. But about people who do terrible things—things that ruin lives—but are totally free because they're rich. I asked if they were truly unpunishable."

Diana flinched, a flicker of old, deep pain crossing her face. She immediately put down her mug. The subject of Arthur Valen was the one great, gaping wound the Consegrue was called to heal, yet here, in this quiet kitchen, it was a source of raw, human bitterness.

The Story of Diana

"What did that handsome, dreary teacher say?" Diana asked, her voice flat.

"He said the cost always catches up. Maybe not in court, but in the final balance of the soul."

Diana sighed, a sound heavy with years of resignation. "He's an economics teacher, El. They like to think everything balances out. But your uncle… he’s a black hole. He pulls everything in and nothing escapes."

She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. "You asked what he’s like, what he’s done. Let me tell you what he is."

"Arthur wasn't born bad. He was born terrified. When we were children, our father, a small-time investor, lost everything in one crash. Our home, our savings, everything. The shame nearly killed him. Arthur—he was only twelve—he watched our father wither. And that fear, that absolute terror of loss, it became his driving force. It wasn't about getting rich; it was about building a wall so high that fear could never touch him again."

"He started small. Stealing classmates’ allowances, not to spend, but to hoard. In college, he’d find his rivals’ vulnerabilities and exploit them. He never created value, Eleanor. He just systematically dismantled the security of others to build his own. When I tried to take over my own share of the family business—a small, ethical publishing house—he bled it dry through legal maneuvering, just to prove I couldn't have anything that wasn't under his control."

The Burden of Wealth

Diana’s face hardened. "He starved millions, yes. That's the public sin. But his private sin is worse: he has never known joy. He doesn't love the money; he's enslaved to it. He sits in that ridiculous glass tower, alone, guarding a hoard that he can’t spend, can’t share, and can't even enjoy. He gave up his soul for a false sense of security."

"So Mr. Pelf was right," Eleanor whispered. "The cost is catching up."

"Maybe," Diana conceded, looking at her daughter with a newfound respect for her moral clarity. "But I wouldn't waste another minute thinking about it. He lives in his world, we live in ours."

But Eleanor looked at the plate, a fierce, protective resolve in her eyes—the same resolve that had just briefly shaken the Consegrue.

"I don't know," Eleanor murmured. "I just keep wondering what the 'final balance of the soul' looks like."

Diana watched her daughter, seeing the nascent drive of a Valen who might actually fight for justice, rather than for profit. She didn't realize that the very force designed to bring Arthur to account had just been deeply complicated by a single, honest question in a high school classroom.The dinner dishes were cleared, and the kitchen was dark save for the light over the small workspace where Diana was attempting to organize family documents—a futile effort against the disorder of a life rebuilt after Arthur Valen's devastation.

She couldn't shake the phrase Eleanor had repeated: "The final balance of the soul."

It was a strange, hauntingly precise phrase, especially coming from an economics teacher. Most teachers would have offered platitudes about karma or legal loopholes. This "Mr. Pelf" had spoken with the authority of a judge.

Diana found herself moving toward the laptop. She didn't seek out news of Arthur—that was a self-inflicted wound she refused to revisit. Instead, she typed a new query into the search bar: "Silas Pelf, Economics, Local High School."

A Search for Scars

The search results were scarce, which, for a Valen, was highly unusual. In their world, every life left a massive digital footprint—a trail of assets, debts, and public relations. Silas Pelf, however, seemed to have none of the usual digital noise.

She found a school directory photo: a high-resolution headshot showing a man of startling, if reserved, handsomeness. The pale silver eyes seemed to look out of the screen, not at her, but through her, evaluating the honesty of her intentions.

He looks like a sculpture, she thought. Too perfect. Too cold.

Diana, who had spent her life deciphering the cold calculations behind her brother’s charming smile, was exquisitely sensitive to deceptive surfaces. She knew that perfection often masked the deepest flaws.

She found his educational history: a degree from an obscure college decades ago, followed by a career that seemed to consist only of teaching in quiet, forgotten public schools, always moving, never staying longer than five years. There were no social media profiles, no articles, no listed family, no assets, and—most jarringly—no debts.

"He's a ghost," Diana muttered to herself. "He has no footprint."

A man with no discernible financial history, no consumption, no wants, teaching the youth about the inevitable failures of human desire? It was a complete inversion of her brother's life, and yet, it felt equally intense, equally obsessive.

Diana's curiosity curdled into suspicion. She wasn't worried about her daughter; she was worried about the man who spoke of balance with such cold conviction. Was he some kind of cult leader? A fringe economist? Or something stranger?

She remembered her own painful history with Arthur. Arthur had destroyed her by manipulating value—making what she had seem worthless. This Mr. Pelf seemed to embody the ultimate devaluation: the man who valued nothing and had no desire.

She closed the laptop with a sharp snap. Her protective instincts, long dormant, were now fully awake. Her brother was a threat she understood; she knew the boundaries of his corporate ruthlessness. This Mr. Pelf—this perfectly gaunt, handsome, history-less teacher who spoke of the soul's cost—was an unknown variable she did not trust.

Diana Valen decided she needed to see Mr. Silas Pelf for herself. A parent-teacher conference, she reasoned, would be the most natural way to gauge the sincerity behind that unsettling, assessing gaze.