Eriksson's POV

"Not even my tears can extinguish the burning flames within me."

—Eriksson Lennard

Babysitting Aston is no light work. I sit at my desk, fingers sliding over the calendar, eyes drifting toward the golden moon outside the window. The vast orb hangs heavy in the night, dim light spilling over the world in its usual silent embrace. I draw a cross over the 42nd of Astra—the day of the Seraphic Shroud—a day of praise to the angels who serve the deities.

I let out a slow sigh, gaze shifting from the warm orange ink of the marked date to the bare skin of my forearm. Aston plays with his life far too easily. He's good—quick to learn, quick to act—but watching him attempt to kill the king is going to be a storm of trouble.

No. I shake my head, leaning on the windowsill as I do every night. My disguised eyes remain deep, human blue, not mossy like my true self. They roam over the golden craters of the moon.

Eleven days. In eleven days, the moon will change shape and color. The new year will arrive, and with it, the 1st of Rhea, every red-blooded soul, Elena included, will breathe without fear of tomorrow.

Time feels strange lately, unreal, as if it slips away like a bullet across a battlefield. Few bullets can harm me—only those tipped with higher blood and forged in Elithran steel. The thought pulls me off track, and when I glance back toward the moon, I swear something stares back at me from its surface.

The craters look darker tonight. Dark as the void, but shimmering in the golden hue, as if the moon itself could rust. My back prickles, and I step away from the window, legs loosening under me.

I didn't like Aston when I first met him. I didn't like Arthur either. Truthfully, I still don't — but they're decent enough. We share the same goal, and that's worth something. More than that… thanks to Aston, I can fight again.

I'd grown restless with Elena—my muscles aching for use, my instincts dull. Aston gave me something I hadn't realized I needed: real combat. Not slaughter, not a one-sided execution, but a fight worth my time.

It wasn't hard, of course—nothing ever is anymore—and there was no killing intent in it, no true rush of danger. But still, it filled a hollow place in me. I shouldn't fall back into that hunger, but war is like a drug; you can't escape it unless you embrace the reaper.

A breath escapes my lips—dry, cracked—and I moisten them with my tongue. My steps carry me from the hall toward the lower levels of the headquarters.

Stage one was done. Now I go to Elena, and I plan to read a little for her, enjoy the final quiet before the mission begins. The last day before everything changes.

It's been barely two weeks since I met her, yet she's carved out a space in the wreckage of my heart. I don't understand why. I tell myself it's because she reminds me of my daughter, and perhaps that's true—but there's something more. She's given me something I thought forever lost.

My memory lapses are gone; the hallucinations have faded, and the nightmares… silenced. I've even slept—really slept—for the first time in years. Yesterday, I drifted into three hours of dreamless rest, unguarded.

I don't understand it. How could I dare replace my real daughter? How could I look at Elena and think she's mine?

My fingers trace the blank wall as I walk, my mind chewing over my own self-loathing. For a heartbeat, I want to drive my fist into the steel—to feel the sting, to hear the crack—but the walls here are reinforced with Elithran metal. And Elithran is too costly to test against my temper.

I hold back because she is here.

The moment I see her, my jaw loosens. I walk softer, lighter—as if I'm walking on clouds. Her head, her rust-red hair, catches the light. And as always, I must remind myself that she is not her. She is Elena.

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This name. I gave it to her without thought, and I despise myself for it. Selfish, selfish, selfish.

My knees weaken, and my face holds the stoic mask of the blue, but beneath it, a smile forces its way up as she turns to me. Her topaz eyes glimmer. The firelight paints her face in carmine shadow.

I can't stop my wrinkles from creasing. My chest rises faster, and my heart beats louder. This feeling is impossible to name—it can only be felt. And with it, my heart shatters again.

I am not a good man. Perhaps once I was, but that man is long gone, lost with my family in the fire of the past. No matter how many nights I remind myself she is not my daughter, I lose the battle the moment I see her face.

Maybe my real daughter never looked like Elena. I don't know anymore, and that is what hurts the most.

I step closer. Slowly. Steadily. Her silhouette sharpens until I'm close enough to rest my hands on the armrest of the chair beside her. A tear threatens to fall, but I hold it in. I break eye contact, blink, and lean forward briefly before stepping away.

I turn to the bookshelf, searching blindly for any book at all. My throat is tight, my heart is a pounding drum in my chest.

"Rabbit in a hole?"

Her voice hits like razors, cutting through every barrier I've built.

My hand freezes over the spine of another book. "How…" I swallow, cough, and try again. "…How about The Lost Mermaid?"

I feel her eyes on me. Maybe they hold a reluctant glint. Maybe, as always, they are paired with that wide, unfaltering smile. But it must be the latter, because her voice carries in the air like a melody stolen from a fairy tale. I turn toward her, drawing in a slow breath before I sit, letting a smile stretch across my face—one I've worn a thousand times, and yet always with an intensity I can't seem to soften.

…

It goes quickly. Perhaps two hours, maybe less. Down here, it's impossible to tell. No clocks, no windows—just these walls, the low light, and the faint press of earth all around us. Underground, time isn't something you measure. It's something you feel crawling along your skin, through your pulse.

I close the book. It's thick and heavier than most short tales, and absurd in a way that gnaws at me. This one is about a mermaid—no sweet rescue, no triumphant return to the waves. In the end, she is caught, and she remains caught, never to be saved by the hero who was supposed to come for her. In Nigil, the land I once called home, our mermaid stories never end like this.

It should feel unpleasant to meet Elena's gaze after reading such an ending. At least, that's what I think. But she's not saddened in the slightest. Instead, she leaps toward me with all the weight and speed of a striking bird, her arms coiling around my neck in a grip so tight it could strangle. I don't move. I let her stay there, clinging to me.

And again, the question forms—the same one that has been with me since the day I met her. What have I done to deserve this?

Maybe I overthink, maybe I truly do.

Perhaps my dead family would want me to be happy.

Maybe.

I fall into the endless pull of thoughts that are born from the empty chasms of memory I no longer possess. The absences hurt almost as much as the ones I do remember. And then—suddenly—her voice cuts through my haze, and the words land like a sudden blow to the heart.

"Can I call you Pa?"

Her voice is soft. Innocent. The kind of voice that is so pure it robs you of yours. My mouth opens, then closes. Opens again, only to close for good this time. I stand there, silent, and she climbs onto my back, her small hands gripping my shirt, her hair brushing my cheek and itching my nose.

I don't respond.

How many times have I, in my heart, called her my daughter? How many times have I let the thought slip through, even when I swore not to? Yet now, when she says the words I have longed to hear—words I wanted only for the selfish comfort they would give me—I am quiet.

Quiet like a coward.

My heart stutters. The only sounds left are the muffled voices from the rooms beyond and the gentle crackle of the fire in the hearth.

The flames are vivid—pure orange and red, like the blood of my kind and hers. Ash gathers within the carmine belly of the fireplace. I stare into it, and I see them. My wife. My daughter. Myself.

Heartbeats pass. I don't know how many, and I don't think I want to.

"I never had a father—" Elena's voice is close to my ear, her words almost fragile now. Her small hands press harder into my chest, and the world around me seems to shift, vivid like a memory both distant and not yet lived.

Her voice trembles, but she pushes on. "—And my mother. She left me alone the moment the bad people came. My mother left me alone… and you're going away. I don't want that, too. Don't go as well—"

I feel her sobs against my neck, each one vibrating into my bones. Her grip tightens on my shirt, almost desperate. My throat burns, and my own eyes sting. Salt runs freely, though I do nothing to wipe it away.

And I realize something. She didn't say your people or your kind. She didn't name the blood that runs in my veins. She didn't call me what the world would.

She's braver than I am.

I keep my gaze locked on the flames, on the fleeting images inside them, and I hold her longer. I hold her as if she is the last piece of my world that hasn't been reduced to ash.

"You can," I finally say, my voice low and heavy. "You can call me Pa…"

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