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