Nudging her side, the sound she makes surprises even me. As if I were her, the shock jolting through my body; yet I press on, my fingers tickling her side.
She twists, heavy laughs escaping her reddish lips; she fights against my grip, but what chance does a child—a little child—have against the hands of a warrior who has cut down thousands of men, false gods at that? None.
Her laughter rings, piercing the darkness clinging to me. My own lips twitch, then stretch. I smile. Honestly, I laugh with her. Still, she kicks, thrashes, and tries to elbow me with her stubby arms. I only tighten my hold.
Lifting her, she dangles in my arms like a doll as if she were a baby. As if she were Casandra.
The name cracks through me like a blade. My chest caves for a breath, and I falter.
But I do not yield. I keep the smile. I keep holding her, this red-blooded girl who continues to mirror the daughter I lost.
Carrying her as if nothing can wrench her from me this time, we near the small chamber I’ve claimed as ours, the one where I always read to her, tell her the stories etched into these shelves. The fire glows ahead, crackling in the hearth, shadows dancing with each spark. The flames drag me back. My family. Their screams. Their absence. The weight that gnaws at me every night.
I stare into it, and then I lower my gaze. Away from the fire, away from the past; to her eyes—clear, topaz-like, unyielding. She stares up at me, and for a moment, the abyss in me shrinks.
“Search for a book you want to read, okay?” I murmur, voice steady though my chest still trembles.
As I let her down, she only nods, smiling faintly as she buries herself in the cushions of the sofa. I linger above her for a few heartbeats, one long exhale escaping me before turning away.
My steps carry me out of the warmth, and as I leave, Harmon comes striding toward me, both of us moving toward the stairs that lead upward.
We walk for minutes, neither speaking, our breaths seeping into the night air, thin trails fleeing the smoke of the headquarters behind us. Above, the golden moon looms—if it bore a face, it would be laughing at us.
The glow of the gas-lamps follows our pace, light flickering against rough patches of asphalt, harsher here than in the finer quarters of Elisia’s estate.
“Why are you even caring for these Reds?” The question escapes me at last, dragged from the silence, my words edged as I twist my tongue around them.
“Why you?” he fires back, his voice steady, almost too calm.
“Elena,” Is my answer, while turning my head, meeting his shadowed profile as we walk side by side. “She reminds me of my daughter. I couldn’t bear to let her die. Couldn’t stand the thought of her living a wretched life, knowing that.”
“So do I.” His face tilts toward mine. “My wife and I once had a slave. Long before you and I ever crossed paths. He died before his time, but while he lived, Selina and I never treated him as a mere possession. I was a commander then, a ruler of men, and he served as a knight might serve his lord. An enslaved person, yes, but a friend. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⟡𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕥⟡𝕟𝕖𝕥
“Not many of his kind were so fortunate as to live a life in a household that still saw him as human, or to die of old age rather than the whip. We cared for him. Especially Selina—”
He cuts himself short; the night breathes in the silence between us, the cold creeping into our bones as if to devour us whole.
The streetlamps hum faintly, flies twirling in and out of their glow; his lips twitch in a smile, one that doesn’t fit with the weight of his words.
His eyes blur in the lamplight, pupils glimmering. It is a smile that carries hope; it is fragile but stubborn. Not the hope he showed when speaking of Arthur, yet somehow the same.