I am a shattered soul, trying to fix myself with bodies, which cannot hold its splinters.
I hold her small hand in mine as if that act alone could make me a better man. She is not my daughter. She will never be her. It’s only now that I finally accept it. Her red lips are nothing like the ones my wife passed down to our child. No birthmark on her neck to echo the one I bore as a boy. Her hair will never catch the light in that same autumnal blaze, never burn with that particular hue. Her eyes will never hold the same unguarded joy.
Maybe, before all of this, she had something like it—her own family, her own warmth. I squeeze her hand gently, walking beside her, while my other hand trembles like a coward’s.
I hate myself for it. A monster. That’s what I am. I tell myself I saved her, over and over, the words like paste in my mouth. My chest is tight, heart drumming too fast. No. I’m not a savior. I’m a butcher in nicer clothes. When I look at her, she smiles at me with a warmth I have not earned. We barely speak—just enough to keep moving, enough to keep eating, drinking, sleeping. The past twelve days on the train have blurred into something like a week, time stretching and snapping in unfamiliar places. It reminds me of the gap between my world and hers: how little we share, how absurd it is that I even tried to pretend.
She points into the distance, voice small and clear. “Ice cream.”
I almost laugh. A smile dares to show itself before I kill it. I am not allowed happiness. I’m too selfish, too ruined for that. She should have someone—anyone—else. Someone who deserves her trust. We never talk about her family. Once or twice, maybe, some half-finished sentences about food or sleep. Never the real things. And yet now she’s comfortable, more at ease than I ever thought she’d be with me.
I don’t understand it.
I close my eyes against the sun, its glow crawling over the horizon in slow, dignified ruin. I haven’t earned this light, but I let it warm my face anyway. She tugs on my hand and nearly pulls me over, giggling, her small fingers impossibly sure in mine. What a child can do to a man, I think. What armies can’t.
But the smirk won’t leave my face. She pulls me onward, her world for once dictating mine. I wanted to bring her somewhere safe. That was the plan. Instead she’s leading me through the streets.
I glance at the brand on her neck—the one where my daughter would have had a birthmark. And still I smile. It’s all wrong, but I can’t stop.
She isn’t my daughter. I know that now. Time has taught me in the most brutal ways. But maybe—maybe I can rest for a moment. Sleep for a day or two. Let the century-long grief wait for me like it always does. I could close my eyes without seeing the man I’m hunting. Without feeling my wife’s blood on my hands.
I don’t deserve that peace. But I crave it.
We keep walking. Somehow she’s on my shoulders now. It’s ridiculous how quickly she grew comfortable with it. At first she refused to come along at all, stiff and scared. Now she’s humming to herself, tiny hands tangled in my hair. My right hand steadies her ankle, firm but gentle, as if that could keep all the horrors of the world at bay.
My trembling is gone. That’s another absurd thing. Normally the shakes only get worse. War ruined me. Half my life spent in it. A third of it wading through mud caked with blood. I fought at the fall of Empire Delora, watched it fracture into the new kingdoms of Elitra and Aveloria, their riches torn apart. Elitra—the kingdom of ores and smoky industry. Aveloria, with its green fields, medicinal herbs, and the endless patience of farmers. I have bled on their soil. Taken lives for their borders.
Now? I don’t feel that hunger for violence. It unnerves me, makes me feel like I’m out of place in my own body. I’m just a man carrying a girl on his shoulders.