Eriksson's POV

"I was a son, a husband, and a father. But at most, a man with a face. Now I am not."

—Eriksson Lennard

With trembling hands, I brush a lock of rust-colored hair from her cheek.

The motion is gentle. Reverent. My fingers hover after the touch, unwilling to leave. Her skin is pale beneath the firelight, soft like the earth back home—the soil I buried my heart in.

She isn't Casandra.

But a part of me still hopes.

The tears are gone. My eyes are clear, dry. Still, something in my chest coils at the sight of her. The resemblance isn't exact, not even close—but the way her cheek curves, the way her lashes catch the glow, the way her breath stutters when I sit too close…

It anchors me.

It hurts.

Because I know the truth. She's not my daughter. She never will be.

And yet I wish it.

No one can understand this feeling unless they've stood where I have—buried a daughter, watched a home burn, clawed back into a world where your own name tastes like ash. The grief warps me. Makes me see her when she isn't there.

She looks up at me, her wide eyes glassy with fear. They shimmer like polished stone—beautiful, but cold. She doesn't trust me.

Of course she doesn't.

Only hours ago, she nearly became the plaything of a rotting old man. And now, here she is, wrapped in a stranger's blanket, dressed in a stranger's clothes, watching me from across a bed that could swallow us both whole.

I sit beside her. My weight barely shifts the mattress. The silence between us is thicker than the velvet curtains. It hums like an old wound. She shakes beneath the covers. Not from the cold—I've made sure of that. The fire burns hot in the hearth. The windows are shut. Every crack sealed.

Still, she trembles.

I study the wall across from us. A mural—foreign patterns and floral ink from another culture. Noble taste. Pretentious and expensive. But behind that wall…

Behind it are the bodies.

Blue blooded.

Dead.

Their hearts no longer beat their frozen pulse. Their stoic expressions didn't change until the end, until my hands opened them from stomach to throat. I could've made it quick. Clean. But I didn't. I wanted them to feel something before the end. Because I have felt everything—and none of them ever did.

My smile shakes as I stare at my hands. Pale palms, bloodstained fingertips. The shape of them isn't quite right—not mine. The body I wear now used to belong to someone else. But the trembling is real.

Then the light starts to fracture.

The world twists. Warps.

Color stretches too far. Every shadow bends unnaturally. Like I'm watching through a pane of stained glass—or a kaleidoscope made of bone.

Something starts.

Something that always starts this way.

My heart lurches. My vision fractures. The air thickens with silhouettes—dancing, whispering, burning. Fire crawls across the floor in shapes only I can see.

My nails grow. I scratch my scalp. Harder. Deeper.

Laughter crawls through the walls.

My feet bounce, shoes tapping the floor in sync with my pulse. I look to the girl.

Still shaking.

Still watching.

She sees the monster.

No. She isn't Casandra.

No—she is Casandra.

She is her.

I stand abruptly.

She recoils, dragging the blanket over her bruised face. Her fear is a dagger to my ribs. The distance between us is barely three steps, but it feels like oceans.

"Casandra…" I whisper.

Tears break free again. They roll down my cheeks without shame. I reach up and smear blood across my forehead—green blood, thick and warm.

The golden moon watches from the window.

It splits the dark with its glow and casts a long shadow over the child. I take a step to the side, letting the light fall over her instead.

"I–I'm sorry, Casandra."

Her eyes are wide. Luminous. But she hides behind the blanket like I'm something to be feared. Maybe I am.

The blood in my head pulses. My body folds inward. A scream escapes me—ugly and sharp. Saliva spills to the floor.

The memories come back.

Real ones this time.

They dig their claws in and refuse to leave.

"I'm sorry," I say again, this time with desperation, like it could change the past.

I see their eyes—the other ones. The ones that burned my world. Black silhouettes crowd my shoulders. The stench of rotten flesh chokes me. Their hands grip my body, their nails hot with fire, their laughter chewing into my spine.

I blink—

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

And I'm in that house again.

Our house.

The day it fell. The day they came. The day I lost her.

I can smell the burning. I can taste her last cry.

I reach for my shoulder—but it's gone. My arm—my real one—is missing. Gone like it was that day.

The girl is gone too.

Vanished from the bed. From the floor. From my world.

And I fall again.

But something breaks the spiral.

A sound.

A voice.

Small, scared. But unmistakably human.

It draws me back.

My vision clears. The hallucinations vanish. The silhouettes dissolve into dust.

My metal arm gleams in the firelight.

I'm here.

She's still here.

My face twitches into a smile—crooked, pained, but real. "Are you okay?"

My voice is hoarse, like I haven't used it in years.

My hands hover in the air. I reach for her—then pull back. She shrinks behind the blanket again, her tiny nose peeking out.

"Y–yes," I hear her stammer.

I nod. Step back to the edge of the massive bed.

My tears are drying. My throat aches. The screams fade, slipping into silence.

"I'm okay," I say. To her. To myself. To no one.

I stretch my hand again—just a little. I want to sit beside her. To hold her. To feel that she's real.

But she's not mine.

She never was.

I let my hand fall. I turn, walking away. Every step echoes too loud in this house of dead men.

She's small. So fragile. But to me, she's everything.

The room feels too big. Too empty.

"If you need anything," I say without looking back, "I'll give it to you. Cas—"

I catch myself.

"Girl. I'll give you anything."

I leave.

Behind me, my lips curl into something I haven't felt in years.

A smile.

…

I walk the corridor between corpses.

Their stomachs open. Guts spilled. Blood dried to black.

I didn't pretend to be someone else when I killed them. No shapeshifter mask. No justifications.

When I walked into that room—saw what he was about to do to her—he was already dead.

He just didn't know it yet.

They all knew. Every servant. Every noble in that house. But no one called for help.

Because they were afraid.

Because they knew they might be next.

They were right.

I left through the window. Carried her in my arms. Her body limp. Drugged. She didn't wake for hours.

I wandered the streets, looking for something—clothes, food, shelter.

I thought about shops. But nothing decent lives in shops. What a child needs is found in homes. Clean clothes. Warm beds. Safety.

So I took a home.

A noble one.

Now, their blood stains the floor.

Their mouths hang open, gaping like fish at feeding time. Waiting for help that never comes.

The servant—I mourn her. Slightly. But I couldn't risk it.

No one good lives behind blue walls.

They never did.

My boot lands beside the body of the butler. An old man. Half-dead before I finished him.

I study him.

His face… it's the one I wear now. The shape of his jaw. The color of his hair.

I shaved the beard I grew over the last three months. Combed back the hair. Wore his skin like clothing.

My eyes are brown now. Hair the same. But my lips are still blue.

My tongue still green.

I'm a half-breed.

My father's blood runs through me. But his face is lost.

Gone.

I walk through the silence, letting it press in.

The smell of fresh biscuits drifts from the kitchen. The servants had been baking. I can still smell cinnamon under the blood.

I wear simple clothes. Not the butler's. I left them on the corpse. Threw the body into the sewers.

I let my fingers trail over the kitchen counter. They find a single burnt biscuit. I take it. In the other hand, I hold a bowl of perfect ones.

"These are for her," I mutter.

I step over the blood again. It's stopped spreading.

My daughter…

"Avenge," I whisper. "I have to avenge my family."

Softer, this time.

I place the bowl down gently beside her half-open door. I sit in front of it.

I don't sleep.

Sleep is a memory—a myth.

The day is only sixteen hours long. Greens like me need only a few; for me, blinking is enough rest. So I do not sleep, I only let my head rest against the wall, watching the corpses of the blues I have killed.

…

Hours pass. The morning light spills across my fingers, pale and cool—cold as the hands of the greens.

Maybe that's why I hate them.

Because they remind me of myself.

Not for their blood, their hierarchy, or their poison-colored skin, but because every time I see one, I see what I could have become. What I still might be.

I let the thought go.

The girl is still sleeping.

The sun rose a few hours ago, and though the day is short—sixteen hours at most—I know reds need more rest than us. Inferior circulation. Fragile immune systems. She needs the full eight. Maybe more.

So I let her sleep.

Now, with my breath clean and cold, I carry a handful of toothbrushes in different colors. I don't know which one she'd like, so I will bring all of them. I nudge the small shape beneath the ice-blue blanket. Light. Careful.

"Casandra," I whisper.

The name comes out soft, and selfish. I know it isn't hers. But I say it anyway.

"Wakey, wakey."

I speak as if I hadn't killed last night. As if I were back in another life—watching my real daughter spin through the grass, hand in hand with her friends, while my wife leaned against me, warm and real and alive.

The blanket shifts.

Her eyes flutter open, still caught in sleep, beads of sweat on her brow. I go still. The act dies in my throat. I place the toothbrushes gently on her stomach and step back. Sit on a chair once owned by some desk-bound aristocrat. It creaks beneath my weight.

I stare at the ceiling. Let my gaze wander to her again.

She watches me.

Topaz eyes. Quiet. Cautious.

She blinks slowly, glances at the toothbrushes, then picks one and begins brushing her teeth. No words. Just motion. I track the rhythm as if it were sacred.

As the foam builds in her mouth, my hazel eyes drift to the window. The city glows in cold tones. Blue. Always blue. Beautiful, but empty. Like a mausoleum with marble towers.

I open my mouth.

It takes three tries for my voice to come.

"We have to go."

She doesn't react, not right away. Just shifts her gaze to the side.

"We can't stay here any longer."

My voice is lower this time. Grounded. The paranoia from last night is gone. Only weight remains.

"I'll take you somewhere safe," I say, my fingers laced, elbows resting on my knees. I lean forward, not too far. Not enough to scare her. "I'll make sure to care for you. So don't be afraid to ask for anything."

For a second, she looks at me.

Then she turns away.

The foam spills too much this time—off her lips and onto the blanket. She panics. Tries to scoop it back into her mouth, catch it before it falls. It's already too late.

She freezes. Looks at me, terrified.

Her arms pull the blanket tighter around her, as if bracing for a blow.

I stand.

Her eyes close.

Tightly. Reflexively. As if she's done this before.

My heart breaks—quietly.

Her topaz eyes are gone, but I still see them. They burn into me. Not because they match Casandra's—but because they don't. They're hers. Whoever she really is.

I walk forward. My movements slow. Heavy.

I kneel.

Wrap my arms around her small, shaking frame.

"No need to be afraid."

She doesn't move. Her eyes remain shut, her brows drawn together in that same silent expression of defense. I feel her arms against my chest, bruised and brittle. I hear her breath. It's shallow. Fragile.

Like mine.

I adjust my grip, lifting her gently, letting her rest against my shoulder. She doesn't struggle, but she doesn't relax either. I feel her tear first—how it slides down her cheek like a pearl—and then the rest of her.

She's trembling.

I tighten the hold. Not too tight.

Just enough.

"I'll take care of you from now on."

The words feel unfamiliar, like speaking a forgotten language.

I rise with her in my arms.

My steps are slow and wide as I pivot her body slightly, shielding her from the right hallway where the blue corpses lie. But the smell is harder to hide. Burnt perfume. Iron. Rot.

She flinches as the scent hits.

"We'll dress first," I say, as gently as I can. "Before we take a little trip. Just you and me, alright?"

She says nothing. But she doesn't resist either.

I carry her through the corridor. Her weight is nothing—barely forty kilograms. But my arms tremble.

Not from the burden.

From the fear that I will break this too.

I try to calm myself.

She's not her. She's not my daughter.

But she could've been.

An orange-blooded child, born of green and orange. My Casandra—my real Casandra—had lips this same shade, under this same light. A reddish hue, turned darker by shadow, made to lie.

And now, in this dim corridor, the illusion is back.

My vision blurs.

I see her again.

Casandra.

It's selfish.

I know it.

I shouldn't project her onto this girl. Shouldn't twist her into the shape of my grief. But I can't stop. Not yet.

A tear drops onto her pajama sleeve. I taste salt. Guilt.

"I'm sorry, little girl," I murmur. "I must seem oddly weird."

She still says nothing.

My grip tightens. Not rough—just secure. I sniff, trying to contain the rest. Pulling back the snot with as much dignity as I can manage.

"Just know," I say, voice raw, "there won't be any harm to you anymore."

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