Eriksson's POV

"I am a shattered soul, trying to fix myself with bodies, which cannot hold its splinters."

—Eriksson Lennard

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.

Stop it.

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.

We move through the city, streets narrowing as the fog thickens around us, morning creeping in quiet, cyan light. The houses are tall, packed close like conspirators, their rooftops meeting the sky in uneven silhouettes. The color isn't quite right here—less vibrant than it would be somewhere else.

She shifts, trying to see something ahead, and I throw her a little higher to adjust my grip. That's when I feel it. Something cold smacks against my head and begins to slide down my temple in a sticky, humiliating mess.

"I–sorry—" she mumbles, voice tiny. I hear the real meaning anyway. She's not sorry for me. She's sorry for the ice cream, now in ruins on the cobblestones.

"Your ice cream, huh?" I mutter. She's still perched on my shoulders like she belongs there.

I'm wearing a different face again today. I always change my appearance. Now I look like them: one of the stoic blue-blooded. Long blond hair falling to my shoulders, a nobleman's severe expression carved onto my face. My eyes match their cold-blooded heritage. I hate this mask. I hate how it lets them see me as one of their own while she, with her brand, is marked as mine. As property.

I see the way they look at us. The sneers half-hidden behind polite disgust. The glances that linger on her neck. I want to snarl at them all, but I can't. Too many witnesses. I carefully lift her off my shoulders and set her down. She's quiet, but I see the sulk in her eyes. Maybe it's the lost ice cream.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

She takes a few steps ahead of me and then stops. Waits. Turns around. Holds out her hand.

I don't fight it anymore.

Let them see. Let them gossip in their parlors. Let them bring their enforcers, their orange-blooded hunters to track me down. If she can't even walk these last few minutes without my hand in hers, then they'll have to pry her from my corpse.

I take her hand.

And I let myself smile without hiding it.

I feel my nervousness fall away like a discarded coat. The world sharpens. My thoughts clear. No suspicion clouds me now. I look up at the sky—a cold, vast blue. Birds wheel in the distance, black dots against the pale expanse.

Then my gaze drifts to her.

She's so small. Half my height. Maybe less. I know I shouldn't ask, but the words claw at my throat until they break free.

"What about family?" It comes out too fast. My chest tightens. I'm out of breath, like I've run miles. The words feel heavy enough to drag me under. I nearly choke on the last syllable, but I force myself to continue. "Father? Or a mother?"

She turns to me, those bright amber eyes catching the light like flame behind glass. Her hair is a burnt sienna curtain falling across her shoulder.

"I never had a father. And—" Her voice cracks, softer than usual. The voice of a child who's too tired to lie. "—my mother is gone."

I don't ask for more. I shouldn't have asked at all.

But then she does something that slices me open. She smiles. No tears fall, but I see the grief clinging to her gaze, clinging like mine once did to my own daughter.

But she isn't my daughter.

She belongs to someone else.

I have no right to think otherwise. No right to that selfishness.

My hand tightens over hers, grounding me. I look away, watching the road transform beneath our feet. The rough, pitted asphalt evens out, becomes smoother, broader. We reach an intersection.

I hear carriages rattle, horses snorting and stamping, hooves striking sparks. She gawks at them, mouth open. She's always like this around anything new.

But she's not staring at the carriage. Or the well-dressed passers-by who look like they've stepped out of a different world than hers.

She's looking across the street at the house in front of us.

It's not large or tall, not compared to the grand facades of Monnem Street. But it stands apart.

It's golden.

Not true gold. The blue sunlight glints off the false sheen, revealing the cheap alchemy of its finish. Any real estate seller knows the trick.

But she doesn't see the trick. She sees the glow.

Hope.

I draw in a breath.

"We're here. My—and your—new home," I tell her.

…

I open the door. The gold-painted surface throws the light back so harshly that we both flinch, half-blinded.

A man stands just inside. He's imposing, broad-shouldered, with a bald head gleaming with sweat. His nose is thick, but almost absurdly small compared to his skull, like some sculptor ran out of clay halfway through.

I let my gaze drift past him, scanning the interior. It's simple. Tasteful in the way the upper class likes to pretend is humble. The floor is polished wood. The walls are freshly painted.

But I know the truth. The interesting part is beneath us. The hidden rooms. The underground no one talks about.

I incline my head slightly.

"New?" I ask, my voice casual but cold.

He grunts, squinting at me. "And who are you? A customer?"

No, I want to say. But I bite that back and let a smirk twitch my mouth.

"Well. You could say that."

He tilts his head back a little, trying to make himself look taller. It's pathetic.

Behind him, I see two men and a woman lounging on a worn couch, cups of steaming porcelain in their hands. Tea. Always tea. The safe drink of cowards and schemers alike.

I breathe out slowly. My arm shifts, adjusting her weight on my hip. She clings to me like I'm the last piece of solid ground in a rising flood.

"I want her safe," I say. Each word is deliberate. Heavy. "At all costs."

My eyes catch on a book tucked in the corner shelf among a hundred others. A lie of civility.

The man in front of me snorts, loud enough that the tea-drinkers glance over.

"She's a red," he says. He doesn't even try to keep his voice down.

"And?" I ask evenly.

His mouth curves in a sneer. "You want to tell me—a noble—is caring for a slave?"

He says it like it's a joke. Like it's absurd.

The others put their tea down, watching now.

"I am," I say.

He studies me, eyes narrowing. I feel the girl's grip tighten so hard it hurts. She feels their gazes crawling over her like roaches.

"You're making her uncomfortable," I say.

"Tell them to look elsewhere."

His eyes lock onto mine, and I see the green glow hidden in their depths. Like mine.

"Or what?" he breathes.

My fist snaps out. Not hard. I don't even put weight into it. But it still sends him sprawling like a sack of wheat, crashing into the wall.

The others leap up. One of the teacups shatters on the floor, splattering the low table with brown stain.

They look at me. At her.

She trembles.

"Don't—" I say softly, pulling her behind me.

But they don't listen.

They charge.

Their steps pound the floor like war drums.

I don't move.

I don't need to move.

I could break them without stepping forward. I could dishonor them all with nothing but the weight of my presence and a flick of my wrist.

But then the door bursts open behind them.

No bell. This place has no need for polite warnings.

Everyone freezes.

One woman stands just inside the threshold, glaring at me from three feet away. Another man halts around five feet back, arm half-raised in threat. The rest stumble to a stop, too slow.

"What in Apollo's name happened here?"

The voice hits me like a memory dug up from a grave.

"Two hours," he growls. "Two hours I'm away, and you idiots start trouble?"

He's broad-shouldered, built like a warhorse that learned to talk. His gaze sweeps the room like a blade, cutting through excuses before they form. Then his eyes land on me.

"You'll get your wages cut next mission," he says, voice iron.

The men who attacked me go pale. Their posture sags. They drop the tension like broken puppets.

His gaze turns back to me, evaluating.

"You. Customer?"

He says it like a challenge.

I raise my fist to my left chest and strike it three times. On the last, I flatten my palm against my heart.

His eyes ignite.

Flames.

Recognition.

It takes a breath. Two.

Then he steps forward and pulls me into a rough embrace.

He leaves the others frozen, blinking at the sudden intimacy.

Three faces I don't know. Two I know too well. And two more I remember with grim clarity.

There's Grim, the scar-faced bastard with his twitching smile.

Vis, tall and thin as a dying tree.

Dellin, the other brute. And one whose name slips through my fingers like water.

And two new ones. Blues.

But none of them matter now.

Because Harmon is here.

He claps my shoulder so hard it rattles my bones.

"Long time, Erik." He never says my name right.

I breathe in his scent of sweat and old leather.

"Long time," I manage.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.