I walked towards the dining hall, half excitement because she was reaching out to me on her own, half worry and anxiety.
Everything blurred—nothing registered in my mind. Not the stretching corridor, not the marble columns, not the servants who bowed as I passed. Nothing.
I moved faster. Half running through the straightaways, half skiing through the corners where my boots would slip on polished marble.
It wasn't elegant. It wasn't etiquette.
But I didn't care.
Is she even here?
The thought struck me with sudden, paralyzing force. Gerson said she'd been waiting, but where? In the dining hall? In her room? Had she given up already, gone back to that lonely bedroom where she spent too many hours alone?
If she's not here, I'll go get her myself.
The promise formed quickly, desperately. At least today—this one day—we'd have time together. Quality time. The kind Eleanor used to insist on before.
I'd promised Eledy I'd teach her politics, everything she'd need to survive in this world of vultures and vipers. But I was barely home. Always traveling, always meeting with other nobles, always chasing solutions to problems that multiplied like hydra heads—cut one down and two more appeared.
In the end, it wasn't her who drifted. It was me.
I was the one who distanced myself from her. Who used duty as armor against grief. Who couldn't look at her red hair without seeing Eleanor's, couldn't hear her voice without hearing the echo of the woman I'd failed to save.
It's not her fault.
Never was.
I pushed the door open.
The door opened without resistance—hinges well-oiled, silent as complicity. I'd been half-running through the corridors like a madman, dignity abandoned somewhere between my study and here, and now my hand trembled on the brass handle.
Morning light invaded the space—harsh, unforgiving, splitting the dining hall into territories of shadow and exposure. Golden bars fell across the oak table like prison stripes, and there, illuminated in one of those bars of light, was my daughter.
Eledy.
She'd made herself small again. That defeated posture I'd learned to recognize over the past months—shoulders slumped, upper body folded over the table. Her head rested on her folded arms, one pale hand stretched across the polished wood. Red hair that caught fire in sunlight spilled across the table surface, rising and falling with each breath.
The rhythm was hypnotic. Steady. The only steady thing in this house since the funeral.
The air tasted of abandonment. Honey glaze congealing on pastries no one would eat. Tea gone cold in delicate porcelain cups. Butter sweating yellow tears onto fine china. Someone—Anna, probably, always Anna—had set two places with the kind of hope that hurt to witness.
Mine at the head of the table where title dictated I belong.
Hers beside it, where she belonged by nothing but love.
My daughter had tried to wait. Evidence scattered across her plate told the story: flaky crumbs catching light like gold dust, a napkin that had slipped from her lap to pool on the carpet like a small white flag of surrender. She'd picked at something, eaten alone, then given up and let exhaustion claim her.
How long? The question clawed at my chest. How long did she sit here hoping I'd come?
The silence pressed against my eardrums with physical weight, broken only by her breathing and the accusatory tick-tick-tick of the clock behind me. Each second measured. Each one lost. Each one I couldn't give back.
My footsteps whispered against carpet as I approached her, each one a tiny betrayal of the distance I'd been maintaining. The war hero, the decorated knight, the man who'd led charges against impossible odds—reduced to tiptoeing toward his own child as if she were an unexploded bomb.
There. Her face.
God, her face.
For the first time in months—maybe years—I saw what she might look like without the weight. The perpetual furrow between her brows had vanished completely, smoothed away as if it had never carved itself there in the first place. Her lips parted slightly, breath warm and even against her forearm. Skin creased where fabric pressed into cheek, a few red strands clinging to the corner of her mouth.
No tension in her jaw. No guardedness in the set of her shoulders. No invisible armor she wore whenever I was near.
Just... peace.
The dangerous kind. The kind that only comes when you've done something terrifying—asked for something you're certain you won't receive—and then let exhaustion pull you under before the rejection arrives.
My hand moved before I'd given it permission. Fingers threading through her hair—silk and cool, catching morning light with each pass. The gesture came from somewhere ancient, somewhere beneath thought. From that place where I was still just a father and she was still just my little girl.
How long since I'd done this? How long since I'd allowed myself to touch her without purpose, without it being part of some formal ritual?
The strands slipped between my fingers and fell back against her shoulder with a whisper.
She flinched.
Not pulled away—flinched.
Her eyes fluttered open—blue, impossibly blue, Eleanor's eyes transplanted into this small face that looked too thin, too pale, too burdened. They blinked, slow and unfocused, pupils contracting against the light.
"Good morning, Eledy."
My voice came out gentler than I'd intended. Almost foreign. When was the last time I'd used that tone with her? Before Eleanor died? Before the magic test?
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, knuckles pressing against lids still swollen from sleep. "Good... morning, Father." The words emerged thick and clumsy, consonants catching on sleep-rust in her throat.
Her hair stood at wild angles where it had been pressed against her arm, cheek marked with parallel creases from her sleeve, a bit of dried drool at the corner of her mouth she hadn't yet noticed. Vulnerable in a way she never allowed herself to be when awake.
It's a mess, but there's something sweet about it.
When did she stop letting me see her like this?
Her eyes registered my presence fully and everything changed. Shoulders went rigid, spine straightening with a sharp intake of breath that I felt echo in my own chest. The transformation was instant, complete—soldier called to attention, prisoner awaiting judgment.
The armor snapping back into place.
"Ammm... father?" Her voice landed awkwardly, still rough from sleep, unable to achieve the formality she was reaching for. "When did you..."
Then her body tensed again, muscles coiling tight, fingers curling into her palms. Her hand flew to her hair, trying to smooth the chaos, pressing it down with trembling fingers. Cheeks flushed warm and pink—embarrassment mixing with something sharper.
Shame.
She thought she looked weak. Undignified. Unworthy.
My daughter thought being caught asleep, being caught vulnerable, being caught hoping, made her unworthy of my time.
What have I done to her?
"Gerson said you asked to eat with me." I tried to shape my face into something like a smile, but my facial muscles felt strange, atrophied from disuse. The war had taught me to command men, to inspire courage, to face death without flinching. But it never taught me this—how to show my own child that she didn't need to earn my love.
She gathered herself with visible effort, sitting up straighter, spine rigid with false composure. She pushed loose hair behind her ear with fingers that wouldn't quite steady. "Yes, I want to..." The words drifted, fading into the quiet air between us like smoke dissipating. "Can we?"
Two words. Just two words.
But they carried the weight of months, maybe years. Can we? Not will you, not would you, but can we—as if the obstacle might be physical impossibility rather than my own cowardice. As if eating together were some impossible dream instead of the most basic thing a father and daughter should share.
The question hung there—soft, hesitant, drowning in hope it was trying desperately to conceal.
My throat tightened. When had it become like this? When had sharing a meal with my own child become something she had to ask permission for? Something uncertain and frightening?
"Of course." The words came easier than I expected, rough with emotion I couldn't quite hide. "Any time you want, Eledy. Always."
I sat beside her—not at the head of the table where authority lived, but beside her. The chair scraped softly against floor as I pulled it close, settling into the seat I'd occupied yesterday. That first attempt. That first step toward rebuilding what I'd let crumble.
"Where is Anna?"
"She's gone to prepare breakfast." Each word carefully measured, deliberately normal, as if speaking correctly might make everything correct. Her fingers found the edge of her sleeve and began fidgeting, twisting fabric between thumb and forefinger in a nervous rhythm I recognized from myself—from those moments in my study when the ledgers refused to balance.
She wasn't trying to make conversation. She was performing normalcy, the way I'd inadvertently taught her to perform everything else—through observation, through mimicry, through desperate trial and error with no guidance. Through watching me retreat into duty and distance and assuming that was what strength looked like.
She was nervous. All because of me.
Because I'd been too buried in my own grief to notice hers. Too consumed by my failure to protect her mother to see I was failing to protect her too. Too focused on other things—I failed to see that my daughter was drowning right in front of me.
The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy as fog. I could hear the soft rustle of her sleeve as her fingers kept working the fabric, the faint creak of her chair as she shifted weight, the rasp of my own breathing.
After a few moments she opened her mouth and side-glanced at me—blue eyes flickering toward my face then darting away as if looking directly were forbidden. She closed her mouth. Opened it again. Lips parting slightly, testing the weight of words she hadn't yet spoken. Her fingers stilled on her sleeve.
The air changed. I could feel it—that tension before someone jumps.
"Eledy?" The word burst out of me too fast, too desperate, revealing the anxiety I'd been trying to hide. "Do you need something? Snacks? Tea? I can have Anna bring—"
"Nothing. It's... I... want to..." Her eyes drifted aimlessly, unfocused, tracing invisible patterns across the table's smooth surface as if answers might be written there in wood grain.
Then she took a deep breath—chest rising, shoulders squaring, jaw setting. The breath of someone making a big decision.
I know that breath. I've taken it a thousand times.
"I want to learn swordsmanship!"
The declaration cut through the morning quiet like a blade—sharp, clear, completely unexpected. Her voice rang out firm and certain, the opposite of every hesitant word that had come before.
My mouth opened but no sound came out. Jaw slack, breath caught somewhere in my throat where shock tangled with something else. Something that felt like pride mixed with terror.
She wants to learn what?
Swordsmanship. My daughter. My twelve-year-old, small-for-her-age, magically-deficient daughter who the nobles already dismissed as worthless. Who they mocked openly at gatherings.
The weight of her words pressed down on both of us. Her eyes stayed fixed on the table, fingers gripping the edge of her sleeve until her knuckles went bone-pale. Neither of us moved. The moment stretched taut between shock and a dozen unspoken fears.
I could hear my own heartbeat. The distant chime of the clock striking eight. The faint rasp of her breathing.
My daughter had grown so much. Even after that incident at the palace—the humiliation, the mockery, the casual cruelty of bored nobility—she was still trying. Still reaching out. Still hoping.
"What made you decide that?"
The words came uncertain and careful, each one placed deliberately like stepping stones across a river I couldn't see the bottom of.
She'd recovered on her own, without me, while I'd hidden in my study pretending the world would fix itself if I could just solve the mystery of the falsified accounts.
I want to respect her wishes. The thought formed clearly, desperately. But learning swordsmanship isn't easy.
The training was brutal—physically demanding, mentally exhausting, designed to break adult men before rebuilding them. I'd seen recruits twice her age wash out in the first week, crying for their mothers, nursing injuries that would scar. And she was twelve. Small. Already carrying so much weight.
But I searched her face for answers anyway, for reasons, for something that would make this make sense. Because this was my daughter asking, and whatever her reason, it mattered.
She lifted her face—chin rising, blue eyes meeting mine directly for the first time since she'd woken. No more glancing away. No more hesitation. Just direct, unwavering eye contact that reminded me, suddenly and painfully, of when Eleanor chose to stay by my side. That same determination. That same refusal to back down.
"I'm scared."
Two words. Simple. Devastating. Honest in a way that made my chest constrict.
"I want something to keep myself together."
Her eyes dimmed as she spoke, brightness fading to something dull and weary that no twelve-year-old should possess. Her gaze fell, lashes casting shadows on her cheeks, and sadness settled into the corners of her mouth.
"I... no, we lost Mom." The words came flat, factual, as if she'd said them so many times to herself they'd lost all meaning. As if grief were just another fact to recite. "No magical capacity." A pause, breath catching in her throat like a sob she wouldn't allow herself. "Now? The nobles watch me like I'm a joke. A failure." Her voice dropped lower, rough at the edges, scraping against pain she'd been holding alone. "Mock me at every turn."
Her jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the pale skin.
"I want to be worth something."
Raw. Honest. Each word landing like a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward, disturbing everything.
Pain bloomed in my chest—sharp, immediate, overwhelming. As if Duke Castor himself had reached through my ribcage to squeeze my heart in his fist. As if every falsified ledger entry, every whispered insult, every moment I'd chosen duty over presence had manifested as physical agony.
When I looked at her face, it felt as if someone had torn open my chest and exposed something raw and bleeding beneath.
Worth something.
My daughter thought she needed to be worth something. As if her existence alone wasn't enough. As if love required a ledger, a balance of assets and achievements. As if I had somehow—through absence, through distance, through my own drowning grief—taught her that being herself wasn't sufficient.
That she had to earn being loved.
The realization hit like a Warhammer to the skull.
All this time, while I'd been chasing shadows, trying to solve the mysteries surrounding me, trying to protect the family name I'd earned and the estate and our position—I'd missed this. This fundamental truth.
My daughter didn't need me to be a war hero. She didn't need me to solve political puzzles or win battles against corrupt nobles.
She needed me to see her. To value her. To show her she was worth everything just by existing.
And I'd failed. Spectacularly, completely, in the most fundamental way a father could fail.
I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. The words lodged somewhere deep inside, trapped behind the sudden, horrifying understanding of what my grief had cost her.
Eleanor, what have I done to our daughter?
A slight knock on the door broke the silence—sharp and clear against wood, a small mercy that prevented me from drowning in front of her. Anna appeared with dishes balanced in her arms, porcelain clinking softly, the rich scent of fresh bread and warm eggs drifting into the room like normalcy, like everything was fine, like my world hadn't just shifted on its axis.
"Sorry for the wait, my lord, and young lady." Her eyes swept over us—my frozen face, Eledy's rigid posture, the weight hanging in the air thick enough to choke on—and her shoulders stiffened in recognition. "Sorry, my lord! I didn't ask permission to enter. Please forgive my rudeness."
"No, it's okay." My voice came out rough, strained. "We needed this, and you knocked anyway."
What we really needed couldn't be delivered on a breakfast tray. Not the years already lost—those were gone. We needed a chance. One chance to be present for the moments still ahead, to stop failing the daughter sitting across from me.
Anna set the dishes down with practiced efficiency, steam rising from the plates. Fresh bread still warm from the oven. Tea that smelled of chamomile and honey—comfort in a cup.
She bowed and retreated, footsteps fading down the corridor, leaving us alone with the weight of everything unsaid.
I looked at Eledy—my daughter, my small broken brave girl trying to build armor out of sheer will since I'd failed to give her armor out of love—and made a decision.
The kind I used to make on battlefields when the odds were impossible and retreat meant death and the only option was to charge forward into the teeth of the enemy and pray.
"After breakfast," I said, my voice steadier now, carrying the weight of a promise I would die before breaking, "we'll go to the training yard. Together."
Her eyes widened, blue going bright with hope she didn't quite trust yet. Like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, tentative and fragile.
"I'll teach you myself."
The words hung in the air between us, solid and real. A commitment. A bridge being built, plank by plank.
Her mouth opened slightly, closed, opened again. "You... you will?" The question came out small, disbelieving, as if she'd expected rejection even as she'd asked.
"Every morning," I continued, the plan forming as I spoke, pieces falling into place with the clarity that used to come in the heat of battle. "Swordsmanship, yes. But also strategy, tactics, everything I learned in the army. Everything that made me survive when better men didn't."
I reached—slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted—and placed my hand over hers. Her fingers were cold, trembling slightly beneath mine.
"And in the afternoons, we'll work in my study. I meant what I said about teaching you politics. The ledgers, the contracts, how to read between the lines, how to spot manipulation and forgery. All of it. Everything you need to survive in this world of wolves."
"You're not worthless, Eledy." The words came rough, scraped raw from somewhere deep in my chest. "You never were. And anyone who made you feel that way—" My jaw tightened, old battle instincts surging. "Duke Castor, the nobles, anyone—they're wrong. Do you understand me?"
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, balanced on lashes, refusing to fall. She nodded, throat working as she swallowed hard.
"You're my daughter. Eleanor's daughter. And that alone makes you worth more than every smug noble in that palace combined." I squeezed her hand.
Her eyes widened, mouth falling open as realization clicked. Now she knew that I knew everything. What happened at the royal palace two days ago.
"But if you want to learn to fight, if you want skills that are yours and can't be taken away, if you want to prove to yourself and everyone else that House Rovaan's blood and the Imperial blood runs strong in your veins—then I'll teach you. I'll teach you everything I know."
A single tear escaped, trailing down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away.
"But you need to understand something." I leaned forward, catching her gaze and holding it. "Training won't be easy. I won't go easy on you because you're my daughter. I'll train you the way I'd train any recruit under my command—hard, demanding, pushing you past where you think you can go. Because that's the only way to become strong enough to survive."
She nodded again, more firmly this time. "I understand."
"There will be days you'll hate me for it," I continued, needing her to truly understand what she was asking for. "Days when your muscles scream and your hands bleed and you'll wonder why you ever asked for this. Days when the nobles' mockery will seem like a mercy compared to another drill."
"I don't care." Her voice came stronger now, steadier. "I need this, Father. I need to be able to protect myself. To be strong. To be..." She paused, searching for words. "To be someone you can be proud of."
Oh my child...
My eyes burned with tears, but I pushed them back.
"I'm already proud of you," I said, and watched her eyes widen in shock. "You survived losing your mother. You survived the magic test results. You survived that banquet—yes, I know about it, everyone knows, and none of it was your fault. You survived all of it and you're still here, still trying, still reaching out. That takes more courage than any battle I ever fought."
Her lips trembled. More tears escaped, flowing freely now.
"But if you want more than survival—if you want to thrive, to fight back, to become someone even Duke Castor thinks twice about crossing—then yes. I'll help you build that strength. Starting today."
I released her hand and reached for my fork, gesturing to her plate. "But first, we eat. The food looks good. It would be a crime to let it get cold."
A wet laugh escaped her—half sob, half genuine amusement. She picked up her own fork with shaking hands.
We ate together in comfortable silence, the kind that didn't need filling. Morning light continued streaming through the windows, warming the table.
And for the first time, eating didn't feel like going through motions. It felt like something real. Something shared.
When we finished, I stood and offered her my hand. "Come. Let me show you the training yard. We'll start with the basics today—just footwork and balance. But tomorrow morning, we begin in earnest."
She took my hand hesitantly and stood, wiping the last traces of tears from her cheeks with her sleeve. Her grip was firm, determined.
As we walked toward the door together, I made a silent promise—to Eleanor's memory, to my daughter's future, to the man I used to be before grief hollowed me out.
They want to break us? They think they can destroy us?
Then those morons just gave me a reason to remember who I am.
And they gave my daughter a reason to become someone even more dangerous.
A Rovaan who knows she's worth fighting for.
***