Somehow, we managed to make it to the stable in the morning without any trouble. I paid a carriage the last of the money I had on hand, which admittedly wasn’t much, and he was willing to take us as far as Achim’s Crossing.

That was fine, I thought. So long as we get out of this city as quickly as possible. Before--

“Were you going to leave without saying ‘hello’, Red?” A voice asked from behind.

A familiar voice.

I had to turn around to confirm it with my own eyes.

Booker Clarke.

The Cold Swordsman.

He stared at me with his cold, blue eyes. His face expressionless, his hard features set in an unreadable mask. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

He crossed his muscular arms over his chest, and though he was leaning against a post, he still towered over me. He hadn’t brought a sword with him, though, and that was a good sign.

He hadn’t come to fight.

I hesitated to answer. We hadn’t spoken in years. The last time we’d had a conversation was just before I slid a blade through his father’s heart.

I doubted Booker had forgiven me for it.

How could he?

“I’m in a hurry.” I said.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. There was nothing else to say. Not between us.

We were two people who had lost any kind of connection, except for an unresolved wronging.

“You must be, coming through my city. You’re as arrogant as ever.” He said.

There was no malice in his voice, but the words still seemed to carry animosity with them. He was still angry. Of course he was. Had I been hoping otherwise? Did I want him to forgive me?

No, that wasn’t it. I had given up on Booker Clarke long ago.

But, why was he acting so casual? Why had he left his sword behind?

“What do you want, Booker?”

“I wanted to see if the rumor was true.”

“What rumor?”

“One of my officer’s claimed to see the Red Devil yesterday with a young girl on his shoulders who looked just like him. I didn’t believe him, of course, but I had to see for myself. So, where’s the girl?

As if summoned, Alys skipped over to my side, and wove her hand in mine. When she noticed Booker, she hid behind my leg, only peeking around it.

Booker looked even more afraid than she did. He had begun to sweat, and his composed expression had collapsed into confusion and terror.

“What?” Was all he could say. “She… Yours?”

I nodded.

“How?”

“...”

I wasn’t sure what kind of answer he was looking for. He probably thought I wasn’t capable of having kids. It was a painful reminder that he didn’t even see me as human.

He caught himself staring, his jaw agape, and was quick to reaffirm his lack of expression. When he looked back at me, he gave a slight nod.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here, Red.” He said quietly. “So, I suppose I’ll do nothing, for now. I have enough problems right now, and you’ve been relatively quiet for sometime now. I was sure you’d gotten yourself killed...”

His voice trailed off as spoke.

“I’m not dead, yet.” I said. “And I don’t intend to die anytime soon, either.”

Booker nodded, understanding my warning.

“You will either live for your daughter’s sake, or be cut down by my own blade. I will accept no other option.”

He was resolute, as if those actually were the only two paths available. Booker had always been a very decisive person, with a narrow vision. He only ever saw what was immediately before him.

I thought then that it was probably the reason he was losing the war, too, but that’s not my story to tell.

“...As such, you must be aware that a dangerous man is looking for you.” Booker added.

“Oh? I’m not--”

Not too worried, is what I almost said, but then I remembered the warmth in my palm, and looked down at Alys, who was still eyeing Booker, though not as suspiciously as before.

One dangerous man was not a threat to me alone, but I wasn’t alone anymore.

I looked back up at Booker, who must have seen the worry twist my face.

“Elijah, a bounty hunter from the west. Apparently he’s the one who caught Rorick Morien, way back when.”

It took me a minute to place the name, but if I remembered correctly, Rorick Morien was the knight-commander during the last war. He fled after a failed attempt on the king’s life, and was caught and executed by an unnamed bounty hunter.

“That would make him a dangerous man, indeed.” I said.

“He came to me about a week ago, but I had no information to give him. Should he return, I shall be too busy with the war to meet with him. Though, I would still be very cautious on your travels, wherever it is you’re taking the girl.”

He added that last part as if to emphasize the point that he was warning me for Alys’ sake, and not my own. He didn’t want me to think he was trying to help me.

I smiled, and turned away to return to the stable without saying anything else. I was worried, if I opened my mouth to speak, I would end up thanking him anyways, and that wouldn’t be good for either of us.

“Papa, who was that?”

“An old friend.”

“He doesn’t look that old.”

I tried to chuckle, but it came out as more of a sob.

“Was he friends with Mama, too?” She asked, looking over her shoulder to catch a last glimpse of the mysterious man.

“They never really got along.”

“Did they hate each other?”

“I don’t think they hated each other, but they didn’t like each other, either.”

Alys went quiet, but her scrunched face made it obvious that he was trying, in vain, to comprehend what that meant.

“Hate is a strong word, Alys, and while it is easy to dislike someone, it is much harder to hate them.”

“Mama hates a lot of people.”

“Your mother has always had very intense emotions, but for every person she hates, she loves someone just as much.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“She only ever talked about loving you, though.”

“Yes, well, sometimes I think she loved me as much as she hated everyone else put together.”

I thought I had said too much, but Alys didn’t seemed bothered at all by it. She probably didn’t understand that it wasn’t a compliment. There were times when Mercedes’ love for me was overwhelming. Eventually, it crossed the border into obsession, and became something much closer to worship. It was a love I could never have returned.

I helped Alys into the carriage, and yelled to the driver that we were all set to go.

The cabin wasn’t very large, but then, neither was the girl. She said she was eight, but she seemed too small to be that old.

“Do you love her that much, too?” She asked as the carriage lurched forward.

“I care very deeply for you mother.”

“But you don’t love her?” Alys pried.

She was persistent, just like her mother.

“I loved her enough to make a baby with her.”

“But you didn’t even know you were making a baby!”

This time, my laugh came out true. A great, hearty laugh that bellowed out of me like a sweet aroma spilling out a bakery window.

How was I supposed to explain the night Mercedes’ and I spent together in an innocent enough way for her to understand? Sure, we didn’t know a baby would come of our first, and only, night together, but it was certainly a possibility that we understood going in.

Perhaps it was better if I waited until she was older to talk to he about that.

Though, when I looked at her, I wondered if I would ever be ready to tell her about that night. It started me thinking about the future.

Her future.

What if she fell for a boy who treated her the way I had treated Mercedes? What if Alys ended up throwing herself off a bridge, too? I very much doubted that suicide survival was something that was passed down through blood, but I didn’t want to test it, either.

I decided then that I wouldn’t let boys come near my daughter until I had made certain of their character, first.

As we traveled, I created a checklist in my head of all the things a boy needed to be able to date Alys, when she came of age.

It was a very long list.

Thinking about Mercedes had already forced my mind to remember things about the past I wished I had forgotten, but seeing Booker again was what made me start remembering the things I missed.

The days Booker and I spent training together, and our struggle to rise to fame as knights. It all seemed so much simpler, then.

These were things I wished I could remember, but seemed more like moments I had hardly been a part of, and were thus nothing more than hazy patches of the past.

We weren’t far from the Capital when I looked out the window and saw a young man on a hill, clad in steel armor up to his head, kneeling down. He had his head in his hands, and was sobbing. His tears fell towards a body lying before him, and it was a body I recognized. It was Oliver Clarke.

It was Booker’s father, the man I killed. That meant, it was Booker who was kneeling down, crying. He looked over at me, looking right at me, his usually cold eyes burning with hatred and animosity.

“Papa?”

Alys tugged at my shirt.

“Papa, what’s wrong?”

I had to wipe the sweat from my brow.

First Mercedes, now Booker? Why was I seeing them now, these moments from my past, so vividly?

They were like the ghosts of moments I had forced myself to forget, now getting their revenge as I was forced to remember.

The moments I wished I could change, if I could go back in time. The things I regretted most.

I was worried what would come next.

“Papa, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m okay.” I answered.

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m okay.” I repeated.

“...Okay.”

We sat in silence for a while after that.

“We need to do something about our eyes.” I said.

“I can see just fine, Papa.”

“I know you can. I meant, we need a way to hide our eyes.”

“Why do we need to hide our eyes?”

“They are red, and most people are afraid of red eyes.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Most people were afraid of me.

We took a short break in a small town on the side of the road, maybe a day’s travel from the Capital. I woke Alys from her nap and decided to take her into town to see if we couldn’t find something useful.

“Here, try this on.” I told her, as I handed her an old iron helmet. It was designed for women, and smaller than usual, so I thought it might fit.

She vigorously shook her head, tossing her golden hair back and forth.

“It’s ugly!” She cried out. “Not cute at all!”

I was amazed she could say that, in her dirty dress. I had washed it twice now, and still the grime would not come out. It was stained that way. She didn’t seem to mind at all.

“It doesn’t need to be cute.” I asserted. “It needs to be useful.”

She puffed out her cheeks and pouted.

With a sigh, I returned the helmet to its stand in the store.

“Can I help you find anything?” The store clerk asked, wandering over.

It was dark enough that I didn’t worry about him being able to see my eyes, but there was always the chance of being recognized anyways, this close to the Capital. I wanted to avoid as many interactions as possible. I planned to politely shoo the clerk away.

“If I have to wear a hat, it has to be cute!” Alys enthusiastically told the clerk.

“We have a few hats in the style of the Southern Islands that I’m sure you’ll find adorable, young miss.” Said the clerk, with a motion of his hand to lead her to the back.

As I followed, letting out another heavy sigh, we passed by another helmet atop an empty armor stand.

It felt familiar somehow. It obviously stood out among the other decrepit options. This helmet was black, with red painted over two thin eye slits, and horns curving out the back in a swept-back angle.

It was my helmet, back when I was a knight. It was the armor that Jaekyll had comission for me as a gift on the day of my induction. What was it doing here?

I tried to remember where I had left it, but I couldn’t. It had been so long since I’d seen it.

“Where did you get this?” I mumbled.

The clerk turned around. “What was that, sir?”

“This helmet. Where did you get it?” I asked louder, turned to face the clerk.

He had a bewildered expression on his face, his head tilted in confusion. “I’m sorry sir, I don’t understand. Which helmet?”

I was getting impatient, and went closer to the helmet to put my hand on it, but when I turned back, it was gone. Like it had never been there at all. Instead, there was just the empty armor stand.

“I…” I started, hardly able to speak. “I’m sorry. I’ve been mistaken.”

The clerk nervously shuffled. “I’ve got a few helmets for sale, if you’re interested in looking…” He trailed off when I turned back around. The light filtering in through the thin window crossed over my face. I could see terror envelope the clerk’s face as recognition sparked within him.

“Papa, papa! This one is cute!” Alys called out, running over with a broad, white hat on. She twirled around gracefully, holding the hat to her head and giggling.

“How much for the hat?” I asked in a low voice.

“Take it!” Spat the clerk, who had begun to sweat profusely, and shake slightly.

I hesitated, then nodded. I just realized we didn’t have any money left anyways. Perhaps this was for the best.

Alys looked between the clerk and me, befuddled. “But the sign said--”

“Just take it! Take it and leave! Please!” The clerk cried out, stepping back, and nearly stumbling.

I nodded, grabbed Alys by the hand, and turned to leave.

“This doesn’t feel right, Papa.” She said.

I nodded again, and stopped. I unfastened my cloak, folded it, and set it down on the nearest counter. It probably wasn’t worth as much as the hat, but it was all I had to give.

I looked down at Alys, who nodded and smiled in approval. I smiled back, and we left the store hand in hand.

It was the first time I could remember doing something… good. Or rather, deciding not to do the wrong thing. It was a first step on a journey towards something grand. I felt a strange sensation filling every ounce of my body. It was a familiar feeling, with a unique twist. Something like desire, yet more pure. It felt good.

It was seeing Alys’ approving smile that did it. She was proud of her father, who had done nothing but evil in his lifetime. I never wanted to see that smile fade.

I wanted to become the man that she thought I was.

I wanted to become a good man.

And I had just taken the first step on that path.

As we made it back to the carriage, I thought I saw someone sitting on top of it, their dainty feet dangling over the side. She looked up at the clear blue sky with a calm smile. When the wind rushed back, she brushed her waving, red hair away from her beautiful face. She looked down at me as we approached, and smiled so warmly, I thought I was going to melt. It was a look I received before, a long time ago.

It couldn’t be. She looked so real, sitting their. I could reach out and touch her…

“Papa, what are you doing?”

I looked at Alys, who was staring wide eyed at me as I had begun to climb the carriage.

When I looked back, the girl was gone.

These… visions… were becoming too hard to tell from reality. Even though I knew it couldn’t have been her, I couldn’t help but believe. I had lost control of myself.

That terrified me.

It was as though I was being forced to relive my past, whether I understood these ghosts were real or not.

A dull ache pulled at my chest.

“Sorry, Alys. I thought I saw something.”

She frowned as I casually climbed inside the cabin, but eventually she followed, and the driver appeared soon after to take us further on our journey.

I felt like I had to talk about everything. I wanted to tell someone my story, the one that was haunting me. I had to talk about it, to get it all out of my head.

“Alys, did your mother ever tell you the story of how we met?”

Alys shook her head, and an eager smile jumped across her face.

“Well, would you like to hear it?”

“Is it a happy story?”

“Not always.”

Alys hummed as she contemplated the offer, but not for long. She was obviously too interested to turn it down.

“I want to hear it anyways!” She said.

“Alright.” I responded. “This is the story of a beautiful girl with a knack for fighting, a haphazard boy with no motivation, and the mark that bound them together.”