Lady Valdris burst into Count Valdris’s office, her steps frantic and her arms trembling as she cradled me against her chest. Her voice, usually measured and composed, cracked with desperation. “Erin! Ciro’s burning up—he’s not moving! Please, I need your help!” The smell of ink and sweat was pungent in the office.

The Count slouched over his cluttered desk and barely seemed to hear her at first. The man who once radiated authority now looked like a ghost of himself. His beard was unkempt, streaked with gray, and his hollow eyes were framed by deep shadows that seemed etched into his very soul. His collared coat, once an emblem of his station, hung loose and crumpled, the stains and wear betraying days of neglect. But the moment his gaze fell on me—wrapped in a towel, glowing with heat so intense it caused red marks on my mother's arms—his dull eyes sparked with a flicker of life.

“Liz…” he rasped, standing unsteadily, his voice gravelly from disuse. “What—what happened to him?”

“I don’t know!” she cried, her voice thick with tears. “He just—he started burning up! Erin, please, do something!”

Count Valdris moved with purpose, his hesitation burned away by a primal urgency. He crossed the room in long strides, his jaw set as he reached for me. With practiced hands, he tore open the fabric of my tiny onesie, revealing skin that radiated a molten, fiery glow.

“lord” he muttered under his breath, his fingers shaking. “It’s a soul core, isn’t it? No, he’s—he’s too young to—”

He stopped himself, steeling his resolve. Pale blue light flared in his hands, soft and pulsing like a heartbeat. Without warning, he pressed his palm against my chest, and the frigid magic coursed into me. The contrast was unbearable—the inferno inside me clashing violently with the icy torrent he unleashed. My muscles spasmed, the pain so sharp it tore through the haze of my fever. I wanted to scream, but my throat refused to obey.

Magic—it was magic. Even through the agony, part of me marveled at it. I’d longed to see it up close since being reborn into this strange world. But to feel it, to have it coursing through me, was something else entirely. It was beautiful and terrifying.

Lady Valdris paced the room, her movements erratic, her voice frantic. “Should we call a healer? We can’t afford one, but maybe Ethan—he helped deliver Ciro, he might feel responsible enough to—what if it’s too late? What if he doesn’t get better? Erin, what are we going to do?”

“Enough.” The single word, spoken with icy finality, stopped her in her tracks.

“What?” she whispered, her voice trembling as she turned to face him. It seemed so quick that she may have thought she imagined it.

Count Valdris didn’t look at her. His cold, black eyes were locked onto mine, studying me like a man peering into the abyss. It was a gaze devoid of warmth, heavy with a darkness that felt endless. I wondered if that’s what people saw when they looked into my own eyes—a bottomless void, consuming and unyielding. He studied me for what felt like an eternity, though it was only seconds.

“Elizabeth,” he said at last, his voice like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath, “leave.”

Her body stiffened, her face twisting with disbelief. “I’m not leaving my son while he’s like this! Erin, tell me what’s happening to him!”

“Leave, woman. ” he barked, his tone cracking like a whip. His words were harsh, but beneath them was something raw—a desperation he was trying, and failing, to hide. “It’s not your place to see a Valdris like this.”

She froze, her breath catching as the words struck her. Then, slowly, her shock gave way to rage. “Not my place?” she hissed, stepping closer, her voice shaking with fury. “What is my place, Erin? Enlighten me. Is it my place to ignore my child while he burns alive? Is it my place to pretend I didn’t carry him for months, feel every kick, every heartbeat? To pretend I didn’t breathe life into him when he was born?”

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She was inches from him now, staring into the black void of his eyes, daring him to challenge her. “Tell me, Erin,” she said, her voice low and venomous, “what is your place? Because it damn sure isn’t standing here acting like you’re the only one who matters.”

Count Valdris didn’t flinch. His gaze shifted back to me, his face unreadable. “Elizabeth,” he said again, quieter this time, though his tone left no room for argument. “Please. Leave.”

Lady Valdris’s face flushed red, her lips trembling as if she were about to lash out again. But when she looked at me, at my tiny body trembling from the violent spasms wracking my muscles, her anger melted into something else. She leaned forward, brushing a hand against Count Valdris’s cheek. The touch was brief, hesitant—it was the first time their skin had touched in what must have been weeks.

“Whatever you do,” she whispered, her voice breaking, “don’t let my child die, Erin.”

She turned sharply, her composure fracturing as she stormed out of the room. The heavy navy door slammed behind her with a thunderous finality, leaving the Count and me alone in the suffocating silence.

The Count looked back at me, his expression unreadable. "Boy…" he began, his voice low and strained. He carried me to the couch and and lay beside me, staring at the ceiling as if searching for answers in the cracks of the wood. "One day, the wolves will come for you.... They’ll tear at your flesh daily, demand you yield even your bones, and call you treasonous for wanting to keep them."

His hand returned to my chest, the icy magic pouring into me again, quelling the blazing inferno that threatened to consume me from within.

"Boy..." he murmured, his cold breath frosting the air between us. He leaned in closer, so close that I could feel the chill emanating from his very being. "You carry the wolf—a hunter of the frost—deep in your veins."

His hand pressed harder against my chest, and the heat inside me recoiled, retreating in fear. "Your strength terrifies me," he admitted, his voice laced with both awe and trepidation.

The pressure on my chest increased, my lungs struggling for air. Was he trying to kill me?

"I’ve chipped away so much of myself," he continued, what seemed to be mostly to himself, his eyes distant. "I’m more mysticism than man now. Everything I touch feels numb." His hand pushed down harder still, and the air fled my lungs entirely.

"But you," he said, his voice a whisper of resolve, "you must live. You must become something greater. Something even I and the other lords will fear." I gasped, the inferno in my chest extinguished.

"Count—F…Father," I croaked, the word unfamiliar and heavy on my tongue. Even after over a year in this new life, I struggled to call them my parents. The memories of my past life loomed larger every day, like dreams hardening into unshakable truths.

His cold eyes softened ever so slightly, and a faint s, mile ghosted across his lips. "Ciro," he said, his tone almost gentle. "I know you’re far more intelligent than you let on. That alone is proof you're a true Valdris."

His words hung in the air, heavy with words neither of us wanted to speak, as I lay th, ere, still trembling but alive. "You've formed your soul core, I don't know if you understand that or not. In truth, It doesn't matter if you formed it consciously or not." He said as he walked to the book case in his office. "You're not doubt the one."

He flipped some type of mechanism under his bookcase. A few clinks later that reminded me of Rebecca's overly locked door, he pulled out a bottle of the fanciest alcohol I've ever seen, and just by looking at it you know it would put you on your ass, it smelled like the strongest vodka ever produced as he opened the lid, memories of smelling hospital hand sanitizer flashed in my mind unpleasantly. "You're a sign of the Armageddon boy; the war of the rupture will happen again. You insure that by prophecy."

My blood ran colder than it did when he touched me with the magic. He is no doubt talking about the upcoming demon war, I didn't know there was a prophecy, or there was a past demon war. It makes logical sense in the game though you'd pick a child within this generation to become the hero of course you couldn't pick Ciro because he dies before the game starts, but you could pick my future sister, Rose Valdris, as your character, I wasn't so sure if she was going to be born by how separated my parents have become since my birth.

Count Valdris raised the crystal glass to his lips, the strong, almost acrid alcohol burning his throat as he downed a large gulp. His hand trembled as he set the glass down, its faint clink echoing in the quiet room. "I used to think I’d make a good father," he said, his voice low, heavy with something unspoken. "Not that I ever had much of an example."

He leaned back against the cold stone wall, the weight of the moment pressing down on him. It was only then I noticed how much he'd withered. His once lean, wiry frame had given way to a gauntness that bordered on skeletal. The sharp lines of his face, once a testament to his nobility, now seemed a shadow of despair and fatigue.

His gaze drifted to the ceiling, his amber eyes clouded with thoughts that seemed to claw at his soul. "Humans," he continued, his tone sharpening like a blade. "They cannot live with free will without succumbing to violence. They cannot live happily without trampling on the happiness of others. It is a wretched truth." He turned his gaze to me, his eyes hardening. "Since the day your mother brought you into this world, boy, you have carried the sin of being born stronger than those around you. A sin this world cannot forgive."

Then, without warning, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. The embrace was tight but cold, as though his soul recoiled even as his body sought connection. I felt the dampness of his tears streaking down my back, scalding and foreign. His voice cracked, barely a whisper. "Forgive me, my son. Forgive me for bringing you into a world so drenched in hate, so incapable of peace."

For the first time, I saw Count Valdris not as the imperious figure he had always been, but as a man shattered by his helplessness. His shoulders shook, and his voice broke again, softer now, as if speaking to himself. "It was not your mother's place to see a Valdris like this. No... she should never have to see the weakness that haunts her husband’s heart."

The words echoed in my mind, a fragile mantra clinging to the remnants of his pride. The realization hit me like a blow—I finally understood why he had sent her away, not to shield her from the ugliness of my actions, but to hide from her the crumbling of his own reverence.

Memories of my real mother surged to the surface, unbidden and painful. I had never cried in front of her, not even when the weight of the world felt like it was tearing me apart, cell by cell. Even when I wanted to scream at the heavens for punishing me for dreaming of happiness, I bit my tongue. Because when you love someone, truly love them, you bear your pain in silence. You don't let them see the cracks in your shield.