Chapter 3

(Eris)

I had scarcely fallen asleep in my cot near the door before I heard my father's footsteps come close. Although he didn't look at me, I could sense a tense aura streaming from him. “Come, Eris.”

I wanted to ask questions but I took one look at the blades strapped to his sides and back, and immediately felt the answer appear in front of me. I followed him outside cautiously, trident in hand, looking for any sign of movement. In the time it took for me to look around, my father was already gone. I rushed after him quickly, following his long-strided footprints in the snow as I continued, picking up the pace.

I stopped at the edge of a frozen lake, just in time to see that he was engaged in a harsh sword duel with an adversary of blinding light. From their hair to their pointed boots, the enemy glowed a bright, unearthly white, even their eyes were harsh and judgemental. The light pouring from them was so blinding that I couldn’t see much of their face, leaving them androgynous. My father leapt back from the duel, wielding only one blade. I saw the other two left haphazardly at the edge. One was as broad and long as a shield, his Hag’kistux, the Blade of the Mind’s Eye. A longsword made of blackened star steel, his Pasrangivel, the Blade of Slicing Shadows. I gathered them up and I felt this was another moment in which we weren't father and daughter, but knight and squire. Thus, I held my tongue and his weapons, taking a step back to preserve his honour as he blocked and parried with his third sword, that of flame, Ignilion.

This was his fight and his fight alone. The foe slid back along the ice away from my father before they channelled their raw energy through their hands. My father with a dark blaze. His adversary with freezing light. They rushed at each other at breakneck speed, turning the frozen lake back into the water it once was as they went into a grapple, blade against blade, fire against ice. Before either touched the water, my father leapt into the air, spreading his black dragon's wings while his opponent spread their illuminating, luna moth-like wings.

His sword ignited in a violent, red blaze while his opponent’s blade seemed to turn from silver, to cold, harsh steel. They flew at each other. The force of their blows knocking them backwards. I had experienced several of my father’s breakneck techniques firsthand, and I’d learned to predict them with and without my psionic abilities. Here, though, he moved at a pace not even the ever encroaching eye of time could predict.

With his opponent matching him, they traded stroke for stroke.

Each clash and hiss of fire on ice shook me to my very core. I’d never seen my father fight so desperately in all of my two hundred and thirty-seven years of life, death, and rebirth. My father soon began evading his foe through diverse aerial manoeuvres, the orb in his chest glowing with a white heat as his body was working overtime to accommodate for his foe’s literal, blinding speed.

I blended into the shadows to avoid a blastwave of heat that emanated from the roiling black and red mass of energy in my father’s chest. It withered the trees around the lake, and turned any form of water to steam. His adversary, being caught by the wave, dimmed a bit, revealing a woman of strong build. Her light seemed to reignite as she became unfazed as the wave passed. Unfortunately though, that was all the time my father needed to put his extinguished blade to her throat and elicit an unspoken surrender. After filling the lake with ice once more, the unnamed foe of frost, and light left, leaving me alone with my father. He grunted as he took a knee. Ice had formed in spirals all over his body. Though it melted quickly, it was obvious that all of the blows I thought he had deflected had really been his own attacks being parried and answered.

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He gritted his teeth as he stood shakily, removing his now tattered robes and coat, revealing a suit of armour. I ran over quickly and helped him hobble back to the cottage, taking the two items of clothing from him. “Speak nothing of this to your mother or sister, Eris. That person was simply here to spar with me and nothing more. Your mother would take it the wrong way...she would believe her an enemy of ours. She sent me a letter asking to meet with me to spar and I agreed.”

I nodded as we came to a quiet, nearby clearing we’d passed along our way there. I laid my father down in the fresh, falling snow gently as he huffed with exhaustion. There was no way that he had survived so many sword blows from a weapon wielded by someone with twice the skill he had.

He smiled at me, “What’s wrong? Your face is all twisted up, like I’m leaving you.”

I felt infuriated at his response, gritting my teeth. “You stupid, old man! What were you thinking going as fiercely as you did! Don’t you always tell me not to try so hard in combat?! That there are better options than fighting?! Why didn’t you get someone else to help train this person?! You are old! You can’t just leap into combat anymore!”

He put a finger to my lips, stopping my tirade. He spoke softly but firmly as he gently brushed away some of the tears that I hadn’t noticed falling down my cheeks. “Do you know that sometimes people don’t have luxuries just given to them? That some people may be too strong to fight machines or to give up fighting all together?” I felt as if daggers were being driven into my windpipe as he continued. “Fantasia plays the violin so well, and your apothecarial skills rival those of the greatest in Reality. Imagine if I told you one day that neither of you could do those things anymore. Sometimes combat is necessary, especially in a family that never listens.”

“Father, she could’ve killed you!” I felt the words fire from me like a gunshot before I could contain myself, and they continued to pour forth like a waterfall.

“Do we really matter so little to you that you would just throw your life and crown away?! What about your son! He can’t even hold his head up, let alone carry the weight of your crown! What if you never heard Fantasia’s music again? What if-”

He held me close, silencing me completely. His suit of armour fell away, leaving him in his plain clothes.

He was incredibly warm compared to the outside chill. I could do nothing but sob against him as he held me close. For a long time, he just let me cry, he didn’t scold me, he didn’t say I was disrespectful, he didn’t even note how cold it was. After a long time, he finally spoke in a quiet, calm, and gentle tone.

“There is a family of sparrows in that tree behind me. No significance, just look at them, and how they are: beautiful, thriving. You ought not to worry so much, a girl of your age should be enjoying her life to the fullest. You have the rest of your life as queen to stress and worry, grow old and bicker with the other rulers from the lands we’ll be visiting soon. Wrinkles come from worrying too much…” He seemed to cut himself off in thought, possibly listening to himself speak and heeding his own advice.

“Let’s head back to your mother, shall we? Breakfast must be ready by now if that’s what I’m smelling.” It was uplifting being able to smell my mother’s cooking from this far away, even through my snotty crying. My father took a piece of cloth lining from his armour, tore it, and gave it to me,

“Dry your tears. Buck up. Let’s go see what your mother is making, shall we?.” He finally let go of me before pain-stakingly putting his armour back on. I wanted to help him with it but he refused and did everything himself, tying the straps and tightening them around his back, arms, legs, and shoulders without a word. This was a man of war and worse battles than this with more at stake than just his own life.

Already his wounds were disappearing before my eyes as if the incident had never happened. There was certainly something frightening about my father underneath all of his grit, muscle, power, and blind luck, and it was wonderful. We walked back through the woods without incident or talk of what had happened. The only proof of anything happening being the slightly blood-stained piece of cloth he’d given me. For years to come I’d still keep it hidden away where no one would ever see it. A testament that my father, the immortal that he was, could bleed, and would die one day.