I appeared back in my tent, Kalin sitting at the table there his finger tracing the words on the page that Mab had. I’d started to teach him to read and had Mab giving him lessons while I was dueling. I sagged onto my cot more emotionally exhausted then physically.

What’s… Karnen started to ask.

“Don’t talk to me,” I said. “I just need to think.”

I was going to be a father. While I had always known it was something that would happen eventually, I had never thought about what I would do when it did. My thoughts raced a million miles a minute returning again and again to my own father.

Standing up I began pacing around the tent. Kalin looked up from the grimoire in front of him follow my movements.

“What’s wrong?” Kalin asked.

“I just need to get some things settled in my head?” I said.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

The thought was laughable but as I looked at the boy, I just saw myself. He was about the same age as I had been when I entered into the foster care system and had that same wary angry look about him that I had but it was different, his eyes didn’t hold the same fury just a sullen hungry glint.

“Did you ever know your father?” I asked him sitting back down on my cot facing him.

“No,” Kalin said hanging his head.

“That bothers you?” I asked, needing to know the answer to this question. “What if he was a monster? What if he would have hurt you worse than anyone else, would you still want to know him?”

Kalin was silent, but he nodded. “I’d want to know; I’d want to know why.”

“I knew my father,” I said. “I tried to kill him when I was maybe a year younger than you are now.”

“Why?” he asked.

I shrugged. “He was hurting my mother, and I didn’t know how to stop him. Ultimately, we all learn from our fathers, even if we pick up the wrong lessons; my father taught me that might made right and so when it came to stopping him I only knew one way to do so.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Did you…” he asked with morbid curiosity.

“Kill him? No, I didn’t but it didn’t matter, I was removed and didn’t see him again until I was almost an adult,” I said. “But I never forgot, and I still haven’t forgiven. He made me feel like something was wrong with me and the worst part is I think he might have been right.”

My words seemed to affect Kalin as his face became saddened. “Do you think there is something wrong with us too?” he asked. “Is that why our dads didn’t…” he couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Do you know what a generational cycle is?” I asked. “Of course you don’t, it’s when the pain inflicted on your parents is passed down to their children who pass it on to theirs. You never knew your father, chances are someday you’ll get a girl pregnant, leave her and your kid will grow up never knowing his.”

“I wouldn’t!” he protested.

I laughed but there was no joy in it. “It’s easy to say, a lot harder to stop. You and I, we never got the lessons we were supposed to get. We were never taught what it was to be a good man, much less to be a good father. I’m going to be a father and my biggest fear is I’ll end up being just like mine,” I said. “I keep thinking I’ve moved passed it, but it just rolls back on me again and again.”

“You can do it,” the boy said, and I could see the hero worship in his eyes.

“I’m not sure if I can,” I said standing up pushing back and walking out of the tent. “I need some air keep studying.”

My feet wandered aimlessly as my thoughts raced memories playing through my mind on endless repeat. I found myself walking through the palace gardens. I sat down on a marble bench looking out over the ponds and vibrant flowers. My head jerked around when I caught a familiar scent.

He’s here, Voidra said. I detect no aggression from him he is unaware of you.

Arthur walked on the opposite side of a pond of water a blonde-haired woman on his arm. She was pushing a baby stroller, and I could see the joy on both their faces. My eyes followed Arthur and what I took to be his mistress. He lifted up the baby and I saw the pride, joy, and protectiveness on his face.

It was strange to understand and empathize with my enemy in that moment, but I felt something click into place watching him and his son. I had taken in a child to guide and mentor; I wouldn’t say I had adopted him, but it was undeniable that I had taken a sort of father figure role in his life.

I hadn’t done much for Kalin and already he viewed me as someone I wasn’t. I’d made him kill someone and dragged him into life and death in the sewers below the city, but he looked at me like I was some sort of savior. In his eyes I was someone I wasn’t, but I’d like to be the man he and Guinevere thought I was.

I stood up. The fear still weighed down on me, but I had survived death itself to get to Guinevere, she was right though; that baby was more important than either of us. I wouldn’t be my father but the first step to doing that was being a father. That meant I had to save Guinevere first, no matter the cost to myself or others.