“They’re here,” Aria said quietly.

  Kaiser’s gaze flicked toward her, his pace slowing almost imperceptibly. “Your parents?”

  She nodded, the motion so slight it could’ve been mistaken for the wind moving her hair. A hesitant step carried her closer to him, her body taut like a wire drawn too tight. “Somehow… after all this time, I never got to say goodbye. I never even got to apologize.”

  Kaiser watched her, something cool and analytical ticking behind his crimson eyes. Apology. Guilt. Regret. The same deadweights that shackled stronger men than him to their graves. He wondered, in some detached corner of his mind, if she even realized how much she was bleeding herself dry by carrying it. How easy it would be, if he wanted, to press on those fractures. How easy it would be to turn sorrow into obedience.

  Instead, he just said, voice low, “You carried that a long time.”

  “Too long,” she murmured, not looking at him.

  The cemetery stretched out before them, a landscape of grief frozen in stone and mist. As they moved deeper, Kaiser noticed faint shapes, clothed in black that fluttered unnaturally in a wind he could not feel. They wore smooth, skull-white masks, blank as the surface of the moon.

  His fingers twitched instinctively toward a weapon that wasn’t there. He narrowed his eyes, assessing without moving faster, without showing a crack in his stance. “What the hell are those?” he asked under his breath, every instinct telling him these things were wrong, no matter how harmless they appeared.

  Aria’s gaze followed his. Her voice came softer now, almost reverent. “Those are Death fairies.”

  Kaiser arched a brow, the word hanging oddly in his mind.

  “They were created to speak to the dead,” she said, her voice almost lost in the cold air. “To keep them company. So they don’t get lonely.”

  He scoffed, a short bark of sound that cut through the hush. “Lonely?” He let the word linger, dripping with skepticism. “I’d think the dead would have enough company in a place like this.”

  Aria smiled faintly, bittersweet and broken at the edges. “Maybe. But it’s more for us than for them, I think. It makes the living feel better, believing the dead aren’t left in silence.”

  Kaiser let out a slow breath, eyes scanning the shifting forms again. ‘A lie, then. A solution for a wound that never heals.’ Part of him wanted to laugh at the stupidity of it all — building fairytales for corpses. But another part, a smaller, quieter part, understood it too well.

  They walked further until they reached a smaller clearing. Two graves stood apart from the others, modest stones worn by time but still cared for. Kaiser felt the tension in Aria’s frame spike as they approached, mostly a trembling in her fingers and a hitch in her breath.

  He stood a few steps behind, watching without interrupting, cataloging every flicker of emotion across her face. She knelt slowly, reaching out with a shaking hand to brush the rough surface of the stones. Her fingers, impossibly gentle for someone who had survived so much.

  “They would’ve been proud of you,” he said, the words low, almost cautious, like he was setting a fragile glass down on stone.

  The second the words left his mouth, he almost regretted them. Pride. It was a hollow thing to promise. Still, Aria didn’t flinch, only bowed her head lower, hiding her face from him.

  Her voice cracked. “I don’t know. I’ve done terrible things since they were taken. I’ve hurt people, Kaiser. I’ve killed. What kind of daughter would they think I’ve become?”

  He tilted his head slightly, studying her. Guilt again. He could almost see it bleeding out of her like smoke. Part of him wanted to shake her — to tell her that guilt was a luxury for people who hadn’t been forced to survive. But he knew better. Words like that would harden her against him, and he wasn’t here to build walls.

  "You survived," Kaiser said, voice steady, pitched just soft enough to slip under the armor she was trying to hold onto. "That’s what they would’ve wanted you to do."

  He leaned a little closer, enough that she couldn’t mistake the intent behind his words. “No parent would blame their child for surviving.”

  ‘And if they would have?’ Kaiser thought grimly, looking at the names carved into the stones. ‘Then they aren’t worth grieving.’

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Aria touched the stones again, her hands trembling, tears cutting silent tracks down her cheeks. She looked so small like that, not the girl who had weaponized an entire forest, not the monster the village was destroyed by. Just a child who had been left behind.

  “I wish I could’ve been stronger,” she whispered. “I wish I could’ve saved them.”

  "You were a child, Aria," Kaiser said, his voice low but hard now, sharper, a blade rather than a balm. "You still are."

  She flinched slightly at that, but he didn’t let her look away.

  "And despite that, you endured what grown men couldn’t," he continued, his crimson eyes boring into hers. "You survived a massacre. You tamed a forest. You turned yourself into something the world could not ignore."

  He let the words sink in, knowing exactly what he was doing. Planting seeds. Building her not into something soft and safe, but into something stronger. Harder. Better.

  She shook her head weakly, her sobs raw and unguarded. "I just wanted them to see me grow up. To know that I became someone good. But all I’ve done is survive."

  Kaiser watched her for a long moment, the silence between them filled only by the soft sounds of her grief and the distant sighing of the mist. Finally, he said, almost gently, “Surviving doesn’t make you lesser. It means you didn’t let the world finish what it started. It means you’re still here, when everything else is dust.”

  He rested a hand lightly on her shoulder, but not to comfort her, not really. He wasn’t the comforting type. But as a reminder. 'I see you,' the gesture said. 'I acknowledge you. You are real.'

  Aria wiped her eyes, her breath hitching as she tried to gather herself. "I miss them so much," she choked out.

  Kaiser nodded slowly, his hand dropping away. “I know,” he said, and for once, the words weren’t strategic. They were honest.

  Because he did know. In his own way. In the way all survivors understood each other without ever needing to explain. And as he stood, glancing once more at the endless graveyard stretched around them, Kaiser Dios made another small, silent calculation.

  ‘Pain doesn’t break people. It shapes them. And the ones who learn to live with the cracks… those are the ones worth keeping.’

  Aria remained kneeling before the graves, her hand splayed across the stone as though the simple act of touch could bridge the impossible gap of years, of life, of death. She stayed like that for what felt like hours, unmoving except for the trembling that ran through her small frame, a quake she seemed powerless to stop. Kaiser stood nearby, silent as a statue, arms crossed, his crimson gaze unreadable.

  He could have said something. He could have offered some platitude, some empty string of words about forgiveness, about peace, about how the dead would want her to move on. But that wasn’t what she needed. And it wasn’t what he would give.

  At last, Aria’s voice broke the heavy air, barely more than a breath. "I’m so sorry… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I brought this upon us. If I hadn’t been born, maybe… maybe you’d still be alive."

  Kaiser stayed silent, letting her spiral, letting her bleed it out. ‘She needed this, needed the wound exposed to the open air before it could ever scar over. To patch it too quickly would be to leave the infection inside.’

  Aria bent her head lower, the loose strands of pink hair falling like a curtain around her face. Her tears, unchecked, pattered onto the earth like raindrops. Kaiser didn’t look away. He’d seen men die screaming with less honesty than she was showing now.

  “I don’t know if you can hear me,” she whispered to the stones, “But… I’ll make things right. I’ll try to be the person you would have wanted me to be. The daughter you deserved.”

  Kaiser tilted his head slightly, observing the small tremors still wracking her body. He made no move to intervene. There was a time for words, and there was a time to let someone face the fire alone.

  But as she pressed her palms flat against the cold stone, the spiral deepened again.

  “You should hate me," she breathed, her voice breaking apart. "I ruined everything. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be here — laughing, living, growing old together. How do I make up for that? How do you fix what’s broken when you’re the one who broke it?”

  The self-loathing poured out of her, and for the first time, Kaiser felt the faintest flicker of irritation, not at her, but at the pointlessness of guilt. ‘The world didn't reward guilt. It chewed it up. It buried you under it. No army, no king, no god had ever given back what guilt wanted to heal.’

  He watched her shoulders shake with each breath, saw her lips move silently, prayers or memories too broken to voice aloud.

  In her mind, he realized, she was still that child. Still believing she had the power to undo what was already long buried.

  The wind picked up, lifting the edges of her hair, carrying her pain up into the mist. For a moment, the world itself seemed to hold its breath, listening.

  Finally, slowly, she rose. The movement was painful, a girl dragging the weight of a mountain on her back. She turned toward him, her eyes, those strange, empty eyes, locked onto his with a look of raw vulnerability.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice fraying at the edges.

  Kaiser inclined his head slightly, saying nothing at first. What thanks did he deserve? He had brought her here not out of kindness. Still, the result was what mattered. She would be stronger for it. He would see to that.

  Her steps were shaky but deliberate as she approached him. Her presence was different now, not whole, never that, but hardened.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Kaiser said evenly, his voice steady as stone. "We can go."

  But Aria didn't move. She turned back again to the graves, her lips trembling, her hands clenched at her sides. Kaiser didn’t rush her. ‘Never rush a blade cooling from the forge.’

  "I’ll come back," she said, so quietly the wind almost stole the words. "I promise."

  The mist stirred at her feet as though it too understood something had shifted, something had been given form where there was only hurt before.

  He watched as she turned back toward him, her breathing still ragged but her spine a little straighter. She wasn’t healed. But she didn’t need healing. She needed forge.

  And fire, Kaiser Dios could work with.