Basil looked at his father as if he were seeing a stranger emerge from a familiar mask. The orange juice in his cup was cold now, and the sweetness felt cloying against the bitterness of the conversation.
"Empathy, Father?" Basil repeated, the word sounding foreign in the cramped, utilitarian space of the tent.
"Yes. For the most part, I understand the world through a ledger of wants, fears, and desires," Alpheo said. He leaned back, the shadows of the pavilion deepening the lines around his eyes. "Except for a handful of people, your mother, your sister, you, your uncles, the rest of humanity is a sea of grey. For me, they are little more than pebbles I overstep with my boot. I see where they are going, and I know how to move them, but I do not feel their weight."
"But the soldiers..." Basil protested, his mind flashing back to the warm, paternal way Alpheo had clasped Oto's shoulder. "The way you spoke to them...and they spoke to you."
