Time passed.
Suvo didn't know how much. Days blurred into nights. Cries into silence. He could not walk, could not speak, could barely move — but his mind, trapped within a baby's body, was painfully aware.
And he was watching.
Always watching.
The woman — his new mother — held him with endless care. She sang to him softly, her golden hair brushing against his skin. Her smile never faded, not even when he woke her in the middle of the night with his aimless crying.
She would hold him close, whispering things he didn't understand — but the warmth in her voice felt real.
Her arms never trembled. Her lips never cursed him.
She loved him.
But...
"I don't know her."
The man — tall, quiet, firm — carried him around the home with steady arms. His hands were rough, calloused. A worker, a fighter maybe. But when he looked at Suvo, his expression softened.
He rarely spoke. But he was always there. Watching from the door. Returning with food. Sitting beside them during quiet nights.
A silent protector.
"He looks at me like I matter."
"But I don't know him either."
And then there was the girl — his older sister.
Lively. Talkative. Always trying to make him laugh.
She poked his cheeks. Pulled faces. Giggled when he sneezed. Called him by a name he couldn't repeat. She danced around his cradle, ran to bring him toys, pouted when he didn't respond.
She called herself his "big sister."
She was cheerful. Innocent.
Pure.
"Why does she look at me like that?"
"What does she see when she sees me?"
They were a family.
They fed him. Held him. Kissed his forehead when he cried.
But inside, Suvo felt nothing.
No attachment. No warmth. No connection.
"They love me... but I don't love them."
"Not because I hate them."
"But because... I don't know how to anymore."
His past still clung to him — voices, blood, death, war. Lela's smile. The screams of his dying people. His shattered sword.
These people didn't know that pain.
They didn't know who he was.
"I was a king once. I had a people. A purpose."
"Now... I am just a child in a stranger's arms."
At night, he would stare at the wooden ceiling. Listen to the soft breaths of the family sleeping nearby. The wind brushing the house.
It was peaceful.
So peaceful... it almost hurt.
"Was this what I fought for?"
"Peace... like this?"
One evening, as the golden sunset spilled through the window, his sister leaned over the cradle and touched his hand gently.
"Brother," she whispered with a smile, "when you grow up... will you play with me?"
He looked up at her.
For a moment — just one fleeting moment — her eyes reminded him of someone.
Of someone lost in the war.
He didn't know her name.
He didn't remember the face.
But his heart ached.
Just a little.
"This world is not mine... but it is now where I live."
"These people are not my family... but they are the ones beside me."
"Maybe one day... I will feel something again."
[End of Chapter 4]