My children grew fast. Too fast, maybe.
From the age of one to ten, it felt like I was living the life of a man dying slowly, and the life of a father trying desperately to live long enough to matter.
When they were still toddlers, Xaessiarerich and Phasnovterich used to be inseparable. They would crawl together on the floors of the Vecria estate, babbling in that language only children and gods understand. Xaessia had her mother's poise even then. Phaser, on the other hand, had my warmth. Or maybe I'm just flattering myself.
He'd smile at everything. The sound of rain, the servants talking, even my coughing fits when he toddled too close to my bedside.
When Anastelle left for her duties — which was often, even back then — I would have a few hours of peace. I'd watch them play through the glass divider that separated my room from the rest of the nursery. It was a safety measure, the doctors said. Xaessiarerich's Xana frequency could have worsened my condition again.
I didn't care. I watched anyway. And I smiled, even when it hurt to breathe.
By the time they were four, I had already thrown myself entirely into research after becoming a full pledged researcher. I suppose that's what happens when you realize you're running out of time. You start clawing at meaning, building something so you can leave proof that you tried.
Fluve Syndrome became my obsession.
I turned my illness into my profession. I started working as a pathologist for the Argemenes laboratories. They gave me a lab reinforced with anti-corrosion Flux layers and sanitization wards.
It became my world. And it was there that Phaser started visiting me.
He'd come in his small lab coat, the sleeves always too long, his hair tied back the way Anastelle liked it. He'd peer into my vials with those bright silver eyes and ask questions that most adults couldn't even form properly.
"What happens if you add Amniterium to this one, Father?"
"Why does it smell like ash when it burns?"
"Does sickness feel like drowning all the time?"
That last one always made me pause.
He was five when he asked that. Five, and already aware that his father's body was killing itself slowly. But he didn't cry or pity me. He looked at me with the same determination his mother had. It was a look that said I'll find a way.
And by the Goddesses, I loved that boy.
He was everything I wasn't. He was kind but unyielding, gentle but resolute. He had seen blood, death and ceremony already, yet he still found joy in tiny things like drawing the chemical diagrams I taught him, or sneaking into the storage cabinet to steal a fee chemicals because he liked how it sparkled under the light.
Xaessia, though… she stayed at the door.
Every time Phaser came to the lab, she'd follow quietly and stop just before the barrier. Her small hand would press against the glass, and I'd see the faint shimmer of Xana energy ripple through her skin. She knew she couldn't come in. Anastelle had told her, firmly, that being near me would hurt me. She understood, but she didn't like it.
Sometimes, I'd look up from my desk and see her watching me through the window. She never said a word. She didn't have to. I could feel what she wanted. She wanted to come closer but she never did.
Those years blurred together after that. Anastelle started changing too.
She was… softer in ways I didn't expect. She still trained the children like soldiers — Argemenes custom demanded it — but there were moments when her voice was not as cold as before. When she was home, she'd eat dinner with us. She'd even laugh sometimes. It always shocked me because I'd forgotten what it sounded like. We began to speak again not as strangers forced into marriage, but as two people bound by something far more complicated than duty.
It wasn't love, not yet. But it was the shape of something that could have become it.
When she joined the World Forces, I thought I'd never see her again. She would leave for weeks at a time, returning with bruises and tired eyes. But those absences gave me time with Phaser. We'd spend nights in the lab, experimenting with Flux chemicals, studying old Argemenes records, and talking about nothing and everything.
He was my anchor. To me, he was a small reminder that maybe life wasn't done with me yet.
At the age of five, he and Xaessiarerich went through the Argemenes Trial. It was barbaric, even by our standards. Children were forced to kill Fluviums and consume their flesh to prove their worth. I tried to stop it. Of course, no one listened. Tradition, they said. When they came back from the trial, I barely recognized them.
Phaser's eyes had changed. They glowed brighter and for a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of something inhuman behind them. But he smiled when he saw me and said with a bright voice.
"Father, I'm stronger now!"
He didn't brag or boast. Just said it like a fact. And despite everything, he was still the same child who asked too many questions and sneaked into my lab. Xaessia, though… she grew quieter. She loved her brother, I knew that, but something in her had begun to twist. Maybe it was envy, or loneliness, or the cruel reality of being unable to touch her own father.
She started avoiding me entirely after that, standing only in the shadows of corridors. I could feel her presence sometimes but she never came near.
Until that one day. She was six.
I was in the lab, working late. My hands were trembling again, my veins glowing faintly blue from the instability. The air smelled like burnt metal and antiseptic. Phaser had gone to rest. I thought I was alone.
Then the door creaked open.
"Xaessia?"
She stood there, hesitant. Her eyes were wide and uncertain.
"Father."
I didn't even have time to react. She took one step forward and my body convulsed.
It was like lightning ripped through my veins. My vision went white. Blood filled my mouth again. The Flux barrier shattered with a loud hiss, alarms blaring throughout the estate.
The next thing I knew, Anastelle was there. She appeared, shouting Xaessia's name. She caught her daughter by the arm, pulled her back. The pain receded enough for me to breathe again.
When I looked up, I expected fury. I expected that cold, familiar indifference. But what I saw instead… was fear. Anastelle's hands trembled as she looked at me.
"Idiot. You could've died..."
I remember lying there, staring at the woman who once told me she'd kill me as an act of mercy and thinking, why now? Why did she care now? Why did her voice sound like that? Why was she desperate? Was it guilt? Compassion? Love?
I didn't know. Maybe she didn't either.
But for the first time, I realized something had changed between us.
She wasn't the same cruel girl who pinned me down years ago demanding an heir. And I… wasn't the same weak boy dying quietly under her shadow.
I spent the rest of that night staring at the ceiling again, my heart heavier than ever.
I thought of Xaessia, crying outside the door. Of Phaser, probably asleep, dreaming of chemical symbols and stars. And of Anastelle, pacing the hallway, refusing to admit that she was scared of losing me.
For the first time in years, I didn't feel like a prisoner of my fate. I was just a man clinging to the small, flickering warmth his family had unknowingly given him.