She came running towards him, radiant with life.
Her beauty stole the breath from his lungs, as if the very sight of her was something sacred. Gold-spun hairstreamed behind her like a banner of light, arms outstretched as laughter curled at the corners of her lips. That smile struck him like lightning to the chest. And her eyes… those vivid, purple eyes mirrored her mother’s so closely it made his soul ache.
Ash stood rooted to the earth, watching in silent wonder as his daughter climbed the hill, then flung herself into his waiting arms.
Where were you?she signed with her slender hands, her face adorably scrunched in playful annoyance. He couldn’t quite tell her age, but she looked to be about fifteen, caught somewhere between girlhood and womanhood, full of fire and softness.
I just needed to walk a while, he signed back,to clear my thoughts.
She rolled her eyes, those unmistakable witch eyes, before smiling and slipping her arm through his. With a gentle tug, she led him forward, urging him homeward.
Ash glanced up at the castle that crowned the land. A drakonian stronghold once left to ruin, now risen again in majesty, proud and whole. And for a moment, just a moment, peace settled in his bones.
‘Ash.’
His name, spoken softly, tugged him back from the echoes of a future not yet written. The vision dissolved like mist, and he found himself once more in the present, seated at the long stone table worn smooth by centuries of use. Slowly, Ash looked up at the small gathering that had assembled around him, the haze of reverie still clinging to the edges of his mind.
His hands pressed against the cold surface of the table, an altar of knowledge and power, once used by witches and warlocks long lost to time. Around them, the ruined temple breathed with quiet majesty. A section of the ceiling had collapsed long ago, shattered by the wrath of dragons a hundredyears before. Vines now curled through the cracks, and light spilt in through the broken roof, painting silver streaks across the moss-covered floor.
Even in ruin, the place held a haunting beauty. Witch architecture was like nothing else, always otherworldly, built not merely from stone but from intention and ancient memory. The walls soared like cathedral spires, and in the distance, one of the old witch towers still pierced the sky, its once-glorious green fire long extinguished.
Adriana stepped into the silence, her boots echoing softly as she took the vacant seat to his right. Her expression was tight with concern, her gaze lingering on him with the weight of unspoken questions.
‘How l-long… was I sitting here?’ Ash asked, his voice hoarse, threading through the quiet like a fading song.
‘Two days,’ Adriana replied gently, a sigh escaping her as she settled in beside him.
He gave a slow nod, then ran a hand over his weary face. It felt like only a morning had passed. But that was the danger of walking through memory, of slipping into glimpses of what might come. Time bent and blurred when he visited the threads of fate, and it had grown harder and harder to return to the now.
Especially when the visions showedher.
His daughter.
The moment Mal had driven that dagger into his chest, everything had changed. For it was in death, or something close to it, that he had seen her first: radiant and alive, a future wrapped in golden light. And from that moment on, the world as it was held little meaning.
His war, his kingdom, his vengeance, all had faded in the wake of that singular truth: he would follow the path that led toher.
No matter the cost.
‘I know it’s difficult,’ Adriana said gently, her voice like the first wind before a storm. ‘But you must try to stop. If you keep slipping away like this, you might lose yourself in the folds of your own mind.’
‘I know,’ Ash murmured, nodding. ‘I’ll t-try.’
His eyes drifted past her, towards the rest of the group who had followed her into the old temple in search of him. Keir stood close now, placing a quiet, grounding hand upon his wife’s shoulder. He was a wyverian of lean build, tall and sinewy, a contrast to the usual bulk and brawn his kin were known for. But what Keir lacked in weight, he made up for in speed. Quick as a blade’s flash, they said.
Adriana, by contrast, carried the fire of another kind. Some whispered she resembled Haven Blackburn, though Ash had never quite seen it. Yes, there was the dark hair, cropped to the jaw; the eyes like polished obsidian, fierce and unwavering. But Haven had always been the calm within the storm. Serene and composed. Adriana, on the other hand, was the tempest itself: defiant, unyielding, ready to rage against the heavens if she must.
‘How did you know?’ she asked at last, her voice low and careful. The question had been a long time coming. Weeks, perhaps more. Ash could hear the restraint in her tone, and he understood.
He couldn’t blame her for needing the truth.
Ash drew in a long breath, searching for that stillness within, the fragile thread of calm that might let him speak without his nerves tangling around his words. Since the moment Mal had driven the blade into his heart, something within him had shifted. He had become something… else. A creature not quite unfamiliar, yet no longer entirely his own. The stammer remained, would always remain. But he had made peace with it, at least most of it. The fear of speaking had faded, softened like the last light before dusk.
And all because of her.
From the instant he met his daughter—silent, bright-eyed, unable to hear the world that surrounded her, his understanding of life had been irreversibly rewritten. In those visions, he watched himself learning to sign, his hands shaping a new language just for her, a bridge between their worlds. It was not better, nor lesser. Simply different. And in that difference, something beautiful had taken root.
He had watched that other version of himself become a father, not just in name, but in spirit. Day by day, that future Ash fell deeper in love with a child who knew no fear, who smiled with her whole being and laughed without sound, unburdened by the weight of judgement. And though the fear of his stutter had long fallen away, what he cherished most was the quiet world they built together where voices were unnecessary, and hearts spoke through fingertips, through shared glances, through the language of unspoken understanding.
