He taps my shoulder.
“She has your eyes.”
My head snaps up.
“Who?”
He just shrugs.
“You know who.”
I lean back.
“Then tell the girl. Or lose them both.”
Silence.
It crashes through me harder than any spear.
Because Sahlun doesn’t beg.
He warns.
And he’s right.
That nightI can’t sleep either.
I stare at myself in the holo-mirror. The man they pay to fight for spectacle. The man they pay to adore. The man I built when I thought the mission took me far from all of this.
But I came back.
Because she is here.
And I don’t know if I dare let her in.
Because I don’t know if my world has room forher.
And I don’t know if I can keep up the facade of celebrity while chasing ghosts of what I left behind.
Back in the slow hours,I replay the moment in the training bay.
I see her face. The way she tensed when I spoke. The way she said Mr.?Blastaar first—and how fast she adopted Valtron when I corrected.
I hear her voice giggle when the drone hummed again.
I smell the coolant pipe. The warm metal. The oil-smell that always follows me like regret.
I taste the bitterness of time wasted.
And what terrifies me most:
Iwanther.
My daughter.
And maybe a chance to make it right.
But can I?
