Greta and the rest of the martial trainees departed soon after the greetings were finished. Orders were called, packs were shouldered, and the group moved with the easy coordination of people already thinking about the rest of their day. Meka lingered only a moment longer than the others, long enough to give me a small, determined nod that carried far more weight than a wave ever could. Then she turned and followed them through the gate, hooves striking stone in a steady rhythm until the sound faded from hearing.

  The wall settled back into itself once they were gone. Boots passed in measured patterns. Armor shifted. Somewhere above us, a horn sounded briefly before cutting off. It was a working place, alive in a way that did not need conversation to announce itself.

  My father looked down at me, one brow lifting slightly, the corner of his mouth already tugging upward in a way that told me he had been waiting for this moment.

  “So, Zolo,” he said. He always called me that, never Azolo. “What do you want to do?”

  I considered the question for only a moment, eyes drifting toward the gate the others had just passed through. “Has the magical class made it to a wall yet?” I asked. “Or do they go to a different fort. Would you know?”

  He snorted softly and shook his head. “No. Usually they come later. Their trainer is quite slow at getting them into the city, and even slower at getting them back out again. We have time.” He glanced at me sidelong. “Why do you ask?”

  I reached into my tunic and pulled out the folded letter Koo had given me, the paper creased carefully as if it had been handled more than once. “First,” I said, holding it up, “could you get this to West Fort.”

  He took the letter without opening it, weighing it in his hand as if it might tell him something by feel alone. He turned it over once, then nodded. “Sure,” he said easily. “What is it?”

  I laughed under my breath. “Looks like a love letter. Or maybe a proposal. Koo would do something crazy like that.”

  He glanced at me, eyes sharpening with interest. “Really?”

  “Oh yes,” I said, nodding with exaggerated seriousness. “He’s never met an orcish woman quite like Greta, and I think he has a crush. I think he’s asking his clan for permission to marry her.” I paused, then added dryly, “I don’t think he understands that she’s married to the job.”

  My father barked out a laugh, loud and unrestrained, the sound carrying briefly along the wall before fading into the wind. A few nearby defenders glanced over, then went back to their work, clearly used to him. “I see,” he said once he’d caught his breath. “And what about you?” He eyed me with open curiosity. “Do you have any crushes?”

  “No, Dad,” I said flatly. “I’m a five hundred year old wizard in a three year old body. I have no desire for anything like that.”

  He blinked, then winced slightly, as if he’d just stepped on an unexpected truth. “Oh. Well. That’s too bad. Your mother and I thought it would have been cute if you did.”

  “It’s not as cute as you’d think,” I replied, “when you’re on my side of it.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, chuckling again, shaking his head.

  I hesitated, then looked up at him more seriously, lowering my voice despite the open air around us. “Dad, do you think you could do me another favor?”

  He did not hesitate. “Sure. Anything, son.”

  “When the magical class comes through,” I said, “do you do the inspection yourself? Or is it just letting them through?”

  “There isn’t really an inspection,” he said slowly, eyes narrowing as he considered it. “But there could be, if you wanted there to be.”

  I smiled.

  He continued, thoughtful now, clearly warming to the idea. “I remember reading your letters about their instructor. I wouldn’t be opposed to detaining him for a routine inspection. Maybe he needs to fill out paperwork today.”

  My smile widened.

  “He hasn’t actually filled out most of his guild paperwork,” my father added, a note of satisfaction creeping into his voice. “So, it wouldn’t be hard to convince him that today is the day he finally does it. Properly. Thoroughly. Who knows, maybe he might need to do it in triplicate for the records you know.”

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  I looked up at him, grinning. “Dad, you’re the best.”

  “Oh, I know,” he said easily. He clapped his hands together once, the sound sharp and decisive. “Now let’s go. I’ve got a day planned for you.” He started walking, already assuming I would follow. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  He slowed just long enough to glance back at me. “You want to head up with me to the top of the wall?” he asked. “We’ll talk with my commander. He’s a really good guy, and he’d probably be very happy to annoy a man who refuses to sign paperwork because, and I quote, ‘Do you know who I am. Do you know who backs me.’”

  “Randall,” I said, unable to keep the laughter out of my voice.

  “That’s the one,” my father replied, lips twitching.

  “Let’s do that,” I said.

  He did not bother slowing further. Instead, he reached down, hooked his hands under my arms, and swung me up onto his shoulders with practiced ease. The motion was smooth, confident, something he had clearly done before. I steadied myself by instinct, fingers curling into his hair as the world lifted and shifted around me.

  Up here, everything smelled different. Stone warmed by sun. Leather and oil and iron. And beneath all of it, the familiar scent of him. I leaned forward slightly, resting my hands against his head, breathing it in without thinking. I wanted to remember it.

  I had not met him many times in this life. Not enough to justify how real the connection felt. And yet it was there, solid and unquestionable. He was my father now. That truth lived somewhere deeper than thought, deeper than memory. I did not fight it. I let it exist.

  I wanted to remember moments like this.

  In my last life, I had not really had a family like this. My father had been a wealthy merchant, always traveling, always gone. My mother had been a socialite, present in name more than in fact. Tutors and nannies had raised me. The house had been safe, orderly, and utterly hollow.

  My nanny had been the closest thing I ever had to a mother then. She had fed me, scolded me, held me when I was sick. She had loved me in the quiet, practical way people do when love is part of the job but becomes something more anyway. She had been closer to the woman I would call mother in this life than the woman who had birthed me in the last.

  The thought did not hurt the way it once might have. It simply existed, folded neatly into everything else I carried.

  I had mourned her more completely than when my father had passed, and then when my mother joined him shortly after. I did not cry. I did not rage. I looked at what they had given me, thanked them for the life they had granted me, and moved on. There was honesty in that, even if it was not softness.

  I promised myself that if I ever had children, I would be better than they had been. Not because they did not care, but because they could not afford the time to. Their lives had demanded too much of them for anything else.

  My father adjusted his grip on my legs as we climbed, one hand coming up to make sure I was steady. “Hold on,” he said, not because he thought I would fall, but because that was what fathers said.

  I smiled down at him, fingers still threaded lightly through his hair, and did exactly that.

  This man held me in a way I had never been held before. It was not just physical support, not simply the certainty that I would not fall. It was assurance without demand, care without expectation. Knowing that people like this existed, that they lived simple enough lives to love so completely, hurt something inside me in a way I did not resent.

  In my last life, I had completed more than one quest for revenge. I had followed them through to their ends, had watched the final moments play out, and had learned to move past them fairly quickly. If I had not been given a second chance by the God of Iron, if I had not been handed this strange and deliberate path, I think I would have accepted oblivion without complaint. I would have stepped into nothingness and been done with it.

  I understood, intellectually, that I should feel angrier about what had been taken from me. I should feel rage. I should feel robbed. But five hundred years is a long time to come to grips with what revenge actually means.

  Younger men went on quests for revenge. Older men survived them and lived long enough to see the consequences of their actions ripple outward. Five hundred years of watching those consequences sober you to the reality of what revenge truly costs. It does not grant the relief people imagine it will. It only trades one weight for another.

  I would seek revenge in this life. That truth had never been in question. But it would not be for myself. It would be for the people the false god of magic betrayed, for those whose faith had been taken and used when it was not deserved.

  But today was not about revenge. Today was about love.

  Today, I would love completely.

  I would show this man the love of a child for his father, openly and without reservation. I would do it because I wanted to, and because I could. Because whatever else my soul carried, whatever fractures and scars it held, this moment was real.

  In some way, I knew I had robbed him of something. I was not a normal reincarnation. The child that had been promised to him was gone. That soul had never grown, never learned to walk, never spoken his first words. I had taken the body meant for the grave and made it my own.

  I had gained the attachments that came with it. The word father settling into me with a weight it had never held before. I would never need to tell him the truth of it, because in the end, it did not matter.

  I was his son.

  I was his son in every way that mattered. Whatever I had been before, whatever damage my soul carried from what had happened to me, it did not erase that bond.

  My soul was older. It was heavier. And it was more damaged than I think even I fully understood.

  But today, none of that mattered.

  Today, I would love him.