I wake to the rhythm of footsteps and hushed voices, the quiet machinery of routine unfolding around me. The world is soft at the edges, blurred by the helplessness of infancy, but I do not fight it. I have lived this before.

  The nursery is warm, kept at a precise, comfortable temperature by the iron radiator beneath the arched window. The gas lamps are turned low, their glow flickering over the polished wood-paneled walls and the intricate filigree carved into the furniture. The scent of lavender lingers, blending with the faintest trace of wax and linen.

  The servants begin their day around me, unaware that I am listening. I know them now—four of them, each with their place in this household.

  Marla, the eldest, moves with the brisk efficiency of a woman who has done this for many years. Her hair is streaked with gray, her posture straight with the kind of authority earned through decades of service. She smells of starch and lavender soap, and when she speaks, it is always with the confidence of someone who expects to be obeyed.

  "Lena, mind his blankets properly. You know how the lady was as a child. If she’s anything like her mother, she won’t tolerate carelessness with her son."

  Lena, younger, lighter of step, lets out a small sigh, though there’s no real protest in it. "He's wrapped up well enough. It’s warmer here than in half the manor. Besides, the little lord barely stirs."

  Marla chuckles under her breath. "A blessing, some might say. Your little one was a colicky terror, if I recall."

  Lena laughs softly, adjusting my swaddling with practiced ease. "And he still is, truth be told. This one, though, I swear he watches us more than any babe should."

  A faint shift in the room’s atmosphere, just a breath of hesitation.

  "Quiet ones are the ones to watch," Marla mutters.

  Across the room, Isla stills for just a moment before returning to folding linens. She barely speaks, but she listens. I have noticed the way she lingers, how her eyes flick toward me more often than necessary. She does not fumble like an inexperienced servant might. Instead, she is methodical, deliberate. Wary.

  She is young, new to the household, and I can see the sharp mind beneath her timid demeanor. She notices things. Small inconsistencies. Things others dismiss.

  "You see how he looks around?" Isla murmurs, almost to herself. "Not like a babe, not really."

  "Nonsense," Lena scoffs gently, though her hands falter for just a second. "He’s just quiet. Not every child screams for the world’s attention."

  "Still," Isla says softly, hesitating before shaking her head. "Never mind."

  I remain motionless. Let them think what they will.

  When my mother visits, the routine shifts.

  The sound of boots against polished wood heralds her approach before she ever enters. The guards move into position, two of them stationing outside the nursery door. I do not know their names, not yet, but they are always the same—disciplined, unflinching, clad in dark livery with the sigil of House Larkin embroidered at the shoulder.

  This, too, tells me something.

  My mother is a woman of status, a woman who does not walk unguarded even within her own home. This is not simply the excess of nobility; this is the mark of someone for whom security is not just a formality but a necessity. The presence of the guards is not for show.

  She enters with quiet grace, her footsteps measured, the rustle of silk brushing over the floor as she crosses the room. The servants straighten instinctively, standing a little taller, their movements a fraction more precise. My mother does not speak immediately. She does not coo or fuss as some mothers might. Instead, she observes.

  "He is still quiet?" Her voice is smooth, controlled, the tone of a woman accustomed to authority.

  "Yes, my lady," Marla answers immediately. "Not a wail, not even in the night."

  A pause. "That is unusual."

  "Some babes are simply calm," Lena offers, a little too quickly. "Perhaps he takes after you, my lady."

  My mother does not respond at first. Then, she steps forward, her presence deliberate as she reaches down and lifts me from the cradle. The motion is smooth, practiced, she does not fumble, does not hesitate. I am cradled against the warmth of her silk-draped chest, and I feel the steady rhythm of her breath.

  I remain still, letting my body relax into the moment. She is warm. Steady. Not unkind, not distant, but deliberate. She holds me not with frantic affection but with certainty, as if weighing my presence in her arms.

  "He is healthy?" she asks at last.

  "Strong," Marla confirms. "His grip is firm. Good reflexes."

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  "And his eyes?"

  Isla shifts, her voice barely above a whisper. "He watches everything."

  Silence.

  My mother’s fingers brush against my cheek, tracing along the soft skin in a slow, measured motion. It is not an absentminded gesture. She is thinking.

  "That is good," she says finally, her voice unreadable.

  The servants continue their work around us, quiet but not fearful, precise in their duties. Lena adjusts the cushions on the nursing chair. Isla folds a fresh set of linens, her eyes flicking toward me when she thinks no one is looking. Marla prepares the next set of instructions for the day.

  But my mother does not put me down right away. She holds me a moment longer than necessary, as if testing the weight of her son in her arms, considering something unspoken.

  Then, finally, she nods to Marla. "Ensure everything is in order."

  "Of course, my lady."

  With quiet efficiency, my mother hands me back to Lena, her movements graceful, unhurried. The moment is over.

  She adjusts the sleeve of her gown as she turns toward the door. "Have Havish bring me the reports from the estate by the afternoon. And inform the Archduke that I will be in the east wing should he require me."

  The servants murmur their acknowledgments. The guards outside straighten as she exits, her presence disappearing as smoothly as it arrived.

  I am returned to the crib, to the warmth of the linens, to the soft glow of the gaslight reflecting against the polished wood ceiling.

  I do not meet Isla’s gaze, though I know she watches me.

  I let my limbs remain slack, my fingers curl loosely in the blankets, my breath slow and steady. I have done this before. I have been born into many worlds, into many families, and I know that infancy is always the longest trial.

  So, I meditate.

  I let go of the frustration, the need to control what cannot yet be controlled. I allow my body to act as an infant’s should, uncoordinated and weak. Time flows differently when one is newborn, measured not in purpose but in the passing of moments. I sink into that rhythm, into the steady hum of voices around me, the scent of warm linen, the flicker of lamplight against the ceiling.

  I am patient. I have always been patient.

  The rhythm of breath, the passage of time, the patience of knowing that to act too soon is to fail. I sink into the memory, not of war, not of conquest, but of something far simpler. Of hands in the dirt. Of water carefully rationed. Of green pushing through soil that should have been dead.

  ***

  The world had ended long before I found Eden.

  Most of what had existed was buried beneath dust, glass, and silence. The sky was no longer blue but a heavy sheet of gray, thick with the remnants of a past civilization. The air tasted of ash, the ground cracked and dry, rivers reduced to poisoned threads cutting through the earth.

  But there were places, small and forgotten, where the devastation had not taken everything.

  I found one such place. It was little more than a stretch of broken hills surrounding a valley where weeds had forced their way through the cracks. A stream ran thin but steady along the lowest point. It was enough.

  I named it Eden.

  At first, it was nothing more than dirt and waiting. I tested the soil, found what would grow, failed, and tried again. I scavenged through dead towns, searching for seeds in shattered greenhouses, for tools left behind in rusting storage bins. I built shelter—not a fortress, not a place to keep others out, but a place to endure.

  And then, slowly, life returned.

  The first sprouts were weak, yellowing things. I adjusted, learned, tried again. Water was the greatest struggle, the thin stream only giving enough to survive, never thrive. Some days, the wind brought bitter storms that left the soil too wet, too loose. Other days, the heat pressed down, a dry and suffocating weight that threatened to take everything. But I did not leave.

  Time passed differently in Eden. There was no war, no urgency. There was only patience.

  And then, the people came.

  They came as I knew they would—slowly, cautiously, eyes hollow from years spent scraping by in a world that had forgotten them. Some stayed for a while, working the land with hands unaccustomed to anything but theft and survival. Others took what they learned and left, disappearing into the wastes, carrying seeds and knowledge with them.

  I did not stop them. Eden was not a kingdom. It was not meant to be ruled.

  And so, I waited.

  Waited for signs that what I had given them was enough. That something beyond Eden could take root.

  Waited, even as the years stole the strength from my limbs, even as the wind whispered through empty fields, even as my hands—once so steady—grew unsteady.

  Until, one day, she came back.

  I knew her the moment I saw her.

  She had been a child when she left, frail and broken, with no legs, only one arm, carried by those who swore they would find something beyond Eden’s borders.

  Now she stood on her own.

  The prosthetic limbs I had built for her—simple things, made of scavenged metal and leather—had been replaced with something better, something built by hands beyond my own. She had grown taller, stronger. Whole.

  And she was not alone.

  There were others behind her—children, men and women—her people. Their clothes were patched but clean, their faces worn but determined. They carried packs filled not with weapons, but with tools, with food, with things made by their own hands. And they looked at me not with the pity one reserves for the dying, but with reverence.

  "Father," she said, the title falling from her lips as naturally as if she had been born to me.

  I was no one's father. But they had always called me that.

  I exhaled, my breath rattling in my chest. "You’ve returned."

  She knelt beside me, just as she had when she was small and afraid, though there was no fear in her now. Her prosthetic hands, scared from work, from rebuilding, from life, reached for mine.

  "We found a place beyond the river, past the cracked highways," she said. "The soil is rich. We built houses. Real houses, with wood, with stone. We have a well. We have crops that return each year."

  Her voice shook—not with sorrow, but with something else. Something I had not heard in a long time.

  Hope.

  A small child peeked from behind her, no older than five or six, his hands gripping the worn fabric of her coat. He looked at me with wide eyes, not in fear, but curiosity.

  "Is he yours?" I asked, voice thin, weak.

  She smiled, reaching back to rest a hand on the child’s head. "One of them. And there will be more."

  More.

  More than Eden. More than what I had built. More than I had dared to dream.

  She leaned in, pressing her forehead against mine, the way she had when she was young. "We have a town," she whispered. "We have growing things."

  The weight in my chest loosened. My breath grew shallow, each inhale thin, stretched like the last wisps of winter before spring. The warmth of her forehead against mine was the last thing I felt, the scent of damp earth and young leaves the last thing I smelled. My fingers curled weakly in the dirt, the grainy texture familiar beneath my touch.

  “We wouldn’t have made it without you.” her voice fades in my ear.

  I closed my eyes, letting the last breath come easy.

  It was enough.

  ***

  I return to the present, to the warmth of linen, to the hushed voices of servants, to the slow, measured breath of a newborn’s body.

  I have been patient before.

  And I will be patient again.