Chapter Text
The flight operations wing of Okhema’s Aeronautics Corps was a landscape of muted metal and regulated air, illuminated by rows of cool white lights that hummed as steadily as the servers embedded in the walls. The space smelled faintly of engine lubricant, disinfectant, and the ozone tang of simulators running on standby, and it wasn't the most unpleasant place to be, but it did carry the sterile clarity of a place built for purpose rather than comfort, like everything else.
Phainon Khaslana sat at his workstation, and his posture was exact, his coat sleeves rolled to his elbows as he worked his way through a stack of telemetry reports from the most recent ascent simulation, his intense blue eyes narrowed in concentration. The monitors in front of him displayed an array of data: wind shear fluctuations at altitude, comparative output from two engine configurations, and preliminary feedback on the updated autostabilizer system.
He highlighted problem areas, annotated potential fixes, and drafted suggestions that would later be reviewed in a briefing, with an ease that came to him and him alone in the room.
On the surface, to anybody who gazed upon him, they would see that his focus was complete.
After all, this was the work he had fought for. The pinnacle of what he had once told himself would be enough.
He had imagined this life many times, to the point where it was engraved into his eyelids: the respect, the position, the authority to write his own flight plans and shape new aircraft systems. He had thought, he had imagined, he would feel fulfilled. Instead, he was only aware of every heartbeat in his throat, of how his chest ached with an emptiness that refused to soften, of the way every single one of his accomplishments and achievements felt more and more like nothing but a burden.
Pavlos dropped into the chair nearest him with a long sigh, flipping open the folder of holiday rotations. “If I get overnight patrols again, I'll become a fisherman. Saltwater and seagulls sound like paradise right now. The sun sounds incredible right now. I need a tan!”
Rhea didn’t even look up from her tablet as she responded with a snort, “You would cry the first time a crab pinched you, be serious.”
Pavlos ignored her, as he tried to muffle a yawn, “Phainon, back me up here, please! Don’t you ever get tired of the schedule getting in the way of basic human living?”
Phainon didn't even react, as he continued typing, “The schedule exists to keep aircraft in the sky. It’s necessary.”
Rhea raised an eyebrow toward Pavlos, as if to say, You expected another answer?
Nestor laughed without even looking up from his notebook, where he was dissecting a fuel distribution diagram as if it had personally offended him a few seconds ago.
Their laughter was not cruel. It was the kind of communal teasing that made their space feel lived in. They included him in their orbit without truly approaching, admiring him from a distance the way one admires a monument: impressive, untouchable, and made for viewing rather than interacting with.
Phainon knew they respected him, but he also knew they never asked him to join them for lunch.
Phainon’s colleagues would describe him as a model officer, a brilliant mind, a man carved from ambition. None of them could say what his favorite food was, or what music he preferred, or if he had someone waiting for him after his shifts. There were many rumours about him, though, and Phainon didn't bother to acknowledge their existence. Let them believe what they wanted to believe.
After all, even here, in a department full of people who had flown with him and trusted him with their lives, he was still a stranger built from immaculate edges.
Elira stood from her desk in the corner and stretched with a soft sigh, then pulled a small transparent container from her bag, and she peeled back the lid, and the scent unfurled slowly through the room: sweet, tart, floral. Pomegranates.
She began offering them around, with a smile, “My aunt sent them from the coast. Apparently, they’re supposed to be especially good this season. Helps ward off bad luck before the year ends or something, I didn't ask for the specifics.”
Rhea accepted a handful with a smile. Nestor’s, “Thank you!” was loud as he accepted a handful, but when Elira approached Phainon and offered the container with a gentle tilt, he froze before he could stop himself. The smell was familiar, a door creaking open to memories he refused to examine too closely.
He remembered Mydei leaning against the counter of their shared apartment, his blonde hair, which was loosely tied up, coming free around his shoulders. His fingertips stained red as he separated seeds with a patience that softened his entire face, even as his brows were furrowed in a way that told Phainon something was bothering him.
One time, Phainon asked why he liked pomegranates so much, only for Mydei to shrug his shoulders and claim, “I don't need a reason to like them, and I could say the same about you, too. I don't need a reason to like you, do I?”
Phainon could not think about that now, and he did not deserve to.
“No,” he said, more abruptly than he intended, as he kept his eyes on the screen, “I don’t eat during work.”
Elira nodded far too quickly, withdrawing the container, “Of course! Sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted.”
Her tone wasn’t offended, only cautious, as though she had accidentally reached too close to something private. Pavlos watched the exchange with a faint sense of alarm, and even Nestor looked up, measuring the atmosphere.
All of them were used to Phainon being composed, but the uncharacteristic edge in his voice had unsettled the air, even as Rhea attempted to soften the tension, “He’s probably just worried about sticky hands ruining the equipment. You know how particular the boards are.”
Phainon could tell she was trying to offer him an escape, and while he was grateful, the problem was that he no longer knew how to take one.
He continued reviewing the telemetry, but the numbers felt distant, weightless, like fragments of a puzzle he had solved long ago, like he was working on nothing but muscle memory now. His mind circled the same truths it always did when the scent of pomegranates hit him with the force of a memory, because he had left, Mydei had stayed, and whatever they had would always live half-finished.
He wondered, sometimes, whether this loneliness was a punishment or the inevitable consequence of chasing the sky until nothing grounded him, and he kept telling himself ambition had been necessary. He didn't want to live in the shadow of the past, and the past could not have survived the altitude he demanded of himself and his dreams. He told himself regret was useless so many times, the words had lost meaning.
The problem was that none of those things stopped him from feeling it.
Pavlos cleared his throat, more tentatively this time, “Do you, um… have plans? For the holiday? Family, maybe? Or someone you’re visiting?”
Rhea grimaced at Pavlos’s bluntness, but did not interrupt, and only watched as Phainon adjusted a graph on his screen before answering, “There’s no one expecting me.”
The silence that followed was subtle but decisive, and it was a silent confirmation of coworkers realizing they had always suspected as much, and of Phainon realizing how thoroughly he had cut himself away from the world he once shared.
They admired him and relied on him, but they did not know him, and he wondered if they ever would.
Phainon swallowed the lump in his throat as he saved his work, closed the diagnostics, and stood, meeting his coworkers' eyes, “I’ll be in the briefing room if the telemetry processes early. Please notify me.”
No one stopped him as he walked away, but he still felt the weight of eyes on his back.
As the door to the hall closed behind him, the hum of the operations wing softened. In the sudden hush, he was left with only the faint smell of pomegranate in the air and the realization that reaching the top had not given him freedom, even if at that time, he loved it. Now, it had merely given him a wider view of everything he had lost on the climb.
_______
The public airport in Okhema was always loud in summer, the kind of loud that seeped into your ears without you realizing it, a constant churn of voices and rolling suitcases and overhead announcements that blurred together into something otherworldly. Outside, the sun beat down without mercy, turning the glass walls into glowing panes and the outside concrete into a pale, heat-warped stretch, but inside the terminal, the air-conditioning fought a desperate, unending war against the season.
Cold air poured from the vents in steady, relentless streams, making the polished floors feel chilled beneath the soles of shoes even as sweat clung stubbornly at the nape of the neck. People fanned themselves with boarding passes, tugged at collars, wiped at foreheads with the backs of their hands, laughing about the heat.
Phainon moved through it all as if none of it touched him.
He was early, as he always was, because he had never been able to stand the feeling of rushing. Being late meant being careless, and being careless meant being weak, and weakness had never been an option he could afford. The uniform sat perfectly on his tall, muscular frame, crisp and unwrinkled, the insignia on his chest catching the light whenever he passed beneath the harsh white glow of the terminal lamps. He kept his expression pleasant in the way he had trained it to be – calm, composed, approachable enough that nobody would call him rude, distant enough that nobody would dare call him familiar.
People noticed him as he walked by; a few heads turned as he passed. A couple of people smiled or nodded at him as if his presence reassured them. A child, clutching a plushie, pointed at him with wide-eyed interest until their mother gently pushed their hand down. He could hear his name being whispered as he passed.
He kept walking, stride measured, gaze forward, mind already half inside the flight plan he’d reviewed twice that morning and would review again before stepping into the cockpit. His work was familiar, steady, clean in a way that emotions never were, because numbers did not ask anything of him and procedures did not demand vulnerability, or for him to bear his heart out.
A checklist could be completed perfectly, and despite everything, he still carved the rush that perfection gave him; it was the only kind of comfort he needed. Or at least it used to be, and around him, the terminal pulsed with human warmth.
People stood in clusters near the departure boards, comparing gate numbers and laughing when they realized they’d misread the time, a common occurrence. Families hugged with the intensity of people who didn’t know when they’d see each other again, siblings were openly crying into each other, lovers were leaning close, their foreheads touching, voices quiet and private even in the middle of the crowd. There were tearful goodbyes, excited greetings, and shouts, everywhere he looked, the soft press of hands against shoulders, the murmured promises of, “Call me when you land, don’t forget,” and, “I’ll miss you.”
Phainon’s steps gradually slowed, not because he meant to, but because something in his chest tightened without warning. He exhaled softly, dragging a hand through his bangs, as his blue eyes took in everything around him.
Near the row of seats beside a café, the smell of coffee and butter was strong, and a couple stood, talking among themselves, and there was a soft smile on both their faces. One of the girl’s hair was a rich sunlit blonde, which spilled down her back in a soft sheet of curls that caught the overhead lights in warm strands, and for one disorienting moment, it was as if the terminal shifted under Phainon's feet, even though he knew it wasn’t him.
He knew it in the way you know the difference between memory and reality, in the way your mind can recognize a shadow without mistaking it for the thing that casts it. Still, the sight dug its hooks into him, and the thought rose before he could stop it, instinctive and unwanted, like a bruise being pressed.
Her hair reminds me of Mydei.
But Mydei's name didn’t form on his lips, Phainon didn't have the right, not after what he did, but it still bloomed behind his ribs, heavy, familiar and cruel.
Phainon had not spoken his name aloud in years because he didn't deserve to, and he told himself that it was all a distraction; he trained himself not to.
He had buried Mydei beneath layers of ambition and distance, beneath the life he had built with his own hands, beneath the success that everyone else admired and he himself could not fully touch, and now, he didn't deserve to even think of him, and yet he found himself still doing so.
He had done everything he’d sworn he would do, climbed every rung, earned every title, watched the world shift from pity to awe the way he’d always wanted, and yet the higher he’d gone, the lonelier it had become, because admiration was not love and respect was not warmth and being looked at was not the same as being known.
Mydei frowned as he looked back, his golden eyes catching the sun, “What do you mean, how? You're not exactly the hardest person to read, that's what happens when you wear your emotions on your sleeve, HKS.”
Sometimes, when the days were too long and the nights too quiet, and when the clouds were to his sides, he wondered if he had misunderstood the entire thing.
The couple laughed at something only they understood, their arms still locked, and the sound grated under his skin.
Phainon swallowed, his throat suddenly tight, and forced himself to keep moving.
I am being ridiculous. I was the one who left. I have no right to feel the way I do right now. Mydei wanted comfort, but I still chose this. I can't take it back.
He ground his teeth as he kept moving, forcing one foot in front of the other. Even if thinking of him is indulgence, then missing him is arrogance on my part, but loneliness was one of the many prices I needed to pay to become who I am today.
He told himself all of it, because he had to, because the alternative was facing the possibility that he had ruined the only thing that had ever felt real, and Phainon Khaslana did not like the idea of that.
The terminal air-conditioning washed over him again, too cold against the warmth of his skin, and he exhaled slowly, steadying himself. He adjusted the strap of his bag, tightened his grip, blue eyes focused on the route to his gate as if it were a runway line he could follow out of this moment, and then someone collided with him.
It wasn’t a hard impact, but it was sudden enough to jolt him out of his spiraling thoughts, and the force knocked against his arm and hip before bouncing away. Phainon’s reflexes moved faster than his mind as he shifted his weight to avoid stumbling, hand instinctively lifting as if to steady whatever had hit him.
A small body crumpled to the floor.
A little girl, no more than nine, perhaps, sat sprawled on the polished marble, one palm braced behind her, the other clutching the strap of a small bag. Her small face was pinched in the stunned, breathless way children looked right before they decided whether to cry or not.
Phainon’s mouth opened, the apology already forming, and then his gaze snagged on something small and ridiculous in her white hair.
A hairclip.
Plastic, bright orange, shaped like a baby chimera from the wildly popular children’s franchise Chrysos Chimeras that seemed to be everywhere these days, on lunchboxes and backpacks and cheap keychains. It was a common design, so common it should have meant nothing at all, and yet it tugged at a memory he hadn’t meant to touch – Mydei leaning over him, and staring into a mirror, as he snapped the same silly clip into place with a quiet huff of concentration, pretending he didn’t like it as much as he did.
Phainon’s fingers clenched tight, something in his chest tightening that he tried to shake off.
Phainon told himself he was seeing patterns because his mind was too tired and his heart was too empty, and he was still, after all these years, still looking for Mydei in places he could not possibly be.
He stepped forward anyway and knelt so he wasn’t looming over the child like a cold, towering stranger. His voice came out calm, controlled, softened at the edges in a way he didn’t often allow,
“Are you hurt?”
The girl blinked, lips parting as she drew in a shaky breath, and released her grip on her knees, and she lifted her face to look at him properly. Phainon’s entire body went still.
Her eyes were gold.
Not just vaguely similar, not just a warm brown mistaken for amber under bright lights, but gold in the exact shade and hue that lived in his memory like a scar. Clear and luminous, framed by lashes too long for her small face, and when she stared up at him, there was something so achingly familiar in the shape of her gaze that it made his thoughts stutter, as if his mind had struck a wall at full speed.
For a moment he couldn’t breathe.
Around him, the terminal noise faded, the voices and wheels and announcements falling away until all he could hear was the steady thud of his own pulse, loud in his ears, and unforgiving.
This has to be a coincidence, this has to be a coincidence, this has to be a–
The girl’s brows knit slightly, confused by his silence, staring up at him like there was something wrong with him, but her small hand lifted as if she might reach for him, hesitant, uncertain, the way children did when they weren’t sure whether an adult was safe or not.
Phainon forced air back into his lungs and forced his expression into something that would not frighten her. He exhaled softly, trying to regain control of the situation and slowly, and carefully, he extended his hand.
“Come on,” he said, voice quieter now, steadier than he felt, and gentle, “Up you go buddy.”
The girl stared at his hand for a second longer, as it had personally offended her, and then placed her small cold fingers in his palm, and Phainon helped her to her feet with a gentleness that surprised him.
The little girl steadied herself easily, far too quickly for someone who had truly been hurt, brushing her palms against her knees and her skirt with the brisk confidence of a child who had fallen before, time and time again, someone who was used to it and had no intention of making a scene out of it.
The cool marble beneath them gleamed under the terminal lights, smooth and unforgiving, yet she didn’t even wince, only lifted her chin, as she smoothed her white hair out, as though she refused to be embarrassed by something as small as gravity.
Then she looked up at him properly and smiled.
It wasn’t a shy smile, and it wasn't the wary kind children gave strangers when they’d been told a hundred times not to talk to anyone they didn’t know. This smile was bright and simple, unguarded in the way only children could afford to be, and it struck Phainon with an unexpected force because for a fleeting moment it reminded him of himself, not as he was now, polished and controlled, but as he had been once, before the world had taught him to hide every soft thing inside him.
“Thank you, mister,” she said, her voice clear and strong.
Phainon blinked, as if the sound had pulled him back into his body. His hand was still half-extended, hovering in the space between them, and he lowered it slowly, careful not to startle her with the suddenness of his movement.
“No problem,” he replied, the words smooth, almost automatic, the same tone he used for strangers who asked for directions or passengers who complimented a flight, except it was kinder and gentler. It should have been easy, it should have been nothing at all, and yet he found himself lingering there, rooted to the spot as though his feet had forgotten how to move.
His gaze flicked over her again, taking in the small bag slung over one shoulder, the neatness of her clothes, the confident set of her posture. It was obvious she was well cared for, and whoever her parents were loved her dearly. She didn’t look frightened, and that should have been enough to let Phainon walk away, to return to the ordered world of schedules and gates and cockpit doors, but something in him resisted, restless and uneasy, as though the moment had left a splinter beneath his skin.
He hesitated before speaking again, the question coming out more quietly than he intended, “Where are your parents?” His throat tightened faintly as he added, “Are you lost?”
The girl’s smile faltered for only a second, her expression shifting into something mildly offended, as if the very idea was ridiculous, and something in Phainon ached, because right now, she looked exactly like Mydei; she had the same look Mydei always wore.
“No,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m not lost.”
She adjusted the strap of her bag and tucked her hair back. “I was going back to my mom when I bumped into you, but don't worry Mister, I know my way.” She paused for a second, staring at him for a few seconds before adding, “We're here to see mom's friend off on her flight.”
Phainon swallowed.
The words my mom landed in his chest with a weight that had nothing to do with logic. It was a small phrase, ordinary and harmless, yet it made something twist inside him all the same.
He forced himself to nod, expression carefully neutral and gentle, and stepped back to give her space.
“Alright,” he said, voice steady, “Goodbye, and watch your step buddy.”
The girl nodded and smiled one last smile, before she began to turn, already shifting her attention back toward the flow of the terminal, toward the place where her mother was waiting, but Phainon’s mouth moved again before he could stop it, as if the question had been lodged in his throat from the moment she’d looked up at him.
“What’s your name?”
The child paused.
For the first time, she looked at him with a hint of suspicion, her bright eyes dimming into caution as she assessed him with the blunt instincts of someone young but not foolish. It was a small change, subtle enough that most adults wouldn’t have noticed, but Phainon saw it immediately, and something about it made his stomach tighten with a strange, helpless discomfort. He didn’t blame her, after all, he had asked for too much, and too quickly. He was a stranger, a tall man in uniform, someone she had no reason to trust.
Still, after a moment, she answered, “Aurora,” she said.
The name felt like a strike in the face.
Phainon’s breath caught, not because the name itself was familiar, but because it suddenly made everything feel more real, as though giving her a name had anchored her into existence in a way he could no longer dismiss as a coincidence.
Aurora. He repeated it silently in his mind, and it echoed there with unsettling clarity.
The girl turned away before he could respond, slipping back into the moving crowd effortlessly, her small shoulders weaving between adults and luggage as if the world was built to make space for her. Within seconds, she was several steps away, her hairclip flashing briefly under the lights each time she moved her head, her pale hair blending into the brightness of the terminal until she became just another traveler among hundreds.
Phainon remained still.
He watched her retreating figure far longer than was reasonable, his gaze fixed on her as if looking away would make something irreversible happen. He felt absurd, standing there like a man who had forgotten his own purpose, like someone who had never been trained to detach and move on, when detachment had been his greatest skill for years.
His hand tightened around the strap of his bag as his pulse beat steadily, but his thoughts had begun to fracture, splintering into possibilities he didn’t want to hold. He tried to shove them back down where they belonged, tried to bury them beneath rationality and routine, but the sight of her eyes, Mydei’s eyes, kept rising to the surface like something that refused to drown.
He toyed with the possibility that he had mistaken them for someone else's but immediately dismissed the idea. Years may come and go, but he will never forget Mydei's beautiful golden eyes.
He forced himself to glance at his watch.
The numbers stared back at him, calm and indifferent. He still had time before boarding procedures began, still had minutes he could spare without compromising the schedule. His brain latched onto that fact like a lifeline, because it gave him something practical to cling to, something that wasn’t made of guilt and memory.
And then, without giving himself the chance to reconsider, Phainon moved, and he began walking after her.
Not quickly, and not with the obvious urgency of a man chasing someone down, but with measured steps that were almost casual, as though he were simply continuing toward his gate and she happened to be going the same way. He kept a careful distance, far enough that he wasn’t looming, far enough that he could pretend this was nothing more than caution, far enough for nobody to question if something was wrong.
The terminal is crowded, and children wander off all the time. I'm just making sure she's okay. It would be irresponsible after she had fallen.
He kept telling himself that was the reason his keen blue eyes tracked her small figure through the crowd, with an intensity that would scare anyone, and that was why his attention narrowed until the rest of the airport blurred at the edges.
He told himself he had no other motive at all, even as his chest ached with something he refused to name.
Phainon kept his pace steady as he followed her, and kept trying to convince himself, and he was careful to remain just another figure in the stream of travelers, another uniformed man moving with purpose through the terminal, even as he lied to himself. A brief detour before duty pulled him back into the clean, predictable world of flight plans and cockpit doors.
Yes, of course.
The lie was almost convincing, until it wasn’t.
Aurora slipped between two rolling suitcases, turned slightly to avoid a group gathered around the departures board, and then her whole face brightened, and again Phainon, for some reason, was reminded of a younger him. She lifted her hand and waved with the unselfconscious enthusiasm of a child who had never learned to hide her joy, “Mom!”
The sound of it stopped Phainon like a wall. His steps faltered, then ceased entirely, his body freezing mid-motion while the crowd flowed around him, brushing past his shoulders, bumping lightly against his arm, none of them noticing the way the world inside him had just cracked open.
Ahead of Aurora, turning at the sound of her voice, was Mydei.
For a heartbeat, he wore a frown, the one he always wore, the one he wore when they first met. It was familiar, the way Mydei regarded everybody, and it struck Phainon with such intimacy that it felt like stepping into a room he had once lived in and finding it unchanged.
Ten years had only made Mydei more beautiful. His long blond hair was longer and tied up; he held himself up with more ease and comfort, and at his ear, a familiar earring shone in the overhead lights. He was so beautiful, it wasn't fair, and now he felt like dying.
Phainon's heart was in his throat as he swallowed, struggling to breathe, and he could only watch as Mydei's eyes landed on Aurora.
His frown softened, melted away as if it had never existed, and in its place came a smile so warm that it made Phainon’s throat tighten. It wasn’t the polite smile Mydei had offered strangers in the past, nor the restrained curve of his lips when he was humoring someone he didn’t care about. It wasn't the small smile he shared with Phainon, the one where he struggled to contain his laughter. It was effortless, bright with affection, a smile that belonged to a life Phainon had not been part of.
Mydei stepped forward and scooped Aurora up as if the child weighed nothing at all, lifting her easily onto his hip with practiced strength. Aurora wrapped her arms around Mydei’s neck, their cheeks pressed briefly together, and began talking immediately, and Phainon was too far away to hear any of them.
Mydei’s smile widened as he listened, his hand smoothing over Aurora’s back in a slow, absent gesture, the kind that was half comfort and half habit, and he said something, and Aurora laughed.
Phainon couldn’t move; he could only stand there, rooted in place, while the airport continued to breathe and churn around him, while announcements echoed overhead and luggage wheels clicked across the floor and strangers brushed past him without a second glance. The air-conditioning blasted cold against his skin, but he barely felt it at all. All sensation seemed distant, dulled by the sheer force of what he was seeing.
Mydei was real, and he was standing in front of him, completely unaware that Phainon was here.
He wasn't a memory, and he wasn't the sharp ache that lived behind Phainon's ribs whenever he let his guard down. Mydei was here, in the middle of the terminal, his blond hair falling in familiar lines, posture as composed as ever, his presence steady, warm and undeniable.
And he was holding a child, who had his eyes and white hair.
Phainon’s chest constricted so tightly it felt as though he’d forgotten how to breathe. The loneliness that had followed him for years, the hollow emptiness that had settled into his life like permanent weather, suddenly deepened into something sharper and more absolute.
Watching them together made everything else he had ever felt seem small by comparison, and he had seen everything. He had seen how small everything is when he is with the stars; he had seen how distant everything becomes, the absolute silence.
This was not the loneliness of being alone in an empty apartment or returning from a successful flight to silence.
This was the loneliness of standing in a crowded airport surrounded by people and still being completely, undeniably outside the only world that mattered.
Mydei and Aurora had undeniably formed their own orbit, complete and self-sufficient, bound together by something effortless and unbreakable. They belonged, and they were warm in a way Phainon had not allowed himself to be in a decade, human in a way Phainon hadn't felt like in months. He was nothing but a stranger watching from the edges.
His mind tried to catch up, to impose order on chaos the way it always did, to list possibilities and explanations and rational arguments that could make this less unbearable. It offered him jealousy first, quick and vicious, whispering that Mydei must have found someone else, that he must have built this life with another man, that he had been replaced as easily as Phainon had once replaced Mydei with his ambition.
Then it offered him something worse, because it always does.
The possibility that Aurora was his, and the thought slid into him like a knife, twisting as it settled, because if she was his daughter, then he had missed everything, her first breath, her first steps, her first words, every scraped knee and every laugh and every night Mydei must have held her close. He had missed a whole life, and the realization was so suffocating it made his vision blur at the edges, and bile rise in his throat.
He didn’t deserve to be here.
He didn’t deserve to see them like this, together and whole, when he had been the one to leave Mydei behind without ever looking back. Even if by chance Aurora carried his blood, even if those golden eyes had once looked up at him in another world, he had forfeited any claim the moment he chose himself over the life he could have had with them.
Phainon’s fingers curled tightly around the strap of his bag, knuckles whitening, his expression still composed only because it had been trained into him through years of necessity. Inside, everything was unraveling. His heart hammered against his ribs, each beat heavy with regret, each pulse a reminder of how far he had climbed and how little any of it meant in this moment.
Mydei adjusted Aurora on his hip, saying something that made the girl laugh again, as she tucked Mydei's hair behind his ears, and Phainon felt the sound in his bones.
He couldn’t take his eyes off them.