Chapter 119

When it came time for gifts, Elise lit a candle and set it in the window - a quiet tradition from Morentis she had carried with her long after leaving home. The flame flickered against the glass, steady and watchful, as we gathered and took turns.

Lilae went first.

She handed Tib a hand-bound journal, the leather cover soft and worn where it had been handled. Inside were neat pages filled with notes on healing herbs, packing lists, and little survival tricks - carefully written, but with plenty of blank space left behind.

“For when you go somewhere new,” she said, grinning.

Torvek stepped up next, presenting a carved wooden boat. It had been sanded smooth, painted, and sealed - large enough for Tib to actually sit in.

“It floats and everything,” he said. “We can take it to the river tomorrow. Try it out.”

Tib’s grin split his face in two.

Issa followed, slipping a braided cord bracelet into his hand. Green and blue beads caught the light like shifting water. She didn’t say anything - just gave him a quick smile before drifting back to Sszarik and curling against him.

Brinja didn’t even look at him. She simply handed over a sheet of paper.

On it was a charcoal sketch - Tib stood at the bow of a ship, coat whipping in the wind, gaze fixed on some distant horizon. Bold. Fearless. Larger than life.

Tib didn’t hesitate - he launched himself at her, wrapping her in a hug.

She scowled, shoved him off, and muttered something under her breath while he laughed.

Elarion stepped forward with a wooden traverse board and a handful of pegs.

For a moment, Tib just stared - then his eyes lit up with excitement. He clutched it to his chest as if it might vanish.

“Thank you,” he said, trying hard not to shout his joy.

Mak handed over a leather belt, sturdy and practical, loops and hooks stitched along its length. A simple wave pattern had been tooled into it - rough, but unmistakable.

“You gotta carry stuff on a ship, right?” she said with a shrug, already turning back toward Nok, who watched her like she’d hung the stars.

Dur stepped up with a boarding axe.

“Uncle Orrik helped me make it,” he said. “It’s my first real one… but I wanted you to have it.”

The two dwarves shared a grin as Tib tested the weight with a few careful swings, mindful of everything - and everyone - around him.

Mirri’s gift came wrapped in soft cloth.

Inside was a set of traveling clothes - shirt and breeches reinforced at the elbows and knees - and a warm cloak. Hidden pockets lined the inside, already stocked with bandages and small jars of ointment.

“These’ll keep you warm wherever you go,” she said, smiling as she ruffled his hair. “And help if you get into trouble.”

Ashlara handed him a dagger and sheath, simple and solid. His name had been tooled into the leather in bold, deliberate strokes.

“Don’t start fights,” she told him. “But finish them if you have to.”

Serah stepped forward next, placing a deep red scale into his hands, threaded on a leather cord. It was nearly three inches across - one of her smaller scales - and stronger than steel.

“Happy birthday,” she said quietly. “Do not lose that.”

Scales were not something that dragons generally parted with.

Elise presented her gift with careful precision - a book. “Foundations of Coastal Navigation and Current Reading” by Master Maeryn Halewyn Blackwell.

“Master Blackwell was a well known shipping captain from Morentis and developed several tools still in use today,” she explained. “I transcribed this myself so you could take it with you.”

Grams handed over a bundle wrapped in faded, tie-dyed cloth. Inside was an old harmonica.

“This was my da’s,” she said. “Never learned to play it myself. Maybe Seth can teach you.”

Tib turned it over in his hands, wonder and confusion mingling in his expression.

Then Moss stood. She extended one massive hand and dropped a fist-sized stone into his palms. The impact nearly knocked him backward. One side bore what looked suspiciously like bite marks.

“Good?” she asked.

Tib blinked, then nodded. “Yeah. Good.”

Satisfied, she returned to her seat and shoved a wad of birch pitch into her mouth.

Clo appeared at Tib’s side before Moss had even finished sitting.

“I got you this - and this - and this - do you like it - wait - this one’s better-”

She piled a coin, a blue feather, a polished stone, and a blood-stained knife onto the table. Then she leaned in with an intense stare - her eyes wider than they should be, her mouth pulled back into a grimace that she thought was a grin. It would have been terrifying if we didn’t know her.

Tib smiled back. “Thank you. They’re… great.” He put just enough emphasis on the last word to carry the rest.

She vanished in a blur, afterimages lingering where she’d stood.

“Happy birthday… brother,” Vel said as she approached, the last word hesitant on her lips. She’d never called him that before and you could tell by the look in his eyes that it was impactful.

She handed him a wooden box, then stepped back.

Inside was rope, flint, a folding knife, a marlin spike, thick thread, a needle, a leather palm guard, and a small jar of wax - everything a sailor might need, packed with precision.

Tib’s grin returned in full ****. “Thank you!” he said, jumping up to hug her.

She stiffened - just for a moment - before carefully returning it.

When they parted, I stepped forward with my own gift.

I handed him a carved wooden box, its lid painted with a ship cutting through open water. Inside rested a mariner’s astrolabe - finer than what a simple cargo sailor would carry, but built to be used. Reliable.

His mouth fell open.

“Happy birthday, Tib,” I said. “I spoke with Captain Torgaal in Altunvek. He’s willing to take you on as a landsman when you turn sixteen.”

“Really?”

“Really.” I smiled. “But no slacking off until then.” I gave him a wink.

There wasn’t a chance he would.

* * *

I sat on the front steps of the keep, staring out into nothing, my thoughts heavy and slow as they turned over themselves.

The moon hung just past half, its pale green light washing the courtyard in uneven patches of shadow and light. Behind it trailed “the children” - broken fragments of stone caught in its wake, a scattered chain of asteroids left behind when the moon goddess, Sylira, died more than a thousand years ago.

That was the thing about gods.

When they died, it wasn’t just that their Faith flooded back into the world, wild and unbound. It changed things. Cracked something fundamental. And what came from those fractures wasn’t always clean. Wasn’t always logical.

Sylira’s **** shattering the moon - that made sense.

But when Urzan-Brek, god of carnage, died every pregnancy in the world accelerated. Fetuses **** into being in minutes, no matter how far along they’d been.

That didn’t feel like carnage - not directly.

Though the bloodchildren were unmistakably his legacy. Not just mine. All of them.

But mine were special, and not just because they’d ascended.

Every other bloodchild I’d encountered had been feral. Cast out by parents too terrified to keep them. Or worse - left alone after killing those same parents in their first moments of life.

No language. No guidance. No one to teach them what anything meant. They couldn’t speak. They lashed out. They didn’t feel the way others did - no empathy, no shared emotional ground to stand on.

They weren’t stupid. Not even close. But as a people, they weren’t even five years old yet. Hated for what they were. Feared for how they’d been born. And cut off from a world that had no interest in understanding them.

The soft sound of footsteps pulled me back. Measured. Deliberate. Not heavy - just enough to be heard.

Someone settled beside me on the steps, close enough that I could feel her warmth, but not quite touching. I didn’t need to look.

Vel.

I slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her in. She didn’t stiffen the way she had with Tib. There was only the faintest pause - just long enough to decide what the correct reaction should be - before she leaned her head against my shoulder and settled in.

“You’re angry with Tansy,” she said, her gaze still fixed forward.

“No,” I said quietly. “I’m angry with myself. For how I handled Tansy.”

She pulled back slightly, studying my face. “Why?”

I exhaled. “Because Tansy is… Tansy. **** without restraint. And she needs restraint - but I don’t know how to give it to her without hurting her.”

“You are frustrated by your inability to understand.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

That, at least, she understood. All of them did. Every one of the bloodchildren had hit that wall at some point - new rules, new skills, words that refused to stick, expectations they couldn’t parse. They’d all faced it - the frustration. The choice - push through or walk away.

It wasn’t unique to them. It was a universal experience shared by everyone.

She watched me for a long moment. “She doesn’t need restraint. She needs direction.”

I let out a small, humorless breath. “I don’t know how to do that either.” I pulled her closer again, resting my chin lightly against her hair. “But I appreciate the advice. I’ll think about it. Maybe something will come to me.”

I rubbed her arm, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Voices drifted from behind us - low, warm, the sound of parting words. Dur and Orrik saying their goodbyes.

I glanced back toward the keep, then out at the courtyard once more. “Looks like the party’s winding down,” I said softly. “We should go say our goodbyes, too.”

* * *

“Tell me about Urzan-Brek,” I said, drifting from table to table, eyes tracing the intricate armies laid out across Miralis’s painstakingly crafted battlefields.

I’d seen wargamers build things like this before - but never with this kind of precision. It felt less like models and more like looking down from a low-flying aircraft. Every ridge, every formation, every line of advance rendered in perfect, merciless clarity.

“What do you wish to know?” Miralis asked, irritation threading through her voice.

I stopped at a table that depicted Northwatch - my keep - during the Second Silent War. Nearly fifty thousand tiny soldiers pressed in on all sides. Orcs of the Iron Nation. Humans from Arvellia, Morentis, Iilvarion. Trolls from the mountains. Earth elementals. Myrddin.

Above them, a hundred dragons hung frozen in the air.

Inside the walls, Nyssira’s portal pulsed - muted here, a quiet shimmer of impossible color instead of the deafening roar I remembered. Tiny Myrddin spilled from it, leaping the walls. Tiny Mirri, Miralis, Aurelion - others - locked in battle.

And there - a tiny version of me. Silver armor gleaming. Flames pouring from my mouth like I’d stepped out of a legend.

I frowned faintly. I didn’t remember looking quite that heroic. I chose not to ask if she’d embellished.

“I only met him twice,” I said. “And yet he gifted me some of his Faith. And now my daughters carry his aspect.”

I reached down and picked up the miniature of myself.

“Don’t touch that!”

Miralis snapped the figure from my hand. She scanned the battlefield, jaw tight, then set it down again - adjusted it once, twice, four times - until whatever invisible equation she was solving clicked into place.

“What was he like?” I asked.

“He was the beast of battle. The god of carnage.”

“I know what he was,” I said. “I’m asking what he was like. Did you like him? Was he kind? Cruel? What did he do when he wasn’t tearing the world apart? What’s the funniest thing he ever said? And if he was carnage itself - why wasn’t the world always at war?”

She turned to me, expression sharp enough to cut. Stern. Severe. Beautiful, if you ignored the quiet disdain etched into every line of her face.

“He was…” She paused. A frown tugged at her lips. “…necessary.”

The word came out edged with contempt - but something else sat beneath it. Something that I couldn’t identify.

“Chaotic. Undisciplined. Aggravating.” She set the figure she’d been holding down - not where she’d intended, just… down. Forgotten for the moment.

“He delighted in irritating me. He would move pieces. Change battlefields.” She gestured to the room, to the endless maps and wars frozen in motion. “Without my noticing. Sometimes for weeks.”

The seams along her bronze form glowed brighter. Thin lines of flame leaked from her joints, rising and falling like breath from a furnace.

Her armor - living bronze like the rest of her - caught that light. A sculpted breastplate, a segmented skirt, greaves and small pauldrons etched with hounds and swans. The carvings seemed to move when the fire flared, shadows shifting like something alive beneath the metal.

Her face remained unchanged. Angular. Precise. High cheekbones, sharp nose, thin lips set in permanent judgment. Hair the color of darkened bronze, drawn back tight, every strand in place.

I chuckled.

She spun on me, eyes blazing. “You mock me, godling?”

“No,” I said evenly. “He sounds like my daughter.”

That stopped her.

“Tansy,” I continued. “Infuriating. Always pushing. Always testing boundaries. Always looking for a fight.” I exhaled slowly. “That’s why I’m asking.”

My gaze dropped for a moment, then lifted back to hers. “We don’t get along. She hates me. And I…” I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ve been a good father to her. I want to build bridges. I want to mend wounds. But I don’t know how to reach her.”

Miralis scoffed, the sound sharp and dismissive. “She is a god. She has no need for a father.”

“You’re wrong,” I said, meeting her eyes. “She does need a father. She was born a mortal - like me. We raised her. Tried to teach her right from wrong. Cared for her. Gave her a solid base so she could grow into the person she was meant to be.”

I took a step closer. “You weren’t born. You didn’t grow up. You didn’t have parents. You came into being with a host of knowledge collected unconsciously over centuries. That’s not what she is.”

I held her gaze. “That’s not what any of them are.”

A flicker of something passed through my expression - something darker. “You’ve seen other bloodchildren,” I said quietly. “Feral. Unloved. Treated like monsters until they become them. No language. No guidance. Nothing.”

I let that sit between us.

“If one of them had ascended instead of Tansy?” I shook my head. “A feral child. Abused. Non-verbal. With the power of a god?”

The image didn’t need elaboration.

“No,” I said. “It had to be her. Because anything else would’ve been catastrophic.” I let out a small breath, tension easing just slightly. “Vel told me something last night,” I added. “She said Tansy doesn’t need restraint. She needs direction.”

I hesitated, then pressed on. “I was hoping… if I understood Brek a little better, maybe I’d understand her. Maybe I could help her find that direction.”