The Daughter of the Dead

Alistair retreated to the Archive.

The basement level of the Horologium was sterile, white-tiled, and cold. It was where he kept the hard copies of his military records, the ones that hadn't been digitized.

He needed to know what he was dealing with. Elara Vance. *Vance.*

The name had been nagging him. It was common enough, but in the context of Kaelen...

He pulled the roster for the 4th Battalion. The men he had saved.

* Vance, T. Corporal.*

He pulled the roster for the convoy. The civilians he had drowned.

* Vance, S. Civilian Contractor. Deceased.*
* Vance, E. Child. Survivor.*

Alistair stared at the paper. *E. Vance.* Elara.

She was six years old when the dam broke. She was one of the few pulled from the mud. She had lost her father in the flood—not the soldier, but the contractor.

She wasn't a random student. She was a victim of his greatest sin.

"You're looking for my father," a voice echoed off the tiles.

Alistair spun around. Elara was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She wasn't holding a weapon. She was holding a tray of tea.

"You're the survivor," Alistair said. "The convoy."

"Yes," Elara said, walking forward. She set the tray on a filing cabinet.

"You're here for revenge," Alistair reasoned. It was the only logical conclusion. She had infiltrated his life, gained his trust, and isolated him to exact payment for her father’s death. "You killed Sterling and... whoever else... to isolate me."

Elara laughed. It was a dry, brittle sound.

"Revenge?" she shook her head. "General, that would be so... petty. So emotional."

She stepped into his personal space. She looked up at him, her eyes shining with that terrifying adoration.

"I don't hate you for killing him," she whispered. "I love you for it."

Alistair blinked. "What?"

"My father was a weak man," Elara said. "He panicked. He begged. When the water came, he tried to hold onto his luggage instead of me."

She reached out and touched the medals pinned to the display case on the wall.

"But you," she continued. "You sat on the ridge. You made the call. You looked at the math—thousands of lives versus a few hundred—and you pulled the lever. You became a god in that moment, Alistair. You imposed order on chaos. You defeated entropy."

She turned to him, grabbing his hands. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

"I spent my whole life looking for someone who could do that. Someone who didn't flinch. I want to be part of that machine. I don't want to break you. I want to be the weapon you use."

"You're insane," Alistair whispered. "I am not a god. I am a butcher. I wake up every night hearing the water."

"That's because you stopped fighting," Elara said, her voice hardening. "You retired. You got soft. You started fixing clocks instead of the world."

She squeezed his hands.

"I'm here to put you back on duty, General."