The kitchen filled with the sweet, sugary scent of fresh strawberries and sponge cake. Helio carefully sliced a tiny, baby-safe corner of the cake, placing it on a small plate, while Aefia pulled up a high chair for Lyra.
Of course, the cake didn't stay on the plate for long. Within seconds, Lyra had managed to smear a generous dollop of pink frosting right across the bridge of her little nose.
Helio burst out laughing, and Aefia couldn't help but smile, her garnet eyes lighting up with absolute amusement. Lyra mirrored them, throwing her head back and letting out a clear, ringing laugh that echoed off the kitchen walls. It was a pure, completely untainted sound—free of wars, politics, and the heavy burdens of the Guardian Realm.
Aefia watched her, a soft, wondrous smile smoothing over her features. She leaned down to gently wipe the frosting off Lyra's nose, murmuring, "Look at you, what a messy princess."
Dinner and dessert dissolved into a blur of playful games, silly faces from Helio, and more giggles from the birthday girl. But as the clock ticked past her usual bedtime, the high-energy bursts of toddler enthusiasm began to fade.
Lyra's eyelids grew heavy, her little yawns coming faster and faster until she finally buried her face into the crook of Aefia's neck, her breathing slowing down into a soft, steady rhythm.
Asleep.
Aefia immediately froze, terrified of making a single sudden movement that might wake her. She carefully shifted her stance, adjusting her arms and cradling the sleeping baby at the crook of her arms, making sure every angle was snug and comfortable before letting out a quiet breath of relief.
Helio quietly cleaned up the plates, walking over with a soft tread. He leaned against the counter beside her, looking down at the sleeping toddler and then up at Aefia's face.
"You know," Helio murmured softly, his green eyes warm and contemplative, "in all the years I have known you—through wars, imperial courts, and battles against Guardians and usurpers—I don't think I have ever seen you this entirely, fiercely devoted and passionate to anything in your life."
Aefia's gaze lingered on Lyra's peaceful, slumbering face. Her thumb gently stroked the back of the baby's soft hand.
"It's just..." Aefia started, her voice dropping into a quiet, fragile register she rarely ever used. She looked up at Helio, the sharp edges of her usual sarcasm completely gone. "You know how I grew up, Helio. My mother and father left me with another family when I was barely three months old. There I grew up with insane financial security, but with a lot of torture and abuse. I hadn't been able to feel much maternal love. I never even got to see my real mother's face, not even once in a portrait that wasn't faded. And my father... I didn't even meet him until I was sixteen."
Her gaze moved to the clock hanging on the wall.
"I felt it," Aefia continued, her gaze dropping back down to her daughter. "That massive, hollow gap where a mother's place should have been in my life. It felt like walking through a drafty, empty house, always wondering why I wasn't enough to keep them around. I swore to myself I would never let Lyra feel that way. At least I would try."
She pulled the white tiny blanket a little tighter around Lyra's small shoulders to keep her warm.
"I will try my absolute best, for however long I live," Aefia whispered, a fierce, protective determination settling into her garnet eyes, "that she never grows up to look back and despise me for not being there. I want her to know, every single day, that she is the center of my entire universe."
Helio didn't say a word. Instead, he stepped closer, wrapping his arms around both of them—holding his wife and his daughter in one warm, steady embrace. He pressed a gentle kiss to Aefia's temple.
"She won't," Helio whispered against her skin, his voice thick with emotion. "She's already the happiest little princess in the world. And she loves her mama more than anything."
A mischievous smirk took over her lips as she shifted her head to look up at him.
"Of course she does. I am the one who does everything, alright?"
"Oh, don't start," he rolled his eyes. "I am done looking 'lazy' in front of her. Even if she is sleeping. Everytime I am even two seconds late of answering to her summon, she brings up that line again.
"She would be like; 'Mama does everything in this house. Why are you troubling mama so much?! Move your legs and be faster! My stomach doesn't wait!'."
Aefia paused for a second. Then lifted her head back up to look at him, her eyebrow lifting skeptically.
"Helio. She is a little one-and-half year old. How can she say a literal paragraph? It is either that you are lying..."
"She doesn't say it! But she does mean it like that!" He raised his hands in a surrendering position while smirking. "Though she does call me 'dada lazy'. And then just hands me her little feeder and points angrily at her stomach."
Aefia let out a soft, delighted chuckle, carefully trying not to jostle the sleeping baby against her chest.
"Your title is a lazy father?" she whispered, her garnet eyes practically dancing with amusement. "Oh, that is rich. Though, to be entirely fair to her, she has exceptional judgment for an eighteen-month-old. 'Dada lazy' has a wonderful ring to it. I might start using it around the house myself."
Helio gave her a mock-offended look, though a bright, fond smile broke through his feigned dignity. "Traitor. Both of you are conspiring against me, I swear it. Give her another six months and she will be forming a toddler labor union."
"Good," Aefia murmured smoothly, standing up and walking towards the room Lyra lived in. "A well-organized nursery is the foundation of a stable household. You should take notes."
They stepped quietly into the nursery, the soft glow of the nightlight casting a warm, amber hue over the crib. With infinite care, Aefia lowered Lyra into the mattress, holding her breath until the baby's tiny fingers uncurled and she settled comfortably beneath her little blanket without so much as a stir.
Aefia lingered by the crib for a long moment, brushing a stray lock of silky black hair away from Lyra's forehead before finally stepping back out.
As they quietly closed the nursery door behind them, Helio wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into a small hug.
"Happy one-and-a-half-year birthday to our little princess," Helio whispered softly, pressing his lips to the top of her head. "And happy retirement to her terrifying mother."
"I had enough of that retirement congratulations. But still... not bad for a former global disaster," she whispered back. Then looked up.
"Though I might have some extra work to do soon."
"Let me guess... Dungeons?"
"Unfortunately, that is the only way I can hunt for abandoned and displaced artifacts and bring them back to the Guardian Realm." She let out a deep sigh. "After this, I have a huge break. I can spend some time with Lyra."
He exhaled through his nose, keeping his face buried while stroking her hair. "Don't go Aefia. I have a bad feeling about this. It hasn't even been long since you finished that mission. You said it would be the last, and you are still going on. Remember you almost died in the previous one?"
"Why are you worried though? I have 'almost died' multiple times. I will somehow come back." She whispered, her expression turning solemn. "Besides, the last time, we did get some rewards right? Think about it that way."
"But that isn't comforting enough."
Then, there was silence. No one said a word, and no one breathed too loudly.
The quiet in the hallway felt suddenly heavy, pressing down on Helio's shoulders like lead. He didn't loosen his embrace. Instead, his arms tightened around her waist, his face remaining buried against the crown of her neck.
"I am starting to think those birthday cakes every month is a way of telling her that you won't be there. Tell me I am delusional."
"You are. Slightly," she mumbled.
"I am serious, Aefia," Helio muttered, his voice muffled and thick with an unmasked, rising panic. He pulled back just enough to look down into her garnet eyes, his hands sliding up to grip her shoulders with a desperate urgency.
"Every time you talk about 'extra work' in the higher realms, it turns into a catastrophe. You almost didn't come back from Mides. You spent a week bleeding on my floor. And now you want to hunt down volatile artifacts in some unstable dungeon?"
Aefia softened, her hands coming up to rest gently over his wrists. "It's just a sweep-up operation, Helio. If I don't clear them out, they will attract lesser parasites that could eventually threaten the world again. I am just closing the doors."
"Then let someone else do it!" Helio pleaded, his green eyes flashing with a rare, raw terror that wrenched at her heart. "You resigned from being a hero for this world! You are an ordinary citizen now, resting in your beach villa with your ten thousand gold pieces! And you don't owe the Guardian Realm a single thing anymore! Plus you fulfilled your mom's revenge."
"I owe it to her," Aefia whispered, her gaze drifting back toward the closed nursery door behind them. "I owe it to Lyra to make sure the world she grows up in isn't bleeding magic from the cracks I left behind. I want her sky to be clear."
Helio let out a harsh, broken breath, shaking his head. He knew that look in her eyes. It was the same stubborn, unyielding glare she had worn every single time she marched into battle alone. But this time, it terrified him more than ever, because he could hear the faint, underlying tremor in her tone—the subtle admission that this dungeon was different, a volatile landmine where the margin for error was razor-thin.
"You are lying to me," Helio whispered, his voice cracking as his fingers tightened on her shoulders. "You wouldn't look at me like that if it were just a simple sweep-up. There's a chance... a real chance you might not make it back intact, isn't there?"
Aefia didn't answer right away. She looked up at him, her garnet eyes reflecting the dim amber light of the hallway. She didn't deny it.
Helio's breath hitched. He pulled her flgain, burying his face in her hair as a quiet, shuddering sigh escaped him. It sounded dangerously close to a sob.
"Please," he begged, his voice breaking against her ear. "Don't go. Stay here with me. Stay here with our daughter. If you die out there... all of this—the estate, the peace, the cake, the future we built—it doesn't mean anything. I don't care about the world if you are not in it."
Aefia's heart ached, a sharp, physical pain blooming in her chest. She wrapped her arms tightly around his back, pressing her face into his shoulder. She understood his fear; she had spent her entire life walking through empty houses, knowing what it meant to have a parent simply vanish. The thought of doing that to Lyra—or leaving Helio behind—tore at her soul.
She pulled back just an inch, her hands sliding up to cup his face. She forced her thumb to trace the line of his jaw, locking his gaze onto hers with absolute, unshakeable sincerity.
"Listen to me, Helio," Aefia said, her voice dropping into a low, solemn vow that echoed through the quiet corridor. "I am not planning on dying. Not today, not tomorrow, and certainly not after I have finally gotten everything I ever wanted."
She leaned in, pressing her forehead against his.
"Even if it's dangerous, even if the odds are stacked against me... I know what waits for me at the end of the road. You and Lyra. My home is right here." She took a deep, steadying breath.
"I promise you. No matter what is waiting in that dungeon... I will claw my way back through time, death, and space just to walk through this door. I always come back to Lyra, and however possible."
Helio stared down at her, searching her face for any trace of hesitation, finding only a fierce, blinding devotion that matched his own. Slowly, the overwhelming panic in his eyes gave way to a reluctant, heavy resignation.
"You better," Helio murmured against her mouth, his hands sliding down to wrap securely around her waist as he pulled her as close as humanly possible. "Because if you don't come back... I will drag myself into the Guardian Realm and drag you home myself."
Aefia leaned her cheek against his shoulder, listening to the frantic, erratic thud of his heart gradually slow into a steady rhythm.
"I mean every word, Helio," she whispered softly, her fingers lightly tugging at the lapel of his shirt collar. "You won't have to drag me back. I will fight my way to this exact hallway before you even have time to burn another pot of stew in worry."
Helio let out a breath—halfway between a laugh and a sigh. He rested his chin on top of her head, his eyes fixing on the faint outline of the nursery door just a few feet away.
"I will hold you to that," he murmured, his voice tight but settled. "If you are even a minute late, I am telling Lyra that 'Mama' went off to break more rules without permission."
Aefia smirked quietly into his shoulder. "She would probably side with me anyway."
"She definitely would," Helio conceded, a small, tender smile finally breaking through the grief on his face. He kissed the crown of her head one last time, slowly loosening his embrace, though his hand remained firmly laced with hers. "Come on. If you are leaving at dawn, you are sleeping in tonight. No late-night paperwork, no checking on weapons, and no staring at the ceiling."
He started to pull her towards the bedroom. But Aefia skidded to a halt on her heels.
"Before that. I haven't brushed my teeth yet, nor have I prepared a feeder for Lyra yet. How exactly do I go to sleep?" She raised an eyebrow.
He let out a sigh, rubbing his face with his hand. "Then just go brush your teeth. I am to deal with Lyra anyways."