My Daughter Called Me Uncle

The rain in Riverbend was a relentless, icy deluge that blurred the neon signs of the city into smears of sickly color. Inside the cramped backseat of a taxi, Derek Faulkner sat as still as a statue carved from granite. His eyes, usually sharp enough to pierce through the fog of war on the Northern Front, were fixed vacantly on the rhythmic slapping of the windshield wipers. The phone pressed to his ear felt heavier than any weapon he had ever carried. "Master!" The voice on the other end belonged to Colton Bryce, the man known to the world as the Supreme Warlord, a titan who commanded the respect of millions. But right now, Colton’s voice was trembling, cracking with a grief that didn't belong to a soldier of his stature. "The letter... the one sent to High Command by the little girl looking for her father... we’ve verified it. It’s her. She is your daughter, our junior sister—Lemon Faulkner." Derek’s breath hitched. A phantom electric shock seemed to bolt through his spine, paralyzing his lungs. For eight years, he had been a ghost, a legend whispered in the halls of power, a shadow haunting the Deadlands. But in this moment, he was just a man who had forgotten how to breathe. "Master," Colton continued, his voice breaking into a sob. "Lemon... she has leukemia. The doctors... they say she doesn't have much time left. She sent that letter because she just wanted to see your face. Just once, before the end." The world outside the taxi window seemed to dissolve. Derek felt a sudden, sharp sting in his sinuses, and a veil of moisture clouded his vision. Seven years. He had a daughter who was seven years old, and he had never held her. He didn't even know the color of her eyes or the sound of her laugh. If that letter hadn't reached the High Command, he might have remained a stranger to her existence until she was in the ground. As a soldier, he was a paragon without equal. As a father, he was a failure. His mind drifted back eight years, to a different life. He remembered the night after his wedding, the scent of jasmine in the air, and the tears in Serena Ashford’s eyes as she packed his rucksack. She hadn't begged him to stay; she had simply told him to come back alive. He had boarded the Northbound Express the next morning, fueled by a sense of duty that now felt like a hollow mockery. Four years ago, during the Great Breakout, he had stood alone in the Gorge, holding the Dragon Standard high against a tide of a hundred thousand invaders. He had traded his blood for the safety of the Empire, surviving wounds that would have killed any other man. During his long recovery, he hadn't rested. He had shaped the future of the nation, mentoring the Five Warlords, training six Grand Healers of the Realm, and advising eight of the world’s wealthiest billionaires. His influence was so absolute, his wisdom so profound, that the Empire had bestowed upon him the highest honor: Imperial Sage. "Master?" Colton’s voice was frantic now, disturbed by the silence. "Are you there? Please, say something!" Derek snapped back to the present, his voice dropping to a sub-zero temperature. The grief was still there, but it was being rapidly overtaken by a cold, surgical fury. "Where is Serena Ashford?" he demanded. "I sent her ten thousand dollars every month for living expenses," Derek hissed, his knuckles white as he gripped the phone. "Why is Lemon dying without treatment? Why isn't she in a hospital? Why did she have to write to the army to find me? Tell me why!" The silence on the other end was deafening. He could hear Colton’s ragged breathing. "Master’s wife... she..." Colton struggled, the words catching in his throat. It felt like sacrilege to say it, but the truth was a debt that had to be paid. "Reports say she... she spends all her time in the Blue Horizon Club... She’s fallen into a life of... indulgence." Derek’s heart didn't just break; it turned to ash. "She is no longer the Master’s wife," Derek said, each word a jagged shard of glass. The woman who had loved him when he was a nobody, the highborn lady who had defied the Ashford family to marry a poor soldier... had she really changed so much? He could forgive her for moving on, even for hating him. But to take the money and abandon their dying child to the whims of fate? To drown herself in the neon lights of a club while their daughter withered away? That was unforgivable. "Driver," Derek growled, slamming the phone shut. "Faster. Get me to the city center now!" Outside the GoodFortune Mart, the world was a symphony of misery. "I didn't... I didn't steal it!" Lemon Faulkner stood in the rain, her small frame shivering violently. Her school uniform, once white, was now translucent and clinging to her thin body. It was a size too small, the hem of the skirt riding up, revealing legs that were far too pale, bruised with the tell-tale purple spots of her illness. She clutched a tattered backpack to her chest like a shield. A circle of adults surrounded her, their colorful umbrellas forming a canopy of indifference. They looked down at her not with pity, but with the cold, hungry eyes of predators who had found an easy target. "I didn't even go inside the store," Lemon sobbed, her voice high and reedy, nearly lost under the roar of the rain. "You can't lie about me... my mom said stealing is wrong. I would never... I never..." She looked up at the towering figures, her eyes searching for a shred of empathy. "Are you doing this because I don't have a Dad? Is that why you're bullying me?" The injustice of it was a physical weight, pushing her down until she collapsed into a puddle. She began to cry, the salt of her tears mixing with the bitter rainwater. In her hand, she tightly gripped a single lollipop. It wasn't stolen. It was her prize—her Good Student certificate reward from her homeroom teacher. She had been so proud of it. She had waited under the awning of the mart for her grandmother to pick her up, just like any other day. But the grandmother hadn't come, and the manager of the mart had walked out, grabbed her by the collar, and accused her of shoplifting the candy. "Your mother is a piece of trash," a voice sneered from above. A man in a sharp charcoal suit stepped forward. His hair was perfectly gelled, his silk tie dry under the shelter of a massive golf umbrella held by a subordinate. This was Peter Yates, a man who considered himself part of the privileged elite, though everyone knew him as a nouveau riche thug who had clawed his way up through the Blue Horizon Club. "And you," Peter continued, looking down at Lemon with utter disgust. "You're just a little brat. A parasite. You’re already a stain on society at seven; you’ll be a menace by twenty. I can only imagine what kind of filthy, lowlife dog your father was to leave you like this." The word 'filthy' seemed to trigger something in Lemon. The girl, who had been a puddle of misery a moment ago, suddenly straightened her back. Her small face was set in a mask of stubborn defiance. "My mom is not trash!" she shrieked, her voice cracking with the effort. "My mom was the most coveted woman in Riverbend! And my Dad isn't filthy! He’s a hero! He’s fighting the enemies on the Northern Front! He’s a soldier!" She screamed it at the top of her lungs, wanting the clouds to hear, wanting the wind to carry the message to the man she had only seen in faded photographs. "He’s an empire hero! I won't let you talk about him like that!" Peter Yates threw his head back and laughed, a harsh, mocking sound that made the other onlookers chuckle nervously. "A hero? Kid, you’re delusional," Peter said, leaning down so his expensive cologne overwhelmed the scent of the rain. "Your father was a coward, a pretty boy who ran away the moment the Ashford family kicked your mother out. He’s probably dead in a ditch somewhere, or more likely, he’s found some other woman to leech off of." He watched the girl’s face crumble and felt a surge of dark satisfaction. He didn't care about a stolen lollipop. He cared about Serena Ashford. He had been hunting the Miss Ashford for over a year, ever since she had been forced to work in his clubs to pay for this brat's medical bills. She was a woman of virtue, or so she claimed, refusing his advances even as she hovered on the brink of poverty. If he could break the child, he could break the mother. "You're lying!" Lemon screamed, though her heart was failing her. "I sent him a letter! He's going to come! He’s going to save us!" "He’s not coming, you little maggot," Peter spat. He turned to his security guard. "Her soul is as dirty as her face. Give her a wash. Let's see if we can rinse the lies out of her." Peter pulled out his phone, his thumb hovering over the record button. He wanted to capture this—the proud daughter of the Ashfords being humiliated in the gutter. He would show it to Serena tonight at the Abyssal Lounge. He would make her understand that her only choice was to marry him and ship this 'little burden' off to an orphanage. The security guard stepped forward and kicked a wave of filthy, oily gutter water directly into Lemon’s face. The girl gasped, the cold water stinging her eyes and filling her mouth. She didn't scream this time. She just sat there, shivering, as the laughter of the adults echoed around her. The lollipop, her precious prize, slipped from her numb fingers and fell into the muck, turning gray and useless. "Dad..." she whispered into the rain, her voice barely audible. "Daddy... please..." She was only seven. She didn't understand the power dynamics of the great houses, or the cold reality of the lowest rung of society. She only knew that she was cold, she was tired, and she was very, very alone. As Peter Yates laughed, recording the scene with a predatory grin, the sound of a screeching engine tore through the rain. A taxi swung around the corner with suicidal speed, its tires hydroplaning as it slammed to a halt just inches from the curb. The door flew open before the car had even fully stopped. A man stepped out into the deluge. He wore no coat, only a simple black shirt that strained against a frame built by a decade of war. The rain seemed to avoid him, or perhaps he was simply too focused to notice it. His presence was a physical weight that suddenly made the air around the GoodFortune Mart feel thin and electrified. Derek Faulkner looked at the scene: the mocking crowd, the man with the phone, and the small, shivering heap of a girl lying in the mud. He saw the bruises on her arms. He saw the faded school uniform. And he saw the way she clutched her stomach, her breath coming in shallow, labored gasps. In that moment, the Supreme Warlord died. The Imperial Sage vanished. There was only a father. And God help anyone who stood in his way.