Chapter 39: Like Father, Like Son
The cabin door shut with a soft click, muffling the low murmur of voices from inside. The world beyond the porch was a cathedral of quiet, filtered green and gold. Sunlight fell in shattered pieces through the canopy of ancient oaks, dappling the thick carpet of bronze pine needles and vibrant ferns that brushed against the wooden steps. The air was cool, crisp, carrying the clean scent of damp earth and distant, snow-capped stone.
Eris descended the two steps onto the soft ground, his movement silent. Rowan followed, the boards creaking slightly under his weight. They walked a dozen paces into the tree line, stopping in a small, natural clearing where the sunlight pooled.
Rowan crossed his arms, the gesture not defensive, but considering. He looked at Eris, his green eyes—so familiar, so unnervingly his own—holding a steady, assessing gaze. “I can show you the fire thing,” he said, his voice calm in the forest hush. “But you don’t have to be concerned. I have control.”
Back on the porch, Ella had slipped out to lean against the doorframe, watching them. She sensed a shift in her twin, a talking-too-stillness that was more him than his normal casual slouch. She nodded, calling out softly, “He is, in fact, an overachiever.”
Rowan stared at her, a flat, wordless communication passing between them. Then he looked back to Eris. “I can show you if you want. Nothing showy, though. I’m winnowing us back after Ella time-jumps, so I need to keep my energy tight.”
Eris gave a single, slow nod. “Proceed.”
Rowan uncrossed his arms and held out his right hand, palm up. For a moment, nothing. Then a flame kindled in the center of his palm. It was a perfect, contained sphere, no larger than a walnut, burning a deep, vibrant blue at its core that faded to a pale gold at the edges. It made no sound. He passed his other hand over it, then slowly lowered his palm towards a cluster of dry, fallen oak leaves. The blue flame hovered a hair’s breadth above the delicate veins. The leaves did not blacken. They did not even curl.
Rowan made a face, a slight twisting of his lips that was part amusement, part something more complicated. “This is a strange déjà vu,” he said, not looking up from the flame. “You just sat in on me and Ella’s training this morning. In our world.”
Eris watched the impossible, gentle fire. “Am I always there?” he asked, his voice low.
Rowan shook his head, the flame wobbling slightly with the motion before steadying. “No. You pop in. Or stay if we ask you. You said you don’t like breathing down our necks about it, since we’re not sixteen yet.” A ghost of a smirk touched his mouth. “Though I imagine there will be a ‘no time travel’ rule in place when we get back.”
The blue sphere dissolved. In its place, from a wisp of smoke and will, a new form took shape. A small bird, intricately detailed, the size of Rowan’s thumb. It was woven entirely of that same calm, blue-gold fire. It perched on the tip of his index finger, its tiny head tilting, wings tucked neatly. It gave off no heat they could feel.
Rowan looked at him then, really looked at him, and for a second, his expression softened, attempting an openness that seemed to channel Ella’s brand of blunt reassurance. He made the little firebird float into the air between them, a silent, glowing emissary.
“We are healthy,” Rowan said, the words deliberate, each one chosen and placed with care. “Fine. And content. And happy, normal kids.” He paused, his gaze unwavering on Eris’s guarded face. “And you’re not a jerk. You didn’t mess us up.”
The firebird hovered, a testament to impossible control, to beauty forged from a legacy of violence and ash.
Then Rowan stopped. The bird didn’t explode or snuff out. It simply faded, its light gently retreating into the air until nothing remained but the scent of ozone and sun-warmed pine.
“Occasionally,” Rowan continued, his voice dropping back into its more natural, casual rhythm, though his eyes remained serious, “you train with me. You ask me afterwards, and before, if I feel okay. Or if I feel pressured.” A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. “You make that same face you did every time. Just now. The ‘I am assessing all variables and containing my profound unease’ face.”
The wind stirred the high branches, a whispering sigh through a million needles. Somewhere deep in the woods, a bird called, its song echoing the vanished shape of the flame.
Eris said nothing for a long moment. He studied his son—the set of his shoulders, the ease in his posture, the absolute lack of fear in the presence of a power that had, for generations of Vanserras, been a weapon first and a tool second. This was not mastery born of brutality. It was precision born of patience.
“The control,” Eris finally said, the words crisp in the cool air. “Is it instinct? Or discipline?”
“Both,” Rowan answered, shoving his hands into his pockets. “The instinct is… it’s like a song. I can hear it. The discipline is not singing too loud.” He shrugged. “Mom says it’s like having a really powerful dog. You’re not scared of it, but you respect it, and you train it so it doesn’t chew the furniture.”
A faint, almost invisible line eased beside Eris’s eye. “And the winnowing? After her jump?”
“Like carrying a passenger. Easier if they’re conscious and expecting it. She’ll be tired. It’ll be fine.” He glanced back toward the cabin. “Her time-threading… it’s more delicate. This,” he lifted a hand, a tiny, harmless spark dancing over his knuckle for a second before vanishing, “is straightforward. Hers is about finding seams. I just make the door.”
Eris followed his gaze. Through the trees, he could see Ella, still leaning in the doorway, talking softly to Lilly, who had joined her. The sun caught the copper in Ella’s hair, setting it ablaze. A living flame of a different kind.
He looked back at Rowan, this young man from a future he was steadily, relentlessly constructing in his mind. A future with monitored wards and stolen snacks and training sessions that began with questions about pressure. A future where his son could create a bird of fire to deliver a message of peace.
“The face,” Eris said, his tone dry as the oak leaves, “is the correct face to make.”
Rowan actually laughed, a short, soft exhale through his nose. “Yeah. I know.”
From the porch, Ella’s voice carried, bright and clear. “Hey! My time-threading muscles are officially un-cramped! You guys done bonding over apocalyptic firepower?”
Rowan rolled his eyes, but the tension that had held his frame was gone, replaced by a familiar, affectionate exasperation. “We’re done!” he called back.
He looked at Eris one last time, a silent question in his eyes.
Eris gave another nod, this one different. An acknowledgment. A transfer of trust, fragile and immense. “Go on,” he said.
And together, they walked back out of the dappled light of the trees, toward the cabin, toward the women waiting, toward the inevitable, impending leap across the skin of time. The hour was up.
The hour was up.
Inside the cabin, the light had shifted, the pooled gold on the floorboards deepening to a rich amber. Ella stretched her arms over her head, the bones in her shoulders giving a soft pop. She reached up, fingers deftly tightening the elastic holding her copper ponytail. Her blue eyes swept the room—the mismatched mugs, the cracked teacup, the fern on the shelf, the half-empty whiskey bottle—and her expression softened into something wistful and heavy.
“I hate leaving this place,” she sighed, the words leaving her like a breath she’d been holding.
Rowan stepped up beside her and ruffled her carefully secured hair, making her swat at his hand. She shrugged, not bothering to fix it. “I hate getting older. Don’t you wish we could be little again?”
He looked toward the ceiling, where the quiet sounds of the infants shifting in their cribs filtered down. “No,” he said, his voice flat. “Not really.”
She rolled her eyes, a dramatic, practiced motion. “No, not that young. Like seven or eight. It was simple. We’ll be sixteen in two years.” She counted off on her fingers, the future a relentless schedule. “Then we’ll be training to visit the Courts. Then we’ll be making our official visits at eighteen.”
Rowan huffed, crossing his arms as he leaned against the doorframe. “You’ll enjoy meeting all the new people. And if you’re worried about being married off, I promise you, you’ve got at least a few centuries.”
Ella scoffed, turning her back to him, but the tension in her shoulders eased a fraction.
From across the kitchen, Lilly watched the exchange. She then glanced at Eris, who was observing their children with that still, assessing focus. She caught his eye and silently mouthed three words: I’m okay with that.
He gave a single, shallow nod. The gesture conveyed a tight coil of relief that he wouldn’t face resistance on that front, immediately followed by the sharp, visceral prick of a future anxiety he had no desire to examine. If she didn’t marry within the Autumn Court, she would move away. Rowan, as the heir, would stay. The math of it was cold and left a hollow feeling under his ribs.
“Okay,” Future Ella said, clapping her hands together once, decisively. The melancholy was gone, packed away. “Enough nostalgia. Time-threading muscles are go. You ready, baggage?” She elbowed Rowan in the side.
“I’m not the one who needed a naptime recharge,” he grumbled, but he pushed off the wall and stood straight.
Lilly moved toward them instinctively, stopping a few feet away. She didn’t know the protocol for this. “Is it… will it hurt?” she asked, her voice small.
“No,” Ella said, her smile reassuring. “It just feels like stepping through a cold curtain. Then it’s warm again.” She glanced at Rowan. “You’ll feel a tug. Don’t fight it.”
Rowan nodded, all business now. He looked at Eris, a question in his green eyes. A transfer of trust, completed.
Ella closed her eyes. The air in the kitchen didn’t stir, but the quality of it changed, growing denser, charged. A faint, silver shimmer began to outline her form, starting at her feet and rising like slowly climbing mist. It was soundless. Her brow furrowed in concentration.
Lilly held her breath.
Eris’s hand found hers, his fingers lacing through her own, their grip tight and anchored.
The silver light enveloped Future Ella completely. For a heartbeat, she was a statue of moonlight in their sunlit kitchen. Then she wasn’t. The space where she’d stood was empty, the air rushing in to fill the void with a soft whump.
Before the silence could register, Rowan moved. He lifted his hand, not with a flourish, but with the focused efficiency of a craftsman. He made a gentle pulling motion in the air before him, as if drawing aside a heavy drape.
A seam tore open. Not a hole of fire, but a rift of shimmering, heated air, like the view above a scorching summer road. Through it, for a fraction of a second, they glimpsed a different kitchen—the same wooden crates, the same fern, but bathed in the deep blue light of evening, and a copper-haired girl staggering slightly, catching herself on a counter.
Rowan stepped toward the rift. He looked back, not at the room, but directly at Eris and Lilly. He didn’t smile. He just gave that same short, firm nod.
Then he stepped through. The shimmering rift sealed itself behind him, the air knitting back together with a faint sigh, leaving only the scent of ozone and a profound, ringing quiet.
The cabin was theirs again. Just the four of them. The only cries were the soft, sleepy gurgles of infants upstairs.
Lilly let out a shaky breath, her hand still locked in Eris’s. She looked at the empty spot on the floorboards, then up at her mate. The questions were a storm in her eyes, but so was a dawning, fierce wonder.
Eris’s thumb stroked once over her knuckles. His gaze was still on the space where the rift had been, his mind already tracing the contours of the future they had just glimpsed—a future of wards and firebirds, of snuck-out nights and lengthy betrothal negotiations. It was a map with new, startling landmarks.
Outside, the wind moved through the pines, a low, whispering approval. The sun dipped lower, painting the walls in long, late afternoon shadows. They stood together in the quiet heart of the woods, the present once more a solid thing around them, forever altered by the ghost of what was to come.
They stood together in the quiet heart of the woods, the present once more a solid thing around them, forever altered by the ghost of what was to come. The silence was a physical weight, pressing in where the shimmering rift had been. Lilly’s hand was warm and slightly trembling in his.
She let out a long, uneven breath. “Well,” she said, the word cracking in the middle.
Eris released her hand, his own feeling strangely empty. He scanned the empty kitchen, his eyes catching on the two abandoned mugs on the table, the ghost of a conversation hanging in the air. His strategic mind, usually so swift to categorize and plan, felt sluggish, overloaded with the sheer physics-defying reality of the last hour.
“We should check on them,” Lilly murmured, already turning toward the stairs. Her movement broke the spell. The practical needed to swallow the impossible.
He followed her up, each step on the creaking wood a return to normalcy. The nursery was washed in soft, afternoon light. In the crib, Rowan was awake, staring placidly at the mobile of carved wood leaves spinning above. Ella was sleeping, her copper hair a splash of flame against the white sheet.
Lilly went to Rowan, brushing a curl from his forehead. “Hey, you. Did you feel all that?”
Eris walked to the crib. He looked down at Ella, her chest rising and falling in the deep, trusting rhythm of infant sleep. Her tiny fingers were curled into loose fists. He reached in, his movements deliberate, and carefully gathered her into the crook of his arm. She made a soft, sighing sound, nuzzling into the warmth of his sweater without waking.
He then picked up Rowan, settling the boy against his other shoulder. Rowan blinked his big green eyes, surveying the room from this new height with serene interest.
Lilly watched him, a faint smile touching her lips. “Double duty.”
Eris turned, holding a child in each arm, and looked at the sleeping Ella. He leaned down slightly, his voice a low, clear murmur meant only for her tiny ears. “Giggle if you never want to get married and want to live at Court or the cabin for the rest of your life.”
He gently brushed a finger over her round belly. She stirred, her face scrunching, and then a soft, sleepy giggle bubbled from her lips. It was a frothy, joyous sound in the quiet room.
“Good,” Eris said, the single word final and deeply satisfied.
Lilly stared at him, her mouth slightly open. Then a laugh burst from her, sudden and loud, startling Rowan who flailed a tiny arm. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am entirely serious.” He adjusted his grip on the babies, his expression one of pure, uncomplicated victory. “She agreed. Witnessed. The matter is settled.”
“She’s six months old! She giggled because you tickled her!”
“The mechanism of agreement is irrelevant. The contract is binding.” He began a slow, pacing walk around the small room, bouncing the infants gently. “We’ll have it inscribed. Perhaps above the fireplace.”
Lilly collapsed onto the nursing chair, laughter shaking her shoulders. It was a release, a purging of the coiled tension from the last hour. The sound was bright and real, etching over the strange, silvered memory of their future daughter’s tears.
Eris continued his patrol, the corner of his mouth twitching. The solid, warm weight of his children in his arms was an anchor. This was real. This was now. The future could be negotiated later, with wards and rules and the terrifying freedom of fire that didn’t burn.
“You’re impossible,” Lilly gasped, wiping her eyes.
“I am pragmatic.” He stopped in front of her, looking down. Rowan’s hand had found a loose thread on his sweater and was clutching it with determined fascination. “She stated a preference. I facilitated it.”
Lilly’s laughter softened into a smile that lit her whole face. She looked up at him, at the three of them, and something in her expression shifted, deepened. The fear and wonder from downstairs melted into a sharper, more present tenderness. “And what’s Rowan’s contract? Giggle if you want to be an only child?”
Eris looked at the boy in his arm. Rowan stared back, utterly solemn. “He has already chosen his path. Overachiever. Heirloom. Silent judge of his sister’s poor decisions.”
As if on cue, Rowan spit up a little onto Eris’s shoulder.
Lilly snorted, covering her mouth. “Silent judge, huh?”
Eris glanced at the damp spot on his sweater, then back at his son’s bland, innocent face. “His methods are unorthodox.”
The simple, messy normality of it all washed through the room. The weirdness of the morning began to recede, folding itself into the fabric of their history, becoming a story they would tell later, in the same way they spoke of a stubborn harvest or a particularly deep winter snow. It was just another strange thing that happened here, in this house they built in the woods.
Lilly stood up, her body moving close to his in the cramped space. She didn’t reach for the babies. She placed a hand on his chest, over his heart. She could feel the steady, strong beat under her palm. “You’re okay?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
He held her gaze, his green eyes reflecting the window’s light. He thought of blue fire that didn’t burn, of a daughter’s defiant tear, of a son’s unwavering control. He thought of wards and carved initials and a lifetime of returns to this place.
“I am,” he said, and found he meant it. The words were not light, but they were solid. “Are you?”
She nodded, her thumb stroking a small circle over his sweater. “I think I need to be not-okay for a minute later. But right now, I’m just… here.”
He understood. The emotional reckoning would come, a private storm they would weather separately and together. For now, there was just this: the four of them, in a sunlit room, the ghosts of the future momentarily appeased.
Later, after the babies had been changed and fed and settled back into the quiet rhythm of their nap, they stood in the kitchen. Lilly was washing the mugs, her hands moving slowly in the soapy water. Eris leaned against the counter, watching the forest through the window.
“The carvings under the table,” Lilly said, not turning from the sink. Her voice was thoughtful. “You did that. Every year.”
“Yes.”
She rinsed a mug, placed it on the drying rack. “You believe them. Now. That we come back.”
He was silent for a long moment. “I saw it,” he finally said. It was the closest he would come to admitting the seismic shift inside him.
She turned then, drying her hands on a towel. She studied him, her blue eyes missing nothing. “She was so… sure of you. Of us. Even when she was mad about the wards.”
“She should be mad about the wards. They are intrusive.” He pushed off the counter, crossing the space between them. He stopped close enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at him. “They are also non-negotiable.”
A smile played on her lips. “Noted.”
He reached out and tucked a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering for a second on the line of her jaw. The touch was a deliberate echo of her gesture to their future daughter. A reclaiming. “The fire was… precise.”
“It was beautiful,” she corrected softly.
He conceded with a slight tilt of his head. His hand dropped. “He has my control. Your patience.”
“Our stubbornness.”
“A potentially catastrophic combination.”
She stepped into him then, closing the last inch of space. She pressed her forehead against his chest, and he brought his arms around her, holding her tightly. They stood like that for a long time, in the silent kitchen, as the sun slid toward the treetops and the shadows stretched long across the floor.
Finally, Lilly spoke into the wool of his sweater, her voice muffled but clear. “We should probably talk about the ‘no marriage ever’ clause you just enacted.”
“It’s not a clause. It’s a legally binding accord.” His voice rumbled under her ear.
She laughed, the vibration comforting against her cheek. “You’re going to be a nightmare.”
“I am a concerned party.”
She pulled back just enough to look up at him. Her expression was serious now, all traces of laughter gone. “They were amazing, Eris. We did that. We will do that.”
He looked at her, at the woman who had stepped into his court and his life and never deferred, not once. He saw the future in her eyes, not as a ghostly visitation, but as a thing they would build, day by day, with fire and thread and stubborn, relentless love.
He kissed her then. It was not a soft kiss. It was an anchor, a claim, a promise etched not under a table, but in the shared breath between them. It was full of the terror and the triumph of what they now knew awaited them.
When they parted, the room was darker, the light taking on a bluish hue. The first stars would soon prick through the deep green of the pines.
Lilly traced the line of his lower lip with her thumb. “I’m going to go check the perimeter,” she said, her tone deliberately casual, echoing Rowan’s earlier words about wards. “Make sure no time-traveling teenagers are loitering.”
A genuine, quiet smile touched Eris’s mouth. “Be brief.”
She returned the smile, a flicker of the old challenge in her eyes. “Or what?”
He didn’t answer with words. He simply looked at her, and the look was answer enough—a map of every protection he would ever erect, every rule he would ever enforce, every relentless, unwavering inch of his devotion. It was a look that said the contract, for her, had been signed a long time ago.
She walked to the door, pulling on her boots. Before she stepped out into the cooling evening, she glanced back at him. “Don’t let them sleep past six. Or the midnight feeding will be a disaster.”
He nodded, already mentally adjusting the schedule. “Understood.”
The door closed behind her with a soft thud. Eris remained in the center of the kitchen, alone with the settling quiet and the faint, sweet scent from upstairs. He listened to the sound of her footsteps on the gravel path, fading toward the tree line.
Then he turned, and his gaze fell on the whiskey bottle on the shelf. He considered it for a long moment. He instead walked to the stove, lit the burner with a thought, and put the kettle on for tea.