I walked beside Naya through Babel like a man borrowing someone else's life.
The sun hung warm and unchallenged above the city, pouring gold over stone and steel alike.
Light slid across banners stitched in red and gold, across polished armor, across the open faces of people who had never known my wars. It caught on glass and brass, on blades worn openly at hips, on the pale stone of statues that lined the avenues.
Shadows fell clean and sharp, obedient to the hour. Babel looked peaceful in a way only powerful cities could afford to look.
I noticed it only in pieces.
The marketplace opened around us like a living thing. From a distance it was color and motion—cloth canopies rippling in layered hues, baskets piled high with fruit split open to show their flesh, iron grills blackened and glowing beneath slabs of meat.
Up close, the details crowded in relentlessly: oil gleaming on cooked skin, spice dust staining fingertips red and gold, sweat darkening tunics beneath the sun.
Sound followed sight, weaving itself through the streets. Merchants shouted prices in practiced rhythms. Laughter broke out and vanished just as quickly. Metal rang—coins counted, tools set down, blades adjusted.
Horse hooves struck stone in uneven patterns, carts groaned under weight, wheels clicking over seams in the road.
Somewhere deeper in the city, a train screamed along elevated tracks, the sound distant but undeniable, a reminder that Babel never truly slept.
Then came the smells, heavy and undeniable. Crushed peppers burned faintly in the air. Roasted meat carried a sweetness that made hunger unavoidable.
Bread steamed as it was torn open, yeast and heat mixing with the sharper scent of oil and smoke. It was not the smell of survival. It was the smell of abundance.
My hands curled and uncurled at my sides as we walked. The leather of my gloves creaked softly. Stone beneath my boots held the sun's warmth, heat traveling up through sole and bone. Every step grounded me in a place that was not a battlefield.
And yet my eyes kept returning to her.
Naya walked half a step ahead of me, as if unconsciously leading, as if Babel itself recognized her authority.
Light caught in her hair. Her shadow stretched long across the road, steady and unbroken. People noticed. They always did. Conversations slowed. Heads turned.
A merchant paused mid-sentence and bowed without thinking, his voice trailing off into embarrassed silence.
A woman reached out to touch Naya's sleeve, murmuring gratitude that carried the weight of memory. A child stared openly, awe wide and unguarded in their eyes.
"The Surgeon," someone whispered.
The word moved through the crowd like a current.
Naya answered them all with easy warmth—smiles given freely, hands squeezed, names remembered.
Her touch was gentle but confident, fingers steady, never hesitant. The city loved her, not out of fear or obligation, but because she had stitched it back together piece by piece, skin and bone and hope alike.
When someone glanced at me with curiosity, she laughed softly and said, "This is my friend. Prince Oma."
Friend.
The word landed strangely.
No one flinched. No one recognized the name as it was spoken in Oma—carried on the wind like a warning, spoken in war rooms and prayer halls with equal weight. To Babel, I was only a foreigner with quiet eyes and a soldier's posture. Naya's strange companion.
I let it remain that way.
We passed statues carved from pale stone—builders frozen mid-labor, muscles strained eternally beneath imagined weight; muses captured in song, mouths parted, instruments raised; sailors gazing toward horizons they would never reach.
Their surfaces were worn smooth by time and touch, fingers polished by generations who believed in what they represented.
Above them all rose the Tower of Babel, its layered spires cutting into the sky like a challenge. Sunlight broke against its edges, turning stone into something almost luminous.
The meeting place of Babel's representatives.
Builders, thinkers, leaders—men of the empire gathered there to shape the world without ever lifting a blade. Even at a distance, it radiated intention.
Even in peace, he was everywhere.
The city sounded different near the tower. Quieter. Voices dropped. Footsteps slowed. The wind itself seemed to move more carefully.
Everlyn's voice returned uninvited, sharp and aching.
He tamed you. I hated feeling she was right.
Even surrounded by peace, I measured shadows without meaning to. Counted windows. Tracked movement in the corners of my vision. My skin prickled at nothing at all, instincts searching for threats that refused to appear.
Still, I was enjoying myself.
That truth would normally unsettle me, if Naya wasn't the reason.
By evening, Babel softened.
Sight shifted first. Lanterns bloomed along the streets, amber light pooling across cobblestone and washing hard edges into gentler shapes.
Banners stirred lazily. Windows glowed. The sky deepened into layered blues and purples, stars just beginning to press through.
Sound followed. The marketplace thinned into murmurs. Music drifted from unseen courtyards—strings low and patient, drums slow and conversational.
Guards made their rounds with relaxed precision, armor quiet, boots steady. Order without tension.
Smell changed again. Steam rose from plates carried past us, rich and inviting. Herbs warmed in oil.
Wine breathed in open cups. The air lost its sharpness, becoming something meant to be lingered in.
We ate at an outdoor table beneath hanging lights, the wood warm beneath my palms. The food was rich and unfamiliar on my tongue—fat and spice and something faintly sweet beneath it all. I chewed slowly, grounding myself in the simple act of eating.
Naya teased me for it. I told her war taught patience.
She smiled like she didn't quite believe me.
Her laughter was soft, real. It vibrated faintly through the table, through my arms, into my chest. I felt it settle there.
Taste lingered longer than it should have. Each bite reminded me that my body still existed for reasons other than violence.
The city whispered around us—footsteps, distant bells, the low murmur of life continuing without permission from kings or gods. I watched it all with a strange ache in my chest.
This was what I fought for.
And what I rarely allowed myself to touch.
When night deepened, she grew quieter. The lantern light softened her features. Her hand found mine without ceremony, warm and steady. I didn't pull away.
"We should go," she said eventually.
We left the lights behind and walked where the city thinned into grass and stone. The ground cooled beneath our feet. The air smelled clean here—earth and night flowers, faintly damp. Sound faded until only insects and distant wind remained.
The grave waited beneath the open sky.
Ave.
Stone cool beneath my fingers when I rested a hand there. Naya knelt and spoke as if her mother could hear her—about her day, about the people she healed, about me. Her voice trembled once, then steadied.
"I think you'd like him," she whispered.
The words carried weight. They settled.
I stood guard over nothing and everything, feeling the night press gently against my skin. When she finished, the strength left her all at once. She leaned into me, and I caught her before she fell.
We sat there together, the grass cool and damp beneath us, the stars sharp and endless above. Night air brushed my face. I tasted salt at the back of my throat, emotion rising uninvited.
"Don't leave me tonight," she murmured, already drifting.
"I won't," I said, and meant it.
She slept in my arms.
Warm and trusting.
I stayed awake.
At dawn, light returned slowly, pale and careful. I lifted her without waking her, carrying her back through a city just beginning to stir—past towers catching first light, past banners hanging limp, past silent guards who watched and said nothing.
Inside Victor's castle, the stone was cool again beneath my boots. I laid her gently on her bed.
When she woke, she thought I was gone.
Then she saw me sitting beside her.
I was still there.
She asked," Will you go today?"
I smiled and replied, " No. You can have me from dusk till dawn. Oma can wait another day."
"The sky won't fall in my absence,"
I added trying to convince myself.