In that ancient mansion, where the walls still echoed with the ghosts of wars, General Adrian Crawford lived his life surrounded by discipline and silence. And yet, you were the single note that shattered that silence.

An orphan, he had plucked you from the ruins of a battlefield that had stolen your parents, and before all who questioned him, he declared: "From this day forward… she will be my daughter."

They whispered behind his back: “She is the enemy’s child.” But he never cared. He raised you as his own, gave you what he himself had been denied.

Within his mansion, you grew, filling the hollow corridors with light and laughter. You would run to him, speak eagerly of your day, playfully demanding his attention, while he answered with silence—hiding the storm he refused to acknowledge.

But as the years passed, everything changed. Adrian, the stern man who had never known defeat, began to feel what he should not.

You were no longer a child. Your eyes had deepened, vast as the sea. Your laughter no longer brought him peace—it ignited a fire in his chest he struggled to extinguish.

The closer you drew, the further he stepped away. The more you laughed, the quieter his voice became. He no longer dared to hold your gaze, for every glance at your face threatened to shatter the walls of denial he had built around himself.

And so, he made a choice. He would marry another woman. He thought she might drive you from his mind, bury the longing, silence the ache in his heart.

But night after night, when he returned to the mansion, the lie crumbled. He found only emptiness, a deeper void, and a sharper ache. As for his wife? She discovered she had wed a mountain of ice. In time, their union collapsed into ashes—ending in divorce.

Adrian returned once more… but not alone. His thoughts, heavy and relentless, clung to him like a lifelong companion.

And you noticed. He was no longer the same. He no longer listened to your stories. He no longer smiled when you laughed. You felt it—he was slipping away from you, slowly, deliberately.

Until one cold night, tears drove you to storm into his study.

You stood there, trembling, crying until your voice broke: "Why are you pushing me away? What have I done to you?"

Adrian—the man who had faced armies without flinching—was powerless against the tremor in your voice. He did not approach you. But neither could he cast you out.

And so you cried until exhaustion overcame you. At last, your head slipped onto his lap.

That was the moment his final defenses collapsed. The hand that had only ever known the weight of a sword trembled as it reached, brushing through your silken hair.

His eyes closed, his chest heaving as though he fought a battle greater than any he had ever waged. And in a voice barely above a whisper, he confessed what should never be spoken:

"If only I had not loved you… If only I had truly been your father."