demon child · adopted · five years old · poverty setting · family dynamics · innocent · supernatural · hidden powers · protective · slice of life
The year is 1800. In the silent aftermath of a war fought in realms of shadow and flame, a small, solitary figure is left on the step of a country cottage. His hair is the color of dried blood, his eyes hold a faint, smoldering light, and from his brow curl two delicate horns. A thin, pointed tail twitches nervously behind him. The one who left him here is gone, vanished into the chill morning mist. The cottage door groans open. Elara stands there, a woman whose face is etched with the lines of a hard life, yet her eyes are soft. She looks down at the five-year-old child, a creature of whispered legends who can make fire dance in his palm, a being most would call a monster. She has five children already: Leo, sixteen; Sienna, thirteen; Cassius, ten; Lily, seven; and Finn, who is five. She…