It was the middle of the night when she knocked on his door. The new moon left everything in the darkness but she almost never listened to his warning about returning home before sunset when she was a little girl. It would be stupid to expect she would change after growing up. Lord Asriel didn't say a word as he looked at her. Words would be useless anyway. He just let her come in.
The room was lit only from the fireplace. White snow leopard held a pine marten protectively between her paws, licking his injuries. Stelmaria remembered what it was like. She still remembered the flick of gold, appearing and disappearing in what seemed like a split of a second.
Two humans were sitting in an armchair nearby, one small and one big. Lord Asriel was gingerly clutching his daughter, trying to calm her down, trying to hide blind rage building inside of him as he was looking at his daughter. She wasn't making any noise. Lyra was never the kind of girl, woman, who would cry. But he knew very well that she wanted to and that was enough to tear his heart apart. He smiled just a little bit through the pain and anger of a shattered heart as he realized just how much she changed him. No one else could. He turned around without hesitation when someone refused to bend to his will. He turned from countless women with no faces. He turned from Ruta Skadi and in the end, he even turned from Marisa. But Lyra was his daughter.
There was always only ice and the fire in him. Most of the time he was like an ice sculpture, but his insides burnt with wildfire and he showed it when in a fits of passion. When he was furious and when he was sad. When he loved. Countless women he tried to love so sincerely. That fire burnt them all.
He couldn't burn his daughter. Not Lyra. Never her.
So he had to learn how to control his fire because he couldn't bring himself to stay an icy statue. Not when he heard her first words and saw her first steps. Not when he watched her read her first book and climbed on her first rooftop. He saw her fall in love. Knowing that he will eventually have to let go. So she could grow up and have her own family.
And now he could just watch as somebody else burnt her.
The boy dared to die.
Will Parry was gone forever.
And Lord Asriel was the only one who could protect his daughter once again.
He almost felt guilty that under all that blind rage, he was also feeling relief, that nobody could hurt her now. Almost.