Chapter 189
Apathy lowered his triangular head, an odd gesture. With a head shaped like that, every bow seemed as though its sharp edges were bending before a sorrow far greater than itself.
"He intended to come, Miara. Again and again. But every single time, he canceled at the very last minute. Because he was afraid..."
Apathy paused, swallowing something that might have been a memory, perhaps grief, or perhaps the name of a commander he respected more than anyone else in this world.
"... He was afraid you wouldn't accept him. Afraid you would slam the door in his face. Afraid the last words he would ever hear from his daughter would be, 'I hate you, Father,' before he left forever."
Absyumura, who had remained silent all this time, gently clasped his wife's cold hand and nodded. His swollen eyes met Miara's, not with an apology, but with the offer of truth.
"Your father entrusted these letters to me long before the explosion happened, Miara. And he told me..."
Absyumura's voice trembled, yet he forced himself to continue, determined to finish what he had hidden for so long because he believed Shaqar knew what was best for his daughter.
"... He told me not to give them to you until the time was right. Until you were truly ready to hear them. And I think..."
He looked at his wife, who was still crying, still sobbing, still clutching those letters as though she were holding the scattered pieces of her father's body, pieces she would never truly receive because he had been blown apart into ashes and memories on the third floor of a castle whose reality was no longer the same.
"I don't think there could be a better time than now."
The first arc of Last Prayer has come to an end.
The second arc of Last Prayer begins.
The atmosphere inside the cramped living room grew even heavier, as though the room itself had run out of oxygen.
Not because the ventilation was poor, but because Miara's sobs had grown louder, louder in a way she no longer tried to conceal. She no longer forced them behind trembling lips that bit back her pain. Instead, they burst forth like floodwaters breaking through a dam she had spent years building with exhausted hands and a hardened heart.
Every sob sounded like something shattering, breaking apart over and over again. Beside her, Absyumura, with his rough yet warm fingers, gently rubbed his wife's trembling back as it rose and fell with relentless grief, whispering in a voice so gentle it resembled a burial shroud wrapping around a wound far too deep to be stitched closed.
"Stay strong, Miara. You're not alone. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
Yet those words, sincere as they were, felt like trying to hold back an ocean with a cracked teacup. Miara continued to sob, clutching the letters tightly against her chest, allowing the tears she had hidden within the darkest chamber of her heart to flow freely at last.
In one corner of the room stood Apathy. He was no longer seated in the moss-scented woven chair, for he felt that remaining seated at a time like this would have been an impropriety he could never forgive himself for. His triangular head remained slightly bowed, while the serrated edges lining its corners quivered faintly with something that might have been unease, or perhaps only the echo of a grief too immense for such a small room.
Apathy drew a breath, or at least that was what it sounded like from a chest whose composition no one could have guessed, a breath that escaped like wind slipping through the cracks of a dark, damp cave.
Then he took a single step backward with his ordinary legs, distancing himself from the whirlpool of sorrow engulfing the little family. He knew that his strange presence, so unusual, so defined by sharp angles and an unnatural head, might only become another burden in a room already overflowing with tears and regret.
"Miara... Absyumura," he said.
This time, his voice was no longer as calm and flat as it had been when he first knocked on the door.
A peculiar gentleness wrapped around every word, the gentleness of someone trying to comfort a trembling child caught in the heart of a storm.
"I don't think it's appropriate for me to stay here... not in the middle of a moment like this. I know this isn't my place. I also know that I'm nothing more than a stranger who arrived carrying news you never wished to hear. So, please allow me to take my leave for now."
He paused for a moment, lowering his triangular head even further until the serrated tips nearly touched his own chest, a gesture that, in the strange language of his body, might have meant respect, or perhaps shame, or perhaps both at once.
Before Absyumura could respond, before the husband who was still stroking his wife's back could even form the words, "There's no need to rush," or, "Thank you for coming," Apathy continued, his voice trembling ever so slightly.
It was not the trembling of fear, but the trembling of someone struggling to restrain something, something that might have been a grief he had no right to claim, yet felt nonetheless. He had stood beside Shaqar for far too long, had witnessed the old man weep inside his tent in the dead of night while holding a photograph of his daughter, who was no longer young.
"But I promise..."
He raised his ordinary hand, a hand with nothing remarkable about it beyond five intact fingers and an average-sized palm. It was the very same hand that had gently placed the stack of letters upon the table moments earlier, a tenderness he had never shown anyone throughout the many years he had served as a messenger who carried only news of death and never news of homecoming.
"I'll come back. Very soon. Not to bring more letters, not to deliver any news... just to spend some time talking with the two of you. With you, Absyumura, about what it feels like to remain strong while your wife falls apart. And with you, Miara, about your father, about the memories you never truly wanted to forget, even after saying that you hated him."
Then he smiled, or at least that was what seemed to appear upon the unusual corners of his mouth. It was a strange smile, one that no scripture had ever taught, yet somehow it felt utterly sincere, as genuine as rain falling upon land that had long been parched.
Absyumura lifted his face from beside Miara, whose cheeks remained wet with tears and whose eyes had swollen from endless crying. He looked at Apathy, at the creature with the triangular head and serrated edges on every corner, no longer with the suspicion he had felt when the door first opened, but with a warmth that silently conveyed understanding, gratitude, and the promise that he would remember this small act of kindness and wait for the day Apathy fulfilled his promise.
"We'll be waiting for you, Apathy. This home... this home has never turned away anyone who comes with empty hands and an honest heart," he said softly.
His voice was hoarse with exhaustion and sorrow, yet it remained clear, as clear as a cracked bell that could still ring despite its fractures.
To be continued...