Chapter144: The Fast of Ashes and the Prostration of Loneliness
The Absolute Silence of a Shattered Soul
The night passed, giving way to a murky, misty morning, yet for Diyari, no light appeared on the horizon. Following the catastrophic defeat of the previous night, he made a decision more lethal than any spell or sword: the vow of "Absolute Silence." Diyari sat in the center of the courtyard, in the very spot where the mud and blood had intermingled. His back still burned from the black mark etched by his grandmother, but he did not utter even a faint groan. He had become a living portrait of agony—an image where a man burns fiercely on the inside while remaining as cold as ice on the outside.
Rina emerged from the room carrying the child, looking down at that lonely stranger in the courtyard. The sorcery had skewed her perception, making every movement of Diyari's appear as "mindlessness." She approached, her silvery eyes filled with that manufactured hatred planted by Diyari's grandmother (his mother's mother). With her shoes, she kicked a bit of the mud onto Diyari's hand, but he didn't even twitch an eyebrow. He simply stared at the ground, as if reading the history of every betrayal in the world within that dust and dirt.
Rina: (In a voice dripping with revulsion) "Why are you silent? Do you no longer have a tongue to spin your lies? Your grandmother is right; you are nothing but the remnant of an ugly man who cannot even defend his own dignity. Look at this child—look at his terrified eyes! He has become like this because of you, because of the curse you brought into this home. Why do you sit here like a soulless statue? Do you wish to kill us with this silence? You are ill-mannered because you won't even answer my questions! You are just a silent beggar waiting for your own death."
Inside, Diyari was weeping—a cry that tore through every nerve in his body. He wanted to scream, "Rina, I am silent for you! I am silent so that my grandmother's magic cannot twist my voice into something else in your ears!" But his lips were as if sewn shut with nails; they would not move. He only stared at the faint footprint Rina's shoe had left on his hand. Guilt coiled around his heart like a massive serpent: Was he truly the cause of all this misery? Had his one mistake become the price for this family's entire lifetime?
The child in Rina's arms began to wail with a depth that could melt stone. Diyari lifted his head and looked at his son. Seeing those pale cheeks and trembling lips was a thousand times more painful than the black mark searing his back. He felt his body turning to charcoal. The family treachery inflicted by his grandmother moved like a slow poison through every cell of his brain. In his heart, Diyari cried out: "Grandmother... you won the contest! You made Rina see me as a monster and made my child fear my shadow. But know this: this silence of mine contains a power that will one day burn all your spells to ashes."
Seeing that Diyari still offered no response, Rina's anger flared. She stepped forward and pushed him hard; Diyari fell onto his wounds against the hard ground, yet not a single word escaped his mouth. Only one clear, hot tear fell from his eye and mixed with the mud. That tear was not a sign of surrender; it was the mark of a man's scorched soul—a man called a beggar, ugly, and mindless in his own home, simply because he chose to remain loyal.
Diyari remained on the ground, staring at a sky that was as cold and merciless as his grandmother's eyes. He wanted to die; he wanted this nightmare to end. But he was a survivor who had decided to remain like a mountain within that silence until the end of this magic and betrayal. Though his heart had become a piece of charred meat, though his brain was on the verge of exploding from the pressure of the pain, he was Diyari—the man who tested the world's unfaithfulness with his own loyalty and, in that test, lost everything except for that broken heart that still beat for Rina.
Rina returned to the room in silence and shut the door. Only the distant sound of the child's crying remained, serving as a mournful soundtrack to the murderous loneliness in which Diyari was submerged. He stayed under the cold rain, as if he were becoming part of the very earth where all his dreams were buried
Wirtten by : Dlin_myth