"It has to be you?"
Sinbad hooted a noise like a laugh.
"What does that even an? That you are vaster than their forgiveness? Hm? Or smaller than their rcy?"
"It ans this."
Malik leaned forward at last.
"I have to protect this realm. : Their Sultan. No one else."
His fingers curled on the armrest.
"I won't allow so other man to take the fall for MY sins. MY COMPLACENCIES. I will NOT let soone else stitch their na into the wounds I MADE."
Sinbad looked down.
"But... but why? There has to be another way."
"There isn't. You should know that by now."
His little head snapped back up.
"That's not an answer!"
Malik let out a humorless chuckle.
"It's my only true answer."
"It... sounds selfish."
Sinbad sighed.
"Your convenience acting the part of nobility."
Malik shook his head.
"Sinbad, be honest… What else do I have? What else am I supposed to be?"
"...Elder Brother—"
He cut in, that question rhetorical.
"It's both. I have nothing else. Nearly everyone I claid as family is gone. No one can really understand ... the only one that did, I was forced to kill with my own hands. So this... this is all I have left. This is the only thing keeping my heart from stopping, the only reason my body still moves. I have to make the world a safe place for my Hope. They have to see as pure evil, hate , despise . They have to grow stronger trying to kill , forging themselves on that hatred—because that's the only way they'll be ready."
Sinbad's eyes narrowed.
"Ready for what? Your death?"
"Yes... for when I'm gone."
Malik nodded slowly.
"The mont I finally let go, let them take my head. When my Silent Requiem ends, and they co back, that's the only way. I cannot dirty that image of a perfect martyr with a second. And if soone else takes my place, they will break under the weight. I can't let that happen to Azeem. I can't let that happen to Layla. I will bear the ugliness so that their hands are clean when Fam Iblis actually needs them. Besides, Azeem's good; he'll be sure to lead them to and lead them well, for when our enemies... IT will co… our people will be ready."
Sinbad still didn't blink.
"You speak of sacrifice as if it were a currency. You put yourself up as the coin and then expect people to keep faith and spend it wisely. However, human hearts are complex and often irrational. They will not always beco what you intend simply because you offered them a martyr. They will fill with kindling for soone else's flas or turn to ash. So why... why assu the 'forging' will go the way you hope?"
Malik didn't either.
"Because I don't have a script for chance... I have this."
He pointed at himself...
"I am proof they can live through an atrocity and be reshaped."
His own heart.
"If they hate enough to want dead, they'll sharpen themselves to gain that right."
Sinbad's pink eyes narrowed further.
"That is monstrous logic; you truly are the greatest fool..."
Further than it'd ever been before his Elder Brother.
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions... you know that."
"It is a monstrous life."
Malik corrected with a shake of his head.
"And I've already been to Hell twice. I know the shape of monstrous; I know the taste. There is no saving . There is no changing this. I will stain my hands with the world's hatred... to create a future where they no longer need soone like . That IS 'why.'"
Sinbad's voice lost a sliver of its noble hauteur.
"You keep saying 'they' and 'them...' You say it as if you aren't included. You are their blood, their damnation, and their shield. You speak of being alone—yet you are the hub of so many lives. How is that alone? Solitude doesn't work as such; that is simply you self-burdening."
Malik's face didn't change.
"I'm alone because I've lived through the cost. The people who make choices without knowing what the price of a choice is… they will break when the ledger cos due. I can't allow their breaking to be the thing that kills their future."
Sinbad floated forward an inch.
"So you will be their sacrificial nucleus? You will be the crater into which everything collapses so they may build towers? Layla? Is this for them, or for your own accursed absolution?"
The ntion of Layla cracked sothing behind Malik's eyes.
"...Again, can't it be for both? For them, and for ? Why should everything be so damned singular?"
He looked at the far right corner of the hall, a world too unclean for a child.
"So yes... if I have to be a monster so my daughter grows into soone who won't need monsters, I'll accept that. And if I am the 'villain,' let the villain be obvious. And if I am the scapegoat, I will take the spear willingly."
Sinbad got even closer, nearly begging...
"I understand, but Azeem will lighten your burden—"
Only to be shut down by his Elder Brother.
"I don't ask for your pardon, Sinbad, nor for the understanding of those I hurt."
Even now, his voice had yet to stutter.
"I'm not after a lighter burden; no, I only ask for broader shoulders."
For a fraction of a breath, Sinbad's feathers fluffed in a gesture of sorrow.
"You ask for that and yet give no respite for yourself. That is what terrifies ."
Malik's fingers further gripped the armrest until his knuckles whitened.
"I might be their guardian, their Sultan, but I am nothing more than a miserable génocidaire who barely stands against his own madness and Corruption. I need others to be there to carry my torch... otherwise I'm afraid I'd finally Fall."
The owl cocked his head.
"Elder Brother... I will not flatter your monstrous poetics. You have chosen your role, and you intend to play it until the last curtain. If that is what you wish, then I will not be the voice that tells you otherwise."
Malik gave a breath that might have been a laugh or a broken little apology.
"Thank you," he said, which is to say, I accept.
Silence settled between them after that.
Though only for a little while, as Sinbad landed on Malik's lap and folded his wings.
"When you leave, Elder Brother, I will bury you."
He rekindled their promise.
"I will be the wing that closes your wound."
Malik nodded once more, his eyes empty.
"When the day cos... sing sothing other than grief."
With that, he closed his eyes and pictured Amal.
He pictured Layla's hands on his Hope's hair.
He pictured Azeem smiling in eting rooms.
He pictured all those he loved.
Everyone that he lost.
Then, and only then, he opened his eyes...
What faced him was only stillness.
One that still had more to say.
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