The man walked forward. Each of his steps were asured. Not from hesitation or fear but from respect.
And I could see he wasn’t looking at Dorian like he was so demon. He was looking at him as soone of his own. His eyes went to Dorian’s body which was now turning to half dark ashes and half evaporating into the air.
He reached Mariam’s side and stood there as Dorian started to stare at him. Stare at his broad shoulders and rough hands. The hands of a man who worked with them every single day.
Mariam gestured to him while still holding Dorian in her lap. "Father, this is Ryan. We married a year ago."
Dorian’s eyes stayed on the man.
"He is a blacksmith and runs a small forge at the edge of the village. He isn’t nobility. He doesn’t have a title or a crest or land or anything the world says should matter."
Then Mariam smiled and looked at Ryan with sothing that told everything without saying a word.
"But from the first day I t him, he never once made feel like I was missing anything. I grew up without parents. Without people to call my own except grandma. Without many friends. And there were nights when that emptiness was so loud it kept awake."
Her smile only widened as she kept looking at him. "But he made that silence disappear. Not by filling it with grand promises or expensive things. Just by being there. Every morning at the sa table. Every evening at the sa door. Every night holding my hand until I fell asleep."
Then she looked down at her lap. At her father. Carrying the sa smile.
"I never had a palace or a title like my family. But I never needed one. Because he made feel like a queen of the smallest, most beautiful kingdom in the world. A kingdom of two."
She placed a hand on her stomach. "And now three."
Dorian’s eyes were glistening. Whatever tears he had left weren’t red anymore. Weren’t black either. They were sothing in between. Sothing that belonged to neither the demon nor the man but to the father who was hearing for the first ti that his daughter had been loved.
After he composed himself from the revelation, from her words, from knowing about her child and about her love, he turned to Ryan.
"How much do you love my daughter?"
Ryan looked at Mariam first. Then answered. "Enough to listen when she is quiet. Enough to stay when she is difficult. Enough to be gentle with the parts of her she hides."
Dorian smiled at that. Then asked. "And if she hurts you?"
Ryan smiled faintly. "Then I will rember she is human. And humans can’t be perfect. And neither am I. I would rather grow beside her than love so flawless idea of her."
Dorian’s smile carried pride in it now. He turned to Mariam and said. "You really found a gem. I feel so happy right now that I can’t wait to tell Mirena about it."
Then the mont he said her na a realization hit him. His face fell and sadness crept back in. He looked at Ryan and said.
"Boy. Love her. But not the way I loved Mirena."
Ryan listened.
"I loved her like she was the only light in my darkness. And when that light went out I had nothing left to see by." His dissolving hand found Ryan’s wrist. "Don’t make her your only light. Be your own. And then stand beside hers. The two of you should always be two flas. So that if one flickers, the other keeps the room warm."
Ryan simply nodded. "I will. I swear it."
Dorian shook his head slightly. "Don’t swear it to . I will be dead in a minute. Swear it to her. Every day you wake up. That’s the only oath that matters."
His voice was getting weaker but the words refused to slow down.
"Don’t waste a single morning thinking there will be another one just as good. Don’t save words for later. Because later is a lie the world sells to people who are too scared to speak now."
Ryan nodded again. The depth of those words had clearly reached him.
Then Dorian’s eyes found soone else. The old woman had made her way toward them and was standing beside the group now.
"Big sis Emma."
The tears in her eyes told everything. Whether it was seeing him like this or knowing he still rembered her after all these years and so she asked. "You still rember ?"
He said with whatever strength was left in his voice. "How could I forget? How can soone forget their family? Especially the most strict one."
He tried to laugh.
"I still rember your scoldings. Those motherly threats you used to give . I still rember how you used to sneak desserts for and then chase across the estate when I did sothing you clearly told not to do."
He scanned her from head to toe and his face changed to sothing playful. "But you look terrible by the way. Forget about chasing , you can’t even walk without that stick."
He laughed at her.
Emma scolded him through her tears imdiately. "Forty years happened, you ungrateful brat!"
His mocking faded as sothing clicked behind his eyes. "I see. More than forty years since those days."
He looked around at everyone gathered. Every face was in tears. Every eye was watching him dissolve.
Then he said. "Before I go, sis. There is a confession I need to make."
Emma blinked through her tears.
"Rember the day you made your special honey cake for Lord Harren’s guests? The one you spent six hours preparing? The one you said would finally get the head chef to promote you?"
Emma’s grip on her stick tightened.
Dorian continued with an apologetic face that was barely hiding the grin underneath. "And rember how it vanished from the kitchen window where you left it to cool? And how you blad the stray cats? And how you spent the next two years putting up fences and traps around every window in that kitchen to protect your baking from what you called the most organised pack of thieves in the animal kingdom?"
Emma’s voice shifted from grief to suspicion at a speed that would make any mage jealous. "Dorian."
"It was ." He grinned through his dissolving face. "I ate the whole thing. In one sitting. Behind the stable. And I threw up twice. But I regret nothing because that was the greatest thing I had ever tasted in my life."
"I BUILT SEVENTEEN FENCES BECAUSE OF YOU!"
"And every single one of them was a masterpiece. You should have been a carpenter instead of a maid."
The two of them laughed. Mariam and Ryan couldn’t help but join in. And then Emma laughed through her tears too and said. "You haven’t changed a bit, Dorian. Lighting up the mood even when everything is dark."
Dorian’s laughter faded into sothing softer. "But thank you so much, big sis. I owe you a debt that a thousand lifetis couldn’t repay. You saved her. You raised her. You gave her everything I couldn’t."
Emma wiped her face and said. "She was really easy to raise. She got the best parents’ genes, I suppose."
Pride filled his dissolving features but then a sudden jolt of pain shot through what was left of his body. He knew it was almost over.
"Looks like it’s ti to bid farewell." His voice was fading like the rest of him. "But this was the best end I could have ever asked for."
He looked at each of them.
"Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Ryan. And thank you, my Mariam."
His chest was vanishing now. Crumbling into dark particles that floated upward and disappeared.
"Rember, I am just leaving this body. But my soul and Mirena’s soul will always be watching you from above. Always blessing you. Always praying for your happiness. So live as you want to live and give us the greatest show."
Mariam was crying openly now. Watching his head start to fade. His features blurring at the edges.
"I will."
Then what was left of his head turned to .
His dissolving hands ca together. Joined in front of his chest.
"I don’t know who you are, boy. I don’t know why you helped . Why you went to such lengths to pull back to my senses knowing very well what it could have done to you."
His voice was barely a whisper now.
"I have never seen soone like you. Standing fearless against death itself. Staring at it as if threatening it back. All while weaponless and powerless."
He smiled one last ti.
"And you broke a cage that I had been trapped in for years. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. Whoever you are, just rember..."
He raised his fading hand above my head. As if to bless .
"This hand will always be above your head. I can’t show with words alone what you did for . But the blessing of this man will always remain with you. Not just as protection."
His fingers dissolved into dark particles as the last of his voice reached my ears.
"But as a reminder. That you once changed the fate of a man."
Reviews
All reviews (0)