Chapter 83
His knees were nearly giving out, as if every memory of mistakes made—every night he chose silence, every morning he pretended innocence—pushed forward, demanding attention.
The tremor in his body was not merely leftover anger, but a reflection of a soul fractured between regret and fear.
He bowed his head, staring at the cold ground, where his own shadow wavered, unstable like his spirit.
In the silence, only heavy breaths escaped his lips, broken and ragged, like someone struggling to hold themselves together in front of others.
Shaqar did not dare lift his face.
He knew that a single glance toward Apathy would shatter the last defenses he had left.
Finally, his voice came, soft, unsteady, yet enough to pierce the quiet between them.
He did not attempt to form beautiful or firm sentences, for even his own thoughts were scattered, dragged by waves of suffocating memories.
His words came in fragments, interrupted by pauses, accompanied by the tremor of an inner struggle just to admit the truth.
He admitted that he did not know what to do—not how to rebuild a relationship long destroyed, not whether he was even worthy of trying.
In his eyes, the world seemed blurred, shrouded in layers of feelings difficult to articulate—shame, fear, and despair.
Every breath carried a bitter, suffocating weight, an immeasurable sense of loss.
Shaqar was not seeking justification, nor asking for forgiveness.
He simply stood there, trapped between the desire to atone and the belief that it was all too late.
Even when Apathy did not speak a single word, the silence became a mirror—reflecting a man who had lost everything because he never knew how to love properly.
And in the end, that was all that remained.
The trembling would not cease, accompanied by the faint whisper of a heart finally daring to admit fear—not of Apathy, not of the world, but of himself.
"I understand, you're still confused about where to start.
But believe me, if you wait for everything to be perfect, Miara may already be beyond help.
It doesn't need to be complicated.
Go to her, say you're sorry.
Now, before Zhulumat Katamtum calls us back.
When the mission comes, we cannot refuse.
And if you keep delaying, this burden of regret is what you will carry into battle."
Apathy observed Shaqar in near-suffocating silence.
The faint smile that appeared on his face was not a smile of victory, but something subtle—a mixture of fatigue and sorrow skillfully hidden behind the cunning in his gaze.
In his eyes, Shaqar appeared as ruins of a grand tower that once stood proudly.
Still upright, but hollow within, waiting for a small touch to collapse completely.
The night wind slipped between them, carrying the scent of iron, earth, and lingering memories.
Apathy knew that before him now stood a man no longer the great captain of Xirkushkartum, but a fragile Satanist haunted by the shadows of his own family.
He lifted his face slightly, still with the faint yet dangerous smile of someone who understood another's pain better than its owner.
Yet beneath that cunning was something far more sincere—a push to touch the long-dead Satanic side of Shaqar.
Apathy did not wish to humiliate, nor to judge.
He only saw a small opportunity, a glimmer of chance to compel Shaqar to act before guilt once again hardened into a stone weighing down his steps.
Then, in a light tone that belied the heaviness of the surrounding air, he spoke words that echoed sharply in Shaqar's mind.
'Perhaps, now is the time to apologize.'
Not tomorrow.
Not later.
But now, before the world offers another excuse to delay.
The words fell gently, yet shook the foundations of Shaqar's heart more than any exorcism rejection he had ever faced on the battlefield.
Apathy advised that he go—hurry to Miara and Absyumura's home, where his past awaited.
Not as a ghost, but as a chance to heal.
He mentioned time calmly, reminding that the Xirkushkartum Exorcism Team's mission would soon begin, and after that, there might be no room left for Shaqar to make amends.
The words sounded almost like a joke, yet bitter truth lay within, and Shaqar knew it.
He remained silent, as if having just received the final command from his own destiny.
'The will exists, Apathy.
The desire is real within me.
Yet eight days of travel have caused me to miss the most important moment.
My wife has been gone for eight days, and Miara had to endure that grief alone, even to bathe her mother.
On the ninth day, when I arrived, Miara's eyes, once warm, had become a sea of the coldest, stiffest hatred.'
Huuuusshh!
'I am no longer recognized.
How can I apologize for a sin that my heart cannot forgive?
Every attempt at reconciliation only deepens the wound and thickens my guilt.'
Inside Shaqar, something shifted.
Not just guilt, but a gentle tremor of the desire to change.
He nodded slightly, a small sign of a heart finally yielding to someone's good intentions.
But in an instant, that nod died in his throat, swallowed by waves of memories that surged mercilessly.
Miara's gaze flashed in his mind, so sharp, so full of hatred colder than death itself.
The look belonged not just to a disappointed child, but to someone who had lost faith in love itself.
In that moment, Shaqar realized no spell, no victory on any battlefield could heal the wound he planted in his own daughter's heart.
The memory dragged him back to the dark days after his wife's death.
A time when a home once warm became the quietest tomb, waiting for someone who never came.
Miara, with swollen yet brave eyes, stood by her mother's body, awaiting the presence of a father who always spoke of duty but forgot that family was part of that responsibility.
Eight days.
So long for a child to wait, so cruel for a husband to be absent from his wife's final grief.
And when Shaqar finally returned on the ninth day, his presence was no longer a light of redemption, but an unwelcome, foreign shadow.
He came with a body covered in battle dust, but a soul empty, unable to meet Miara's eyes that had lost their warmth.
Since that day, love in that home froze.
Miara no longer greeted him with a smile, no longer called him father, but saw him as something distant—a figure who only knew war, not love.
The walls between them grew tall, hard, and cold, carved by time and countless small betrayals.
Every time Shaqar tried to speak, his words bounced back, striking himself.
He wanted to explain, to apologize, but how could he explain an absence he could not even forgive in himself?
Behind Apathy's good intentions, behind the advice that seemed simple, Shaqar saw only a chasm.
A chasm separating his past from something no longer reachable.
To be continued…