Chapter 190
Miara, who until now could do nothing but sob with the letters pressed against her chest, slowly raised her head. The movement felt unbearably heavy, as though she were lifting a gravestone she was not yet ready to place upon her father's grave. Her eyes, reddened by tears, met Apathy's with an expression she could not name. Perhaps it was gratitude. Perhaps it was farewell. Or perhaps it was a promise that the next time this strange creature returned to her nameless home on the outskirts of that mapless town, she would greet him with a smile.
"See you again, Apathy," she whispered, her voice emerging like shattered glass still struggling to become a mirror.
The old wooden door closed behind Apathy without a loud sound, only the soft hiss of rusted hinges, like the long exhale of someone finally releasing something they could no longer hold inside.
On the doorstep, still carrying the scent of moss and damp earth, Apathy stood still for a moment, allowing the outside air to brush against his unusual triangular face. The air was no longer warm with tears or heavy with buried sorrow. Instead, it was cold, cold in a cleansing way, like water drawn from a well in the middle of the night that had never been touched by sunlight.
From inside the house, Miara's sobs could still be faintly heard, rising and falling like waves that refused to settle, accompanied by Absyumura's steady whispers, repeating the same words over and over, as though he were trying to reassure not only his wife, but also himself, that his presence alone was enough to mend wounds that could never truly be healed.
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
Apathy lowered his triangular head once again.
This time, it was not a gesture of respect, but something closer to a prayer, a prayer that did not know to whom it should be offered, for the Most Praised Great Sanse might have been asleep, or dead, or simply indifferent to the little messenger who had just left the nameless house on the outskirts of that mapless town. Then he moved his ordinary feet forward, one step, two steps, three steps, away from the doorway that gradually blurred beneath the light drizzle that had suddenly begun to fall from a sky that had never truly been clear.
The drizzle was neither heavy nor especially light. It was just enough to turn the ground beneath his feet muddy, just enough for the loose ceremonial uniform he wore to begin absorbing water, growing heavier with every passing moment.
Apathy kept walking, not toward any particular destination, but simply toward whatever lay before him, along an unnamed dirt path without pavement, past bushes growing wildly by the roadside and trees whose branches intertwined like the fingers of praying skeletons.
Inside his triangular head, a place that should have been filled with memories, strategies, reports, mission records, the names of the fallen, and the names of those who had survived without truly surviving, there was now only emptiness. It was a peculiar kind of emptiness, like a room whose furniture had been completely removed, leaving behind nothing but dust and the echoes of footsteps that no longer had a destination.
"What am I supposed to think about?" he whispered to himself.
His voice was swallowed by the drizzle and the gentle wind weaving through the trees. No answer returned to him. There was only the white noise of raindrops striking leaves, earth, and his increasingly soaked shoulders, as though nature itself were telling him there was nothing left to think about, that thinking would only make the burden heavier, that all he needed to do was keep walking, walking, walking until his legs grew weary, until the sky stopped crying, or until something, anything at all, filled the vast emptiness within his mind.
Every step Apathy took felt strangely weightless. They were not the footsteps of a messenger burdened with missions, deadlines, and objectives, but those of a little child lost in a crowded marketplace, unable to decide which way to turn because every alley looked the same, every face was unfamiliar, and every voice calling out belonged to someone else.
He passed an ancient tree whose roots stretched across the ground like severed veins. Without realizing it, his ordinary hand reached toward the side of his chest, where beneath his rain-soaked uniform, something still remained.
A single letter.
The final letter he had not given to Miara.
A letter written by Shaqar only hours before the explosion on the third floor of the castle, written in hurried yet orderly handwriting, with ink blurred by tears that had never been given the chance to dry.
"Don't give this to her if she isn't ready. Give it to her only after she has forgiven me. Or at least..."
Apathy remembered Shaqar's words with perfect clarity, far too clearly, like a scar that could never disappear no matter how many times the skin had been replaced.
"...At least after she has stopped hating my name long enough to hear my voice without closing her eyes."
Beneath the drizzle, which had grown even lighter yet refused to stop, Apathy stood motionless on the side of that nameless road, holding the final letter against his chest with cold, rain-soaked fingers. For the first time since becoming a messenger, he did not know where he was supposed to carry it, because its recipient might not yet be ready, and its bearer might simply be too exhausted to decide.
From somewhere in the distance, he heard a sound.
It was not the voice of a human, nor the cry of an animal, but something more like a long, low hum. It came from the east, from the direction where the remains of the exploded castle still released smoke invisible to ordinary eyes, yet unmistakable to beings like him, creatures with triangular heads whose serrated edges vibrated in response to frequencies no untrained ear could ever hear.
Apathy let out a breath, a breath that drifted into the cold air like a thin veil of mist, a breath that felt as though he were finally releasing something he had held onto for a very long time, despite never truly possessing it.
"Later," he murmured softly, to himself, to the distant hum, to the letter pressed against his chest, to the memory of Shaqar weeping inside his tent with his daughter's photograph resting on his lap, and to an entire world that had never been kind enough to let a father return home before his child stopped hating him.
"I'll think about it later. But for now... I just want to walk."
Twenty-three steps after passing the ancient tree with its sprawling roots, Apathy began to count.
Not because he intended to, but because inside his empty mind, counting was the only thing that remained, the only activity that required neither emotion, nor decisions, nor the courage to choose.
Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three. His left foot struck the muddy ground with a steady rhythm, like the heartbeat of someone who had no reason to keep living, yet continued all the same simply because that was what a heart had always done.
The drizzle had become even thinner, almost like mist suspended in the air, enough to make the fine hairs on Apathy's arms stand on end, enough for his loose ceremonial uniform to cling to his body like a rain-soaked burial shroud, yet not enough to turn the ground into anything muddier than it already was.
To be continued...