Novel Full Chapter 452: I Know
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{Inside The Projection}
Malik sat on the cold dais of the Golden Throne.
Cross-legged, he had his eyes closed, his chest expanding and contracting.
The boring machinery of cultivation, a tethered mind that never once relented.
An effort not for power but for holding an internal wound closed with bare palms.
Yes, he shaped Aether around a single purpose: to resist the Corruption long enough for the day to come. Something that he’d done for all his time as Sultan, yet now was his sole focus.
He let the world compress to the sound of his body boiling, the Aether in him humming, and his Corruption ticking down, an hourglass ever fuller; his nightmare forcibly removed from his mind.
Time moved like coagulated blood.
In that blood, he found nothing but darkness.
Even Amal, his once pillar, couldn’t light his Path.
Rather, she… no, her image was the one darkening it.
This was the one thing worse than his usual pain.
A long, grinding sorrow of death claiming his soul.
He was so lost in it all that he didn’t even notice Sinbad’s arrival.
The owl didn’t fly into the hall, acting too careful, and waddled through instead.
Only minutes later, when Malik finally picked up on his presence, did he speak:
“Is… is it time?”
Oh, the words sounded rough.
They had been pulled through a throat that despised them.
For just a moment, Malik opened his eyes a fraction.
…He nodded ever so lightly.
That tiny movement meant the world was about to shift.
Sinbad looked down, feathers shaking worse than his voice.
“I understand. Do you…”
He hesitated, barely able to get the words out.
“Do you want me to bring her?”
Malik gave another nod, his eyes not opening this time.
His focus was fully back on the small, terrible contraption of his Will.
A few minutes passed as if they were a few thousand until eventually…
Tip… tap… tip…
Quiet footsteps arrived.
They were threaded with fear.
For a few long seconds, they paused by the gates before crossing the hall.
As the footsteps reached the foot of the Golden Throne’s stairs, Sinbad flew off with hesitant wings, knowing better than to stay while Malik talked with… her.
Layla.
She looked older now… grayer.
The world had sent her through its toughest battles.
She wore black, a mourning dress, her way of showing the state of their relationship.
“What…”
Layla looked up at Malik with an expression that tried and failed to be strong.
“What do you want, husband?”
Her purple eyes threw daggers at him.
“Have you finally decided to divorce me after ignoring me all these years? Did the Council finally make you decide on it?”
Malik kept his eyes shut.
“No.”
His breath didn’t break.
“I will not di— “
“Then why don’t you ever look at me, husband?”
She took a step closer, searching for any human response from this husk before her.
“Am I that ugly to you now?”
Malik’s lips didn’t move.
“Speak to me… isn’t that why you brought me here?”
Whatever sweetness she had was gone, replaced only by bitterness.
“Speak to me! Look at ME!”
Her demands fell on deaf ears.
Or so she first thought, as he eventually opened his mouth.
“I can’t see you…”
The sound he found was small…
“No.”
Strained by what had stacked against him for all this time.
“Not you.”
To him, his words were an explanation; to her, they thundered accusation.
Indeed, Malik couldn’t bear to see her Corrupted appearance once more; he wanted to die with the normal appearance of her in mind. But of course, Layla, not knowing that, took it so very wrong, worsening the tragedy further.
“So I’m really u-ugly to you now, is that it?”
Her face tightened.
“When was it? The day I got sick… was that when you stopped wanting me?”
Her hands shook, the long years of fragile mercies crashing into her.
“Did seeing me so sick make you change your mind about me?”
Malik shook his head, the movement the only thing that felt honest.
“My mind never changed and would never change about you.”
She held that for a breath, as if searching them for truth.
Then, in moments, anger climbed through her features, so incredibly pained.
“What is it, then? Tell me! You never tell me anything. Your own wife!”
She stepped closer, walking up the stairs until her eyes faced his closed ones.
“Will you believe anything I say?”
His question was its own accusation.
“W-well, not everything, but I can—”
“See.”
Malik cut her off with a hardness she’d spent years failing to read.
“Even now, when you try to change my mind, your truth is still there. You’ll never fully lie. You’ll never fully accept what I say without that doubt. Our marriage was fragile before; my actions only revealed the fragility.”
Everything about that sentence scraped open all her open wounds.
“So what did you call me for today?”
Layla’s breath came faster, her pain increasing.
“To make me angry? To scare me? To—”
Malik shook his head again, softer this time.
“I wanted to ask you something.”
She blinked at his words.
“Is there anything you want in this world that you don’t have? Anything at all? Besides a proper husband, of course.”
She looked at him weirdly, finding the suddenness of the question confusing, but didn’t pause to think much of it; her husband was always like that.
“Nothing… nothing really. I have all I want…”
The question surprised her enough that she returned to softness.
“You stopping your burning is enough for me, even if it’s way, way too late.”
“Is that no lie?”
There was an edge to his voice that made her shudder.
“Y-Yes. It’s not a lie.”
She sighed—a tired exhale that carried year after year’s worth of concessions.
“I have what I need and more. I never lacked that… not with you.”
He carefully studied her and sat with the answer until it settled.
“If that’s the case, then… you can leave.”
“…W-What?”
Layla froze, torn between disbelief and a familiar ache that had lived with her for all this time.
She, again, searched his face for something—regret, warmth, even anger would have been a thing to take—and, once more, found only the monotone husk he’d become.
A flicker of longing passed over her then; for a second, she looked like the girl who once believed in a future with him, before, just as quickly, the longing hardened into anger, and she turned away.
Her footsteps were a muted drum as she left the hall.
Layla couldn’t bear to see her husband like this anymore.
She couldn’t… she really couldn’t.
Silence settled once more as Malik returned to his loneliness.
Emotion seeped into him the same way water would find the tiniest crack.
Yeah, he was alone for a moment, truly alone, before suddenly…
Tip, tap, tip, tap.
Another set of footsteps arrived.
They came fast and were obviously confident.
Malik knew who they belonged to almost immediately.
Sweet, sweet, Dunya.
She appeared almost the same as the first day he’d met her.
A small, beautiful lady, mute in speech but loud in presence.
She carried that same smile folded into the corners of her face.
It was like the rest of her, something precious to be kept safe.
Without ceremony, she walked up the stairs and sat down by him.
She was close enough that her shoulder brushed his, even before she leaned.
For when she did, she was all but embracing him, nearly the entire right side of her warm body on his oh-so-cold one, her every gesture soft and unadorned.
Words could be clumsy and false, but not touch, never that, at least not to them.
Malik grew to be a quiet, touchy person, at least before his Blessing hollowed him out.
And Dunya, being unable to speak, naturally filled all his wants for ‘touch,’ allowing him to survive all these years with her warmth alone.
Her presence was a loop of small mercies, not fragile but strong; yes, she could not fix the world, but she could sit with him while it cracked, and that was enough.
“Hee…”
Her hands found his arm and squeezed once.
Their warmth anchored him to the present.
As did their words.
‘I will be here. You are not alone.’
Malik let his head tilt back against her, a surrender.
“…I know.”
He squeezed her delicate arm back.
“Thank you.”
Dunya smile became even brighter.
“Hee… ♪ hee, hee~… ♫”
What came next was too sad for the world.
“Hee… hee~… heeeeee… ♪”
A little sister singing her big brother to sleep.
“Heeeeee—ee~… ♪”