Chapter 229: Bowed Heads

Words : 1060 Updated : Sep 25th, 2025

*** {End Of Volume Four: I Saw A Dream.} The title sat up there like a tombstone, and beneath it, every single head in Fam Iblis was bowed. Not just Safira. Not just Duban. Not just Faqir. Not just Layla. Not just Roya, Noor, Zafar, or even Huda and Crimson, who had just woken up only to sleep again. Not just Azeem, who was still somewhere outside. Everyone. Men, women, children. Soldiers with sand still on their boots. Scribes whose ink had dried mid-sentence. Nobles cloaked in silk and shame. Outcasts with burned faces and fractured names. Bastards born under no banners, carrying bloodlines they never asked for. Goldsmiths whose hands shaped coins for every kingdom. Blacksmiths with fire still clinging to their sleeves. Weavers who embroidered poems into tapestries. Monster tamers, falconers, sword dancers, and oud players. Farajah officers draped in iron and regret. Priests whose hands had seen too much dying. Water sellers with cracked lips and copper trays. Market criers whose voices had gone hoarse shouting prices the day before. Widows wrapped in mourning black. Scholars who could quote ten thousand sayings but had no words now. Children clutching wooden figures carved to look like heroes. Begging poets who once sang of Malik's downfall but now could only whisper his name. Gatekeepers who never let their guard down, only gifted the occasional coin on the side. Thieves who knew the price of everything and the worth of nothing. Street magicians with calloused fingers and illusions unforgotten. Courtesans who once danced for kings but now trembled with silence's weight. Merchants from the edge of the dunes. Nomads with bleached cloaks and sky-colored eyes. Salt traders from the East. Preachers who once spoke of fate with laughter but now kept their mouths shut. Templar... the Originists... the Twelvers... All of them. All of Fam Iblis. Heads lowered. Eyes down. As if the very air had turned sacred. As if they stood before a shrine built from pain. As if the entire world had just caught a glimpse of something it had no right to see. Something too holy. Too broken. Too real. They did not move. They did not dare. For this moment belonged not to them. It belonged to the man who had dreamed—and died—alone. This wasn't just grief. It wasn't just respect. It was reverence. Their Sultan had seen a dream. A dream that dug its nails into their souls and screamed to be remembered. But what hit them—what absolutely leveled them—was this one, terrible fact: They hadn't seen that dream. They didn't hear Rehan's laugh or taste the food Huda had poked with her tongue. They didn't sit by the fire. They didn't hold that fragile, beautiful dream Jasmine clutched to her chest. They didn't hear Yusuf's giggle, or Sinbad's radiance, or Faqir's tired sigh. They didn't get to. That dream didn't belong to them. It belonged to him. Him alone. And now? Now all they had was the aftermath. A man standing in the void, whispering to the dark. A man confessing to killing his friends just to save the last two candles still flickering in the wind. A man who gave his soul piece by piece until there was nothing left to give. And all they could do was stand there like statues. Their minds didn't even try to grasp the numbers. Quintillions? That was just syllables. Just noise. Their brains understood them as big. Too big. Too big to be real. Too big to matter. They were like stars in the sky. One could count them all day, but they'd never feel the cold of space. They couldn't comprehend what Malik had gone through. What the Stranger had survived. What their Sultan had endured. It was like trying to hug a storm. Like trying to cry for a ghost who never stopped dying. And so, their heads stayed low. Not because they were ashamed. But because anything else felt like blasphemy. The silence stretched so long it stopped feeling like a silence and started feeling like a prayer. Safira, too, didn't move. Didn't breathe too loud. Didn't blink too fast. She sat there on her knees, eyes burned dry, heart cracked open, vomiting filth. Her camp surrounded her, trying to protect her... untainted image, but they all could hear her chokes, gasps, and cries. Safira... she remembered. She remembered that moment. The scene that had never left her mind. The one that played over and over whenever she closed her eyes. Because she had seen reality. She hadn't seen the dream. No matter how badly she wanted to. She didn't get to see that version of him—the version who got to be happy. The version who saved them. She only got to see what he paid. And now, like the rest of them, all she could do was bow her head... And weep for the man who dreamed. *** I was so damn happy. So fucking happy. The war... It was won so fast. Tea—no, the Stranger led us. He led us to victory... to Nasir. It was incredible... absolutely insane. Impossible. Every word he spoke was monotone. It was almost condescending. But they were never wrong. I, the one who was supposed to know the future, couldn't even mimic a little of what he did. It was scary... 'Should I just kill myself?' But now... "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" IT DIDN'T MATTER. All of his astounding feats didn't matter. He... he had betrayed us. "STOP, PLEE—" Another had died. My family. My only family was dying by the second. Their cries echoed in my mind, never stopping. Their lives were extinguished before I realized it. It was sudden. Too sudden. One moment, I was standing beside my bannermen, watching whoever remained of our enemy run, while a few of them remained as stragglers, trying to form groups, as the rest of our army charged inside their stronghold. We had taken it. The war was over. There was word that the head of the enemy caliph, their leader, sat pierced through the Stranger's sword. But then, in the next moment... "WHA-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Their screams rang out. Not their roars, but their terrified screams. ...I made a mistake.

Chapter 229: Bowed Heads

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