Chapter 132: The Yellow Desert Remembers

A wound reopened.

Malik found himself... atop a dune.

Before him, sand walking through the desert was a younger version of himself.

Safira trudged in front of young Malik, struggling to remain straight.

She was... the same as he once remembered.

No older or younger.

The two sand walked through the yellow desert together, Safira stumbling along every other step.

No doubt in the desert Malik was currently in.

...this was after Jasmine.

The thought lodged in his throat.

Yes, it was after Jasmine.

’After she...’

He couldn’t finish it.

Couldn’t string together the words that would complete that sentence.

But the world, indifferent to his suffering, could.

For time passed after Jasmine was taken.

Time passed after he had held his dying disciple in his arms and watched the black flower bloom in her eyes. After he had failed her and watched her become something else.

It passed, forcing young Malik to move on and escape the Abyss.

He couldn’t remain and cry for who had been taken too young.

Young Malik had to follow the world.

Otherwise, he would’ve been swallowed whole.

Even now, the memory played on, indifferent to his pain.

Safira was complaining about the Sand Walk, but his past self ignored most of it, offering only clipped responses and the occasional correction, trying his best to correct her form.

"This is dumb!"

"Yes, and that’s why you will die if you don’t figure it out."

Malik watched the exchange with a strange detachment, like he was observing two strangers rather than himself and the woman who would become one of the few people he trusted with his life.

She fell.

She cursed.

She got back up.

Again and again.

And his past self stood there, arms crossed, offering no comfort or encouragement beyond the bare minimum required to keep her moving forward.

’I was terrible at this.’

Even then, he was terrible.

But, despite that, Safira kept trying.

Yes, she stumbled, but she kept getting back up.

That was Safira.

That had always been Safira.

Hours passed in the span of heartbeats, a memory compressed.

The Sun shifted across the sky, then the night came, and with it, the cold.

Malik watched his past self hand over what seemed to be a set of Scrolls.

"Just in case you get lost."

He remembered the weight of them in his hands, the way Safira’s eyes had widened at the gesture.

She’d tried to refuse, perhaps thinking that accepting it would increase the chance of them separating, but he hadn’t let her.

He had known that he might not make it.

Not because he planned to fail, but because he’d learned long ago that the world didn’t care about plans.

And sure enough... a storm came.

Malik watched it roll across the desert, a wall of sand and wind that blotted out everything in its path.

It was a storm that killed.

Safira couldn’t keep up with the sand walk.

Thus, a sandworm erupted from the ground.

Safira screamed, and everything became chaos.

Young Malik told his disciple to go forth.

To not look back unless he called her.

He made it a game for the little one.

But it was nothing like a game.

Malik watched himself fight.

It was different from the outside.

When he’d been in the middle of it, everything had felt like instinct—move here, strike there, don’t think, just act. But watching it now, he could see the desperation underneath.

The way his past self’s movements were just a little too forced. The way his eyes kept darting towards Safira, checking, always checking.

’I was scared.’

His admission came quietly.

He had been scared, and no, not of the worms; he’d faced worse long before that day.

He was scared of what would happen if he couldn’t protect her.

After Jasmine, he had made himself a promise.

Not again.

Older Malik had broken that promise a hundred times since. But in that moment, standing in the yellow desert with his dagger burning in his hand, he had meant it.

The cycle began.

Kill the worms.

Run to Safira.

Push her forward.

Turn back.

Kill more worms.

Run again.

Older Malik watched himself grow slower with each repetition.

The cuts across his body accumulated. Blood spread further on his robes in darker patches.

His breathing turned ragged, his steps were less certain, and his flames became dimmer with every swing of the blade.

Still, he didn’t stop.

Failing here meant that he would have failed Jasmine twice.

He wasn’t ready for that.

Even now, he wasn’t ready.

The ending moment arrived.

He saw the edge of the storm.

Far in the distance, buildings rose from the sand.

Zephyr’s Ascension, the Abyss’s exit.

Older Malik saw Safira stumble across the threshold.

He saw his past self’s shoulders relax.

"She made it... I’ve done it."

Malik heard the words echo across the years, and something twisted in his chest.

It wasn’t done.

It was never done.

Because before his past self could follow her, before he could take that final step out of the desert, the sand erupted around him.

Chains.

Chains of sand wrapped around his ankle and yanked him to the ground.

He fell hard, his dagger spinning out of his grasp.

Then the storm parted, and figures emerged.

The Faraja.

Ten of them, their robes dark against the yellow sand, their faces hidden behind cloth wrappings that left only their eyes visible.

Malik watched his past self struggle to his knees, blood dripping from a dozen wounds, his eyes glassy with exhaustion and pain.

The lead figure stepped forward.

"Malik. You stand accused of grave transgressions against the laws that safeguard the sanctity of the Markaz and its Holy Kingdom."

Those words felt heavier than any of his wounds.

"By the decree of the Faraja, you are hereby bound to answer for your deeds. For murder most heinous. For the ruin of that which was not yours to lay to waste. For defying the will of the Divine Order itself."

Malik watched his past self’s face.

There was no fear there, no anger, either.

There was only a tired resignation.

He’d been expecting this.

Young Malik had known all along.

Bloodied and broken, surrounded by cloaked figures who had come to drag him away for the crime of killing the men who’d put Safira in a cage, he softly smiled.

Truly, the law was blind.

He had saved her, saved all of them...

And for that, the Faraja had come for him.

For the man who’d killed the men who’d built their fortunes on the suffering of the innocent.

Funny thing was...

"Who talked?"

Those very slaves he saved...

"The slaves you freed."

They were the ones who revealed his location.

’No good deed goes unpunished.’

Thump!

***

The memory began to fade, and Malik felt himself being pulled back to the present.

Back to the yellow desert where Safira flew beside him.

He looked at her.

At the woman who had been that girl in the cage.

At the disciple who had watched him fall again and again.

At the healer who had spent years trying to save people because he had once saved her.

She was still looking at the sand, searching for something she would never find.

’I’m right here.’

Malik revealed a very soft smile.

’I never left. I was always right here.’

But he didn’t say it.

He couldn’t.

So he just let her remember her teacher.

Because sometimes, that was all he could do.

Let them remember.