A week had passed since that day.
Vantias, holding a sack of red apples, walked through the bustling streets of the capital. The market was lively. Shopkeepers shouted to attract customers, their competition turning into chaos:
"Top-quality goods just arrived!"
"Potions for enhancing desire! Only one gold coin!"
Vantias flushed slightly at the last one. He lowered his gaze and quickened his pace. There was a trace of confusion and shame in his eyes—something that didn't quite fit with his simple soul.
He tried to shut out the noise around him and retreat into his thoughts. His mind quickly drifted to the recent events. Memories that weighed heavily on both him and his sister.
The first image that came to his mind was Sylphy's face.
He lowered his head. Sorrow was written all over his expression.
"Sylphy… ever since that incident, she hasn't even left her room. She won't speak to anyone. I don't know how long it'll take for her to come back to herself... I just wish there was something I could do…"
A cold wind blew through the corner of the street. Dry leaves twirled in the air, and the gray sky warned of impending rain.
"Looks like it's going to rain…"
At that moment, a playful little boy, about seven years old, suddenly bumped into him, and the sack slipped from Vantias's hand. A few apples rolled onto the ground.
Vantias didn't scowl. He simply bent down to gather the apples.
The boy's mother rushed over and grabbed her son:
"How many times do I have to tell you not to run like that?"
Then, glancing at Vantias with embarrassment, she said:
"I'm so sorry, sir. He gets a little too playful sometimes."
Vantias gave a warm smile and held out one of the apples to the child:
"Here you go, little one. This one's for you."
The boy took it happily.
"Thanks!"
His mother nodded with a grateful smile, then walked off with her son. Vantias watched them for a few moments. Something in his gaze broke. A nameless sorrow settled in his heart. A sorrow old and deeply rooted…
A love he had never experienced himself: the unconditional affection of a mother.
A drop touched his cheek.
He raised his hand to feel it. The rain had begun. He looked up at the sky. The cold, soft raindrops slid down his face. There was a kind of peace hidden in the chill, like a silent caress from the heavens.
As the rain grew heavier, people hurried toward shelter, but Vantias kept walking. He headed toward the familiar streets of the past...
After several minutes of walking through the narrow, wet alleys, he arrived at his destination: a neighborhood of old wooden houses, where the laughter of children still echoed.
Vantias stepped quietly, hiding himself from the children's eyes. He didn't want to be seen.
From behind a side alley, he spotted two children running and laughing in the rain. A faint smile appeared on his lips.
Ariana… and Arce…
Gazel's children—the man who was no longer of this world. The man whose death Vantias blamed on himself.
He stood in silence for a long time, watching the children play. There was nothing he could do. All he could do was be a witness to the pain that he himself was part of.
He slowly stepped back, ready to leave—but suddenly, the sound of footsteps behind him caught his attention.
He turned. A woman with brown eyes and black hair stood before him. Seria.
Gazel's widow.
She wore a black dress and carried a sack of bread in her hands. The joy that once shone in her face had been replaced by exhaustion and grief. Her eyes said everything without a word.
Vantias froze. The rain still poured down. The weight of Seria's gaze was heavier than the sky's downpour.
Vantias's eyes widened. In front of him stood Seria, drenched in rain, dressed in black, her stare stabbing at him like a thousand blades.
A silence hung between them. Vantias wanted to speak, but his mouth had gone dry. Words formed in his mind but failed to reach his lips.
Then, with a trembling voice, the first word escaped him:
"I'm so sor—"
TAP!
The sound of the slap echoed in the rainy air.
Before he could finish his sentence, Seria had raised her hand. The slap wasn't hard, but the wound it left was deeper than any sword's cut.
Vantias lowered his head. His cheek still stung, but the pain inside was far worse.
Seria, with eyes filled with tears and fury, softly—no, with a broken voice—said something that struck his soul like a hammer:
"It should've been you who died… not my husband."
Each word was an axe. Vantias felt the ground beneath him tremble. His body bent slightly forward. Breathing became difficult.
Seria stood there a moment longer. Perhaps waiting for a response, or maybe trying to gather her anger. Then, with a voice colder and harsher than the rain, she said:
"Never come near my children again."
And she left.
She took her children's hands, without offering Vantias so much as a final glance, and went inside. The wooden door closed with a sound that etched itself into Vantias's memory, like a seal marking the end of their encounter.
Vantias was left alone… in the rain-soaked alley, with a cheek burning from a slap and a heart torn apart by the words he'd heard.
Shame, sorrow, self-hatred, and a quiet fury rising from the depths of his heart… all burned within him. He stood there, motionless, under the rain.
And maybe—just maybe—the rain had come not to wash away guilt, but to press its weight deeper onto the heart of a man who had yet to forgive himself.
Each raindrop fell like a cold arrow upon Vantias's body. As if the sky itself had chosen to share his pain.
Every word Seria had uttered sat like a heavy stone on his shoulders—shoulders that could no longer bear even the simplest thought.
And every thought spinning in his mind was a silent, ruthless poison—eating away at him, burning his heart.
He wandered aimlessly through the now-empty alleys. The people had taken shelter in their homes, the children had stopped playing, and the sun… it had chosen to hide itself behind layers of gray.
Only the rain remained.
His feet eventually carried him to a place where he could find silence—or perhaps, his unspoken altar of repentance: the graveyard.
Where silence and rain became one.
Gravestones passed by one after another, until he reached the place that had shattered his heart… Gazel's grave.
There was only something simple carved into the stone. His name, date of birth, and date of death. No sign of the pain he had left behind. No mention of his courage. No word of his sacrifice.
Vantias knelt. The rain still fell. Its endless dripping now merged with his tears—though his tears, blending with the rain, were no longer distinguishable.
His lips trembled. He said nothing. What could he say? That he was sorry? That he never meant for it to happen? That he still woke up from nightmares of that day?
He had said all of it before—to himself. Yet none of it had lightened the weight on his heart.
He pressed his hand into the wet soil. Its coldness made him shiver. His gaze was fixed on the cold stone, but his mind burned with fire.
In his heart, he whispered:
"I'm still here… but he's not. And it's my fault."
No voice came from the sky. No forgiveness. No divine reply. Only the rain. Cold and indifferent.
Vantias remained among the graves, motionless, like a stone.
Perhaps the only thing that had let him live until now…
…was that he still had something left unfinished.