Chapter Text
The revolution brings healing waters, coolness over his head and back. The pounding headache and uncomfortable pressure in his heart lessens for a few months in the whirlwind of work to be done. Queens to crown, hundreds, if not thousands of old cases to revisit, pieces of his former life to gather and piece back together until it looks right again. It keeps Nahyuta busy, focused, and near-drowning in responsibilities new and old. He loves it. Apollo looks overwhelmed, but even though Nahyuta feels it deep down too, it’s more like a strange seed planted by someone other than himself. This is what he was meant to do, the fate laid out for him in confusing twists and turns by the Holy Mother as a test for her fervid disciple. Nahyuta believes—knows—that he’s up to the task. That doesn’t make it easy, though.
But Nahyuta was never one to complain. There was no use in his doing so when he could focus his energies on solving his problems. Even if he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel just yet, and knows he won’t for a long, long time, if ever, he picks away at the hard-packed dirt one morsel at a time. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel the pressure mounting once the nation began to settle into its brand-new routine. The moment he had time alone to properly meditate, he felt it. A tiny piece of guilt long-lost inside him along with everything else that wasn’t convenient for Ga’ran, everything that made him less than perfect. Apollo tells him it’s time to let himself relax, but Nahyuta knows that the moment he does, the sky will come crashing down on him and the rest of this world.
But he could never admit that. People wouldn’t take to Nahyuta admitting that he was the reincarnation of Atlas reborn as a Khura’inese monk, even in jest. He’s not certain anyone would understand that reference anyhow.
It’s lonely here.
He’s awake from before the sun is up till long after the sun has gone down. It’s a wonder he finds time to sleep at all, though whenever he finally lays his head against the pillow, his brain is too awake to desire sleep. It finds new things to worry about. New things he’ll need to do. New things he’d long since forgotten about and banished to the back of his mind.
There’s always something to atone for.
He’s read this phrase a few times before in his research. The syllables carefully spoken always come out in bits and pieces. Ca-tho-lic guilt. He didn’t understand it at first, this obsession with guilt and wrongness over goodness. The Holy Mother wasn’t so hard on her people, but she expected good things from them all. She expected the most out of him. Nahyuta knew that ever since he’d started studying the faith as a young child. She was watching him. She wanted him to do right. He repeated mantras, counting the repetitions on each prayer bead as he memorized every word and line down to its exact sound. Spiritual as he may be, Nahyuta would be embarrassed to admit the days and nights he spent in his father’s home, curled up in his bed, counting the beads over and over. He counted, she forgave. He counted, she looked out for him. He counted, and counted, and counted even when he no longer heard her voice guiding him. She was quiet after he became a prosecutor. Still, he counted and he prayed and meditated. She was looking for him to find his own way out of this labyrinth of nightmares and dead ends.
Only recently had he finally stumbled out, blinking against the light of the sun, too bright for eyes meant for a beast that crept through the darkness. After searching for the exit for so many years, Nahyuta suddenly craved the comfort of the trap. At least he knew who he was back then. What would Dhurke think of him now? Datz, Beh’leeb, Apollo, they all admire him. They smile when he’s around, loop their arm around his shoulder or the crook of his elbow, and drag him to breaks he doesn’t want to take. Amara and Rayfa look to him for advice. The judge praises his prosecution work, invites him to dinners with his family. Nahyuta doesn’t know what he did to deserve so many people’s trust.
But they’re the only ones who do.
The palace guards don’t let Nahyuta go out alone anymore. Not after the incident. That’s the only way anyone refers to it. Nobody liked to revisit what it was for, what it meant. No one wanted to admit that maybe he had a point. Amara could tell him it wasn’t his fault until she was blue in the face, until her calm façade slipped and she tried to rip those guilty threads out of his body by force. She could sense it even when he didn’t speak it. He begged her not to every time. He covered it up with smiles, smiles, and more smiles and reassurances that she was right, that it was a mere slip of his faith, both in himself and the Holy Mother.
There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think about it before he went to sleep and right when he woke up. Sometimes, it even came creeping in during court. Nahyuta would get the upper hand in his ever-brutal debates with Apollo, and then feel a sharp pain in his side. Surreptitiously, he would feel the scar, a ragged scab running along his belly that was still healing. The bumps and stitches felt like prayer beads. He’d recite the mantras in his head, his thoughts miles away from the courtroom, back in the bazaar.
He didn’t even see the man’s face, just felt the way he cradled the small of Nahyuta’s back with a forceful hand as he plunged a knife into his stomach and hissed, “This is for my brother.” The sharpness made bright spots form in his eyes and took his breath away. It was like a shock of electricity ripped through his body, each nerve lighting with pain. His fingers curled around the man’s shoulders as he gasped. A thousand years passed through the moment he was stabbed and the moment he finally shoved his attacker away. He registered screams, his hearing cutting back in halfway through shrieks from women, children, and men, the sound of feet trampling away from the scene, shouts for someone to come and help. He thought about the Divination Séance that Rayfa would have to perform if he died. He couldn’t bear to imagine it for long. Rayfa couldn’t lose another loved one.
Nahyuta would have died had Datz not been nearby. He was the one to fight off the attacker, and the one to press down on the cut across his stomach until they could get an ambulance. Datz vomited apologies that Nahyuta could barely hear. His entire body was buzzing, his mind fuzzy and faint. Datz tapped his face a few times to remind him to stay awake, then would sheepishly cringe at the bloody prints he left streaked across Nahyuta’s cheek. Although he didn’t hear much, he still remembers Datz pleading with him: “Stay with me, Yuty. Your dad’ll come back from the dead and drag me to the Twilight Realm himself if I let anything bad happen to you.”
For a moment, it sounded nice to see Dhurke again, but he had to admit it: he didn’t want to die. Not here, not like this. There were so many things he still had to do. He couldn’t abandon Apollo while they were fighting to fix this mess of a nation. He thought about his mother, about Rayfa, about everyone. The terror of death felt so distant. Only dull dread remained for all that would be left undone. All Nahyuta could slur out was “I’m so sorry.” Datz didn’t understand what he meant. Nahyuta never explained himself. All he got was empty reassurances that Nahyuta would be fine. He didn’t understand what it meant.
Nahyuta awoke in the hospital some time later, very alive but stitched up, surrounded by the tear-streaked faces of his loved ones. Even when he was awake, everything still felt distant, like a dream. Roaring voices of relief filled his ears, but they did not reach him. Instead, all he could think about, all he heard, was that sharp voice, whispered in his ear as intimately as a lover.
“This is for my brother.”
He turned over the words in his brain like a string of smooth prayer beads, counting each word down like it was its own mantra. This – is – for – my – bro – ther. When he asked for his real prayer beads, he counted the phrase, whispering it under his breath. The prosecutor’s office took no time in bringing him the case file of the attacker’s brother. Nahyuta sifted through the pages of meticulous notes he had himself jotted down over and over again while he recovered. The case was a tale as old as time in Khura’in: a supposed rebel accused of assassinating a judge who was notorious for passing down harsh sentences on Defiant Dragon members. And, just like all terrorists were, he was executed at Nahyuta’s recommendation. He couldn’t stop rereading the case notes like something, anything would change. But nothing ever did.
He didn’t remember the man. He barely even recalled the face. And Nahyuta felt an icy cold bloom spreading in his veins and chest, his heart tightening and his wound sending stabbing pains up and down his spine. To him, the man was just another filthy revolutionary, another martyr to be thrust into the Twilight Realm well before his time. All for Ga’ran. All to keep Khura’in “safe.” He melted into the sea of so many others arrested, dead, executed. But to his attacker, that man was his brother. That man was a son. A husband, maybe, or even a father. Somebody who mattered to the world. Somebody whose body had been thrown into an unmarked grave to be forgotten about by all except the Holy Mother.
And Nahyuta didn’t even remember him.
There was another time that week when Nahyuta had been dozing in and out in his hospital bed. Datz and Beh’leeb had come in while he drowsed, and slowly, he came back to the waking world as they spoke in hushed voices. He could barely make out what they were saying, but he heard just enough.
“What he did was wrong, very wrong,” came Beh’leeb’s soft-spoken voice. It soothed his aching head. “Killing Prosecutor Sahdmadhi won’t bring Ravindra back. Dhurke never wanted us to kill to save Khura’in, and he would never have permitted anyone to hurt his son, especially since he’s returned to the cause.”
“I feel a ‘but’ comin’, and I don’t like it,” Datz whispered back. Beh’leeb sighed, but she did not speak yet, so Datz continued, “Lemme guess… you understand it?”
There was a long, pregnant pause. “…I can’t say I don’t.” He heard the sound of rustling clothes, of her readjusting her hold on her infant. “Datz, please don’t think I believe he should die. He doesn’t deserve what happened to him, not one bit. He’s doing wonderful things, working to fix our broken system and to overturn as many Defiant Dragons’ cases as he can. But you can’t revive the dead.” Datz was silent. “And you know how many of us died at the hands of the law. Of course people are angry.”
“…yeah. I know.”
He’d heard enough. Nahyuta shifted uncomfortably in his bed as if he were just awaking, and the two were startled out of their conversations. On their faces came smiles, big smiles. Big, genuine, sincere smiles. Sincere smiles he could see right through. He’d perfected the craft himself. He could never fall for it anymore. His stomach was in turmoil, caught in a trap of anxiety that he could not escape. Waves of anxiousness hit him over and over, like he was pinned against a rocky cliff and the foaming, boiling surf. They laughed, they chatted, they prayed for his swift recovery.
Nahyuta smiled sincerely.
“…Prosecutor Sahdmadhi? Did you hear me?”
Nahyuta’s spirit comes back to the courtroom and he pulls his hand from his side like he’d touched a hot stove. He puts his hands behind his back to hide the jerky movement and smiles. “Apologies, Your Magistry. I was meditating on the results of our retrial. I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
The judge shakes his head. “Not at all, Prosecutor. Do you have any final thoughts before I hand down my verdict for Mr. Ur’gaid?”
Nahyuta’s gaze drifts to the stand. Ur’gaid stood stony-faced, watching the judge across from him. He never once looked away, whether at Nahyuta or at his own attorney. In the gallery, Ur’gaid’s family watched in anxious anticipation. Nahyuta recognizes the face of his boy, a young man who had been put on trial for murder just last year. Nahyuta had not prosecuted that case, but he remembers it distinctly. That was the beginning of the end here.
When Ahlbi notices his gaze, Nahyuta tears it away with a strange guilty feeling. For a moment, he and Apollo exchange glances, and his friend smiles. Nahyuta takes a deep breath, then shakes his head. “No, Your Magistry. I am satisfied with the work we have done today. The prosecution has no objections.”
“Excellent. Then I am ready to pass down my verdict. This court finds the defendant, Mr. Us’dabeh Ur’gaid, not guilty.”
The gallery erupts into cheers. Nahyuta is still not used to that reaction. He recalls the days, not so long ago, that the gallery would react with stunned silence or jeers at the prospect of a not guilty verdict for a rebel like Ur’gaid. The defendant sinks against the stand, bracing himself to avoid collapsing altogether. Nahyuta feels a weight off of his chest. He was holding his breath, and his heart throbs when he finally exhales. The gallery flows out of the courtroom. Nahyuta watches Apollo and the Ur’gaid family enter the defendant’s lobby, and gingerly pushes his way in.
It’s nice to see a family reunited. They rattle off praises for the Holy Mother—and for Apollo. Mr. Ur’gaid is a swarm of limbs and bodies all pressed against him, clutching him with desperation and worry that if they let go, he’ll be gone again. His heart thumps again in his chest. He was never a nervous person until recently. Now, every time he faces a defendant, especially one who’s just gotten their sentence overturned, he suddenly feels breathless, weak, nauseous. But he’s happy for them, so happy. This is what it was all for. This is what Nahyuta wanted for years. When the room takes notice of him, it goes dead silent. Nahyuta tries to smile, but it’s shaky.
“Don’t mind me,” he says. “I merely wanted to congratulate Mr. Ur’gaid. I cannot imagine the relief you all must feel at this moment to have him returned to you after all these years.”
“Nine years,” Us’dabeh specifies quietly. “Nearly ten now.”
“Yes. An incredibly long time… Mr. Ur’gaid, not that I think this remotely changes what was done, but…” Nahyuta takes a pamphlet from his coat and holds it out. Ur’gaid takes it reluctantly. “My family and I are working on a program to pay damages and provide support to those wronged by the legal system under Queen Ga’ran. Please look into this if you feel you could use it—although I know dwelling on this nightmare is far from ideal for anyone.” Silence again. Nahyuta continues uneasily, “I did also want to apologize for what our legal system did to you—and far too many others. It was cruel, and I hope that this wound will begin to heal—”
Ur’gaid leans in close. “Fuck. You.”
Nahyuta’s mouth hangs open. “I… pardon?”
“Mr. Ur’gaid…” Apollo warns.
“You’re nothing but a snake,” Ur’gaid hisses. “They claim they purged the allegiants to the old regime, but you get to stay? You, the ‘Last Rites Prosecutor’?” He scoffs. “That’s too kind of a title. You’re not the Last Rites Prosecutor, you’re the rebel killer and everyone knows it.”
That’s a name he hasn’t heard in a long, long time. Most were too afraid to breathe that name anywhere near Nahyuta. To do so would reveal their rebel sympathies. But it didn’t stop criminals he put away from screaming it at him in court or when he passed through the jails. Nahyuta had always ignored it. Ignored it because they were right. It didn’t do him any good to allow himself to think about it—or think about anything they said. He’d hollowed out his feelings and insides to make room for everything that Ga’ran desired. There was nothing to feel, no reason to further his despair. It was another needle out of the thousand that pricked his soul. Each pinhole bled and scabbed over and bled again when he started picking at them after Ga’ran’s arrest. He feels over his wound again. Thinks about the sensation of the scab getting caught under his nails when he tore it off. He wants to pull the stitches off thread by thread, let it bleed out until his suit is dark red.
There’s nothing to say. But still, his silence will be taken as a challenge, and he knows it. “…I know. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t bring back the dead.”
His family’s eyes all look in different directions now, wishing to be anywhere but here. When Nahyuta looks down, he sees tears welling up in Ahlbi’s eyes. “H- He’s a good man, Papa,” Ahlbi tries meekly. “Mr. Sahdmadhi is- is a Defiant Dr- Dragon! Dhurke—”
“I don’t care if he’s Dhurke’s son, or what Dhurke thought!” Ur’gaid snaps. “He’s dead now, dead because his son turned on us as soon as he got a whiff of power! Dhurke is dead because of him”—Ur’gaid jabs a pointed finger in Nahyuta’s direction, and he flinches—“so we can’t even ask him what he’d think of this now. You can’t tell me he’d be proud.”
“He would be!” Apollo shouts back. His voice comes like a boom of thunder. It could crack the walls if he tried. “I know Dhurke would be so proud of Nahyuta for finally escaping Ga’ran! He’d be so happy to see Nahyuta and I working together to right these wrongs. It’s all he ever wanted! He just wanted to see his child happy and like his old self again.”
“Apollo…” Nahyuta murmurs. “Please, don’t—”
Disgusted, Ur’gaid shakes his head. “Fuck this. I’m sick of looking at him.”
He spits at Nahyuta, and the saliva hits his cheek. The guards come to life, and in an instant, there’s a guard with a gun between Nahyuta and Ur’gaid. “You all, back away from Prosecutor Sahdmadhi, now!”
“L- Let’s take it easy!” Apollo shouts above the uproar. “Everyone, let’s relax, alright?!”
Nahyuta wipes the spit from his face. His dragon tattoo weeps and glistens under it. Ur’gaid and his family all back up. Nahyuta sees the resignation on the man’s face, like he expected this. Like he knew freedom couldn’t be real for him. That the state would find another stupid reason to arrest him. It makes him want to vomit.
“Enough,” Nahyuta says sternly. No one hears. “ENOUGH!”
Even Apollo is caught off-guard by his shout. Has he ever heard Nahyuta scream before, actually? It’s enough to shut everyone up, stunned into silence, all eyes on him again. Nahyuta looks to the guards, then to the Ur’gaids.
“You are overreacting,” he scolds the guards. “It isn’t polite, but Mr. Ur’gaid has not done anything criminal. I’m fine. We do not treat our citizens this way. Not anymore.”
The two guards look embarrassed, like little children scolded by their mother. “B- But, siiiir…”
“Mr. Ur’gaid, I apologize for their behavior. And mine. I do not think you can ever forgive me, and I do not expect you to, but do know that I truly am sorry.”
It’s impossible to read that man, but something about the look in his eyes almost makes it seem as though Ur’gaid is taken aback. His wife elbows him in his side. Ur’gaid sighs. “I… apologize for spitting on you. That doesn’t do us any good.”
Nahyuta raises a hand. “No need for an apology, Mr. Ur’gaid. You have… every right to be angry. Please, don’t dwell on this moment, and focus on the new life you’re about to begin as a free man.” Apollo shoots him an apologetic look, as if it’s his fault any of this happened. As if it isn’t Nahyuta’s fault. “I’ll be seeing you, Apollo. Congratulations.”
“Th- Thanks,” Apollo mumbles. Nahyuta tastes the sourness of the air and knows this happy moment has been irreparably ruined.
He escapes through the door, the heavy wood slamming against the frame as he shuts it behind him. Waves of anxiety roil inside him as sweat trickles down his forehead. He could blame the humidity, but he knows what it really is. When Nahyuta checks his right palm, the spit has dried flaky on his tattoo, and wipes it off on his pants. He looks again, and the tattoo looks a little blurrier.
He wishes he could have forgotten about it, about the attacker, his brother, the execution. Nahyuta keeps the case files with him at all times now. Not just those two, but all of them, even ones he did not prosecute. His living quarters at the palace are stacked floor to ceiling with boxes upon boxes of case files. The ones he’s actively working on dominate his office at work, but he’s pulled more and more files with each passing day until it started to feel as though he was becoming a hoarder. He starts out with just a database of names, lists that barely describe who these people were before they were executed. There’s more detail in the method they used than their crimes or who they were. He could never be satisfied with that, and so he began to pull case files to read over. To what end, Nahyuta admits only to himself that he has no reason to.
There’s no end of names on these execution lists. Nahyuta memorizes each one. He won’t forget them this time. He’ll find a case to put the name to, he’ll study the cases inside and out until he can recite each martyr and innocent like scripture. Another thing to count and recite on prayer beads, his measure of memory, a mnemonic that assures he won’t forget anything ever again. He’s starting to fall behind on his actual mantras by this point. Nahyuta makes up for it by doing a few extra rounds of mantra recitation. The Holy Mother knows he forgot about her. His humble servitude has fallen wayside to selfish, corporeal desires. He remembers the factoid oft-repeated among tourist bureaus: Khura’inese people spend an average of fifteen hours a day praying. He hasn’t prayed nearly enough, let alone meditated or kept up with his religious duties. Prayer beads aren’t enough. He’s a fool for thinking they could be.
“Jeez. It seems like you’re taking a lot more days off now, Nahyuta,” Apollo remarked over the phone. “You definitely deserve it after all the work you’ve done. Maybe I should take a day, too…”
“Nonsense. You’re perfectly healthy. Both my physical body and my spirit have been damaged. I cannot possibly rule Khura’in or give proper attention to my cases without rest.”
“…no rest for the weary, I guess.”
Nahyuta requested complete silence and alone time for this. He couldn’t stop the guards from standing outside his living quarters in case any wayward Defiant Dragons or peasants decided to try something funny, but as long as they were quiet, he could pretend they did not exist. He places himself at the altar he’s set for the Holy Mother, lit brightly by candles and incense, takes a deep breath, and clears his mind. He needs a day of prayer and meditation without work. This was the “work-life balance” Apollo was always complaining about, a complaint Nahyuta hadn’t understood until now. He would rectify that today. He couldn’t forsake the Holy Mother for the concerns of the material world any longer. The courts would have to wait. Khura’in would have to wait.
It was soothing to his burning soul, like a salve for his wound. While the stitched-up wound had burned when he first got into his position, the feeling of pain slowly melted away, and with it, the rest of reality. The inky blackness behind his eyes beckons, and Nahyuta sinks into it, becomes one with it. Before him, the visage of the Holy Mother, her face blank. He strains his eyes. He’s seen her face before, just once, too tempted to stop himself from catching a glimpse of her true face when the Founder’s Orb was finally returned to his family. If he squints, he swears he can make out her face, but as soon as he relaxes, it vanishes from her head without a trace. Another glance makes her face shift to someone he swears he recognizes, but he can’t place. Mannish, girlish, childish, memorable, forgettable.
Nahyuta places himself prostrate at her feet.
What will we do with you?
Whatever you see fit, O Holy Mother, Nahyuta whispers. His voice chokes in his throat. Did those words even make it out of his mouth?
Stand, Nahyuta.
His limbs feel like they’re weighed down by cement. He’s Atlas again, the heavens on his back, but to fail would be to disrespect Her Holiness. Nahyuta shakily pulls himself to his feet, and as he stretches up, his side alights with searing pain that makes his vision go dark, the Holy Mother vanishing into the shadow. His stomach is hot with blood, pouring from his reopened wound. His eyes prickle with tears as he reaches down to press on his wound. The weight is too much. He falls to his knees.
He understands the message loud and clear.
I am lost and helpless without you, he says, hoping that’s what she wants to hear, that she’ll reappear before him, that she’ll take this weight away, that his blood will dry up and be washed away by her presence. I have strayed, but I am still forever your humble servant, and I hope you see me as worthy of your mercy, although I am weighed down by sin…
Nothing. Nahyuta can’t stop his talking, words picking up frantically the more his own voice echoes back to him.
I know I will reach a deep level of Hell when I die. I look forward to purifying my soul through hard work and suffering, and hope that when I am reincarnated that I may rise above my sinful station through your eternal mercy—
Enough.
It’s barely perceptible, but he sees the swish of night-black garments before him. Nahyuta cranes his sore neck up, only to be met with a golden mask. Her necklace of red warbaa’d feathers burns like fire in his vision. Nahyuta’s jaw drops and quivers before he can recollect himself. He thumbs over the prayer beads around his neck.
Lady Kee’ra… I…
I said enough.
Nahyuta shuts his mouth. He wants to apologize, but to speak more would arouse her anger. Kee’ra raises a hand from beneath her robe. She offers him the warbaa’d dagger handle first, her hand carefully pinching the tip of the sharp blade. Nahyuta stares dumbly at her, looks to her for explanation.
Take it.
Nahyuta pulls one bloodied hand away from his side, and cautiously accepts the blade. The dagger feels heavy, and he grips it tightly, the handle slippery from his own blood. He can feel the weight of it, the souls that had been severed from their bodies with the blade in the name of Khura’in. He is not worthy of holding it. He still isn’t sure if he’s allowed to speak. His eyes ask the questions for him. The calm and peaceful expression of her mask twists in the shadow. Her smile looks cruel.
Go on, then, rebel killer.
It feels like she put her dagger through his heart. The warbaa’d dagger grows ever heavier until it brings both of his bloodied hands to the floor like a hundred-pound weight. He’s never felt so small. His willowy, bony limbs shorten. The string of prayer beads dips so far down his torso that they brush the floor. The warm flood of tears pours past his eyes and down his cheeks. Nahyuta stumbles to his feet, the dagger still too heavy for him to lift. The bangs brush over his eyes as he looks around his new surroundings.
Just a few feet beside him, Dhurke lays on the floor. Nahyuta screams for him, but no sound can escape him. He drags himself and the dagger to the unmoving body. He tries to drop the dagger, but he can’t. The blood, like glue, forces his skin to cling to the blade. Nahyuta throws the rest of his body against Dhurke and wails soundlessly, burying his face against the crook of his father’s neck.
I said go on, rebel killer.
When Nahyuta lifts his head, he finds the knife plunged deep into Dhurke’s heart. His limbs move mechanically as though they’re being puppeteered. His arms raise and yank the dagger out of Dhurke’s chest, the bleeding blade held high, before he swings his arms down again with as much might as a ten year-old can muster. The dull thump of the blade connecting with Dhurke’s chest makes the bile rise in Nahyuta’s throat and he chokes on it. It builds in his windpipe, then finally bursts out in a bloom of spirit butterflies that flutter into the darkness. They carve up the inside of his throat as they escape, and his vision blurs under tears. His entire body feels hot to the touch.
“…yuta—”
Nahyuta clamps his tiny hands, finally freed, around his neck. He crushes his own neck in a fruitless attempt to get the butterflies to stop. When they exit his mouth, they drop to the floor, dead.
“Nahyuta! Please!”
He comes to with the feeling of someone’s hands shaking his shoulders as hard as they can. He’s lying face down, crumpled on the floor, his entire body sore yet numb. The candles have toppled over and scorched the fine threads of his prayer rug, but someone must have put the fire out. Smoke curls off of it. Nahyuta watches it from his vantage point, his face smushed against the fabric. Splotches of red dot his surroundings, and when he sniffles, he feels the deluge of blood from his nostrils. He wipes his nose and confirms it; the fresh blood contrasts starkly with his albino skin. He’d be mesmerized by it if Amara hadn’t turned him over and pulled him into her arms.
Nahyuta rattles out a shaky breath, and Amara lets go, reluctant as she is. She cups his face frantically, wipes the blood from his nose with a pale hand, then kisses his forehead. “Nahyuta, my dear, what happened?” she asks. “I thought I should see how your meditation was going, and I saw you’d collapsed… poor thing, you must have bashed your face when you fell, too…”
He knows he shouldn’t, but Nahyuta draws back from her, pulling his limbs close. He doesn’t notice that he’s crying until now, but he feels the tears wetting his face, intermingling with the smeared blood, leaving dark red drops to drip onto his pants and the floor. He swings his gaze around the room; he and Amara are not alone. Behind her are the shadowy forms of palace guards—and in the very back, peeking in through the opened door, Rayfa. Their presence is suffocating, and he feels like a little kid again. He’s too visible like this.
Nahyuta wipes his face of tears, brushes as much of the half-crusted blood off of his skin as he can, takes a deep breath, and sits up straight. “I’m all right. I had a vision of the Holy Mother, and my spirit must have become overwhelmed by the blessing.” He smiles. Sincerely. “I am honored to have had a brief audience with Her Holiness.”
The looks on everyone’s faces tell him they don’t believe what he’s saying for a second. Amara’s look is the worst of all. The look of knowing, that look she always has. She’s like the panopticon; she always sees him, sees right through him like he’s the worst actor in the world. What use is it? He tries another approach.
Nahyuta leans in close to his mother, and he whispers, “Get them all out of here. Please.”
Amara doesn’t hesitate. She stands to her full height, and helps Nahyuta up after. She turns to her guards and smiles. “Nahyuta will be quite all right. Thank you all for your concern, but Nahyuta can clean up the mess on his own. You are dismissed.”
“Of course, Your Mercifulneeeess!” the guards cry, and shuffle out as uniformly as they can.
Amara approaches the door as Rayfa sidles up after the last guard has finally gotten out of her way. Amara casts a glance back to Nahyuta, and his eyes hit the floor. He hears her voice: “Rayfa, my little one, that includes you too.”
“What?! You’re sending me away? Like I’m some… some… commoner?” Rayfa complains. “He’s my—I’m the queen!”
“And a queen must know when the appropriate time for her to leave is,” Amara says coolly. “Go on, then. You can ask Nahyuta all about it later when he’s cleaned up. If you stay, you’ll have to help.”
That was enough to convince Rayfa to reluctantly slink away. He feels guilty, but this wasn’t the kind of thing she needed to be exposed to. He saw the fear and worry in her eyes, although she’d never openly admit that she cared about him. Amara shuts the door, and they’re finally alone together. Nahyuta feels shy beneath her gaze, and he begins to clean up. He cringes in pain every time he bends over to pluck up a knocked over candle and holder, but he doesn’t betray it to her. The tears have finally stopped now that he’s fully awake, and they dry on his face, leaving streak marks he catches in the mirror on his wall. His face looks like a horror scene with the blood smeared across his lip. As soon as he gets the candles up and all put out, he finds a rag to scrub his face of the gore.
Amara stays silent through this process, but he feels her eyes burning a hole in his back as he does. He catches her eye in the reflection. She looks sad. “Nahyuta, talk to me.” She speaks in a soft, soothing voice, one that you’d use to calm an animal or a crying infant. Nahyuta doesn’t turn to face her. He fixes his hair, brushing straying strands from his forehead. His hand drifts down to the prayer beads still faithfully laying over his neck. “Do you remember what happened?”
He takes a deep breath. “It’s as I said,” he replies with more coldness than he intends. He winces at his own voice. “I had a vision of the Holy Mother and became overwhelmed. It has been a while since I properly meditated. It’s only to be expected—”
“Do you honestly expect me to believe that, Nahyuta?”
Every time she says his name, it’s like nails digging into his skin. Before, it always sounded so gentle. She loved saying his name, like she could catch up with all the years that she couldn’t so much as breathe that name to anyone. It strips him bare. He’s naked underneath that knowing gaze.
Even with all the blood cleaned from his face, Nahyuta swears he can still see stray droplets. No amount of scrubbing rids his skin of the imprints. “You don’t have to believe anything if you don’t wish to, Mother. But it was an accident.” He pauses. “I know what it must have looked like…”
It’s his mother’s turn to look sheepish. She glides across the floor effortlessly and stands just behind him, placing her carefully manicured hands on his shoulders. “…I fear to admit that I thought someone might’ve killed you when I first saw you lying there. I don’t wish to make it true by speaking it.”
“I think you’re too late for that, then.”
She smiles sadly. Then it was gone. “I’m scared for you, my baby,” she murmurs. “I’m so scared that if I turn my back, something horrible will happen to you. I know you’re hurting deep down, and I don’t know why, but whatever it is, please—”
“That’s enough.” Her face falls in the mirror, and he has to look away. “Mother, please. I don’t know what I can do to convince any of you that I’m all right. I understand everyone’s worries for me, but I am not afraid. I am not hurt. I have work to do. The attack may have slowed me down for a while, but I will never stop.”
Nahyuta turns around to face her fully. He takes her hands in his with a smile. Sincere. “Please, don’t worry yourself unnecessarily for me any longer. I apologize for frightening you this way. I nearly frightened myself seeing my face when I woke up. I will rest this evening, and it will all be forgotten tomorrow.”
He expects her to smile back like she always does. She doesn’t. She just looks sad all over again. Amara gingerly pulls her hands from his and backs off from him. “…goodnight, Nahyuta.”
“I…” Nahyuta hesitates. She does too. For a moment, she looks hopeful. He dashes her hopes again. “I’m sorry. That’s… all I wanted to say. I’m so sorry. I’m…”
“Enough, my darling,” Amara coos. “What do you have to apologize for?”
Everything, he answers silently.
Chapter Text
Visitors aren’t allowed for her, but the guards could make an exception for their regent. They would not question his request, if only for fear of the consequences. Although Nahyuta and his family had undone many of the unjust laws Ga’ran had put in place, it would be a long time before people would live without fear of imprisonment or harm at the smallest provocation. Nahyuta’s only real condition was this: they must all keep this a secret. Amara and Rayfa did not need to know about his visit to Royal Penitentiary No. 4.
There was no room for visitation here, impossible to even reach the prison without a helicopter, and so Nahyuta and she were placed inside a guards’ break room, secured by as many guards as they could manage. She swirls a stirrer around her tea cup, although she’s mixed no sugar in. Her other arm is preoccupied with propping her face up casually. She lifts the stirrer out of the cup and sucks the droplets of tea from the plastic. Nahyuta notes how short and colorless her nails are now, the way her hair limply lays over her shoulders, greasy and thin.
Nahyuta clasps his hands together and rests them on the table. “I am truly grateful for your willingness to provide me with an audience, Ga’ran,” he starts with not even a hint of irony.
Ga’ran glowers at him. The lights in the room flicker dimly. Nahyuta’s gaze doesn’t waver for a second. A silence passes between them, one Nahyuta expects he’ll have to break, but before he can, Ga’ran does it for him. “I have nothing I wish to say to you. You’ve wasted your time coming here.”
It’s nothing he didn’t expect. Nahyuta has very little he can offer her now, and he knows it., but he’s far from one to give up so easily. He doesn’t let her think for a minute that he’s disappointed. “Whether you care to admit it or not, you must be curious about why I would come here.”
For a split second Ga’ran looks up from her nails and her tea, but she goes right back to ignoring him. “You need something from me,” she guesses. “There’s no other reason that the king would need to see a pitiable wretch like me.”
“Prince regent, Ga’ran,” Nahyuta corrects, “though I don’t feel as though it’s more than a civil servant role regardless. It’s no different from being a prosecutor.”
Ga’ran laughs. It cuts like steel through the air, suddenly the room feels like it’s ten degrees colder. “Your insistence on modesty will be the death of you one day, Nahyuta. I don’t take kindly to false humility.”
“…I don’t like to think about what my role means much,” he admits, “but I assure you that it’s not false humility. I…”
She grows bored, switching moods in the blink of an eye. She frowns and goes back to swirling her cooling tea. Nahyuta doesn’t bother to finish his sentence. He sighs and tries to find a new approach. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing here. Nahyuta was never one to make any decision without a plan, but something had been calling him to Ga’ran. He had not seen her since her trial, a quick and relatively painless affair despite everything. He expected he’d never have to see her again—or at least not for a long time. He didn’t want to. And yet he was here. He was seeking some answer from her, one Nahyuta hadn’t yet worked out.
“I heard that someone tried to kill you,” Ga’ran comments. She purses her lips, then grins. “I wish I could take credit for it.”
“Before I got out of surgery, they strongly suspected you were behind it at first—or that the attacker had been a Ga’ranist outraged by your imprisonment.”
She rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair. “You think I don’t know that? They interrogated me for hours until they dug up that old case. Turns out it really was a family affair, just not ours for once. I suppose you expect me to thank you for inadvertently saving me with your testimony.”
Nahyuta shakes his head. “Even if it had been you, I would’ve requested clemency.”
“No capital punishment for me? Oh, goody.” Lolling her head to the side, she studies him with a sharp eye. “And what of the real attacker?”
“The trial is coming up this week,” Nahyuta tells her, “and I am not the prosecutor. Despite my insistence otherwise, the chief prosecutor determined that I would be too biased to create a proper case.” He smiles. It isn’t sincere. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been the victim in a case. It’s…”
“Powerless, isn’t it?”
Nahyuta’s mouth forms a frown, lips pressed tight together. Moments later, he acquiesces with a nod. “Yes.”
“You’ve always been a victim, Nahyuta. Look at you.” She sweeps an open-palmed hand in his direction. “It’s the role you were meant for. No amount of time you spend playing king or prosecutor will change that.” Her voice coos with mock kindness, the kind of voice one uses to humor a child with impossible dreams. The very sound makes his skin crawl.
“I’ve never allowed the circumstances of my life to stop me from achieving the goals I’ve set for myself,” Nahyuta replies, bristling just the slightest bit at her provocation. He forces a smile that’s all teeth. “I have never considered myself a victim. I don’t even consider myself a victim in this case.”
“If you’re not, then who is?”
“Him.”
Ga’ran chews on that singular word. She looks vexed as she stirs the tea harder. She still hasn’t taken a single sip of it yet. “What,” she starts, “did I tell you about false humility, Nahyuta? Surely you don’t actually—”
“I’m still alive, and I’m still regent,” Nahyuta cuts in. “I can live my life as normal, albeit with more guards to watch me. He has no such choice. He may spend the rest of his days in prison… if the court does not decide to make him pay with his life.”
“Even if you aren’t prosecutor for his trial, it’ll be up to you,” she says. “The judge and the prosecution will bend to your will. Whatever the victim wishes, they shall make so.” She waves her hand with sardonic whimsy as if to grant the wish herself. “His life for yours. It’s a fair trade, is it not?”
Nahyuta hesitates. She snatches the hesitation out of the air like a hawk on a mouse and sinks her claws in. “Don’t tell me…” Ga’ran allows the sentence to go unfinished for one long moment of anticipation. “…that you feel sorry for the little wretch.” Nahyuta’s lips part; she disregards it. Her green eyes pierce his defenses, crack the porcelain of his outer shell as she worms her way inside. “No… it’s more than that, isn’t it?”
Every move Ga’ran makes is deliberate now, like each twitch of her fingers or breath or the blinks of her eyes mean something secretive, something Nahyuta is not privy to.
“You think that you deserved it,” she whispers, almost reverential. “And, I admit… I can’t disagree with you.”
What can he even say? He’s been exposed, his shell cracked open to leave the soft flesh inside ripe for devouring. His wound burns, and he cannot help but press a hand against it while another hand fondles the beads around his neck. He wore his best today, the string he only takes out for holidays and special occasions, a bead string of jade that matches his family’s eyes. The coolness of the gems absorb the heat of his fingers, and his injury burns a little less. But there comes the phrase that’s been pasted on his organs all over again, snaking around and strangling his stomach like a string of prayer flags: This is for my brother. The heat is gone from his body entirely then. He goes cold like a corpse, rigid and not yet bloated with rot.
Ga’ran leans back. “Tell me about the case,” she orders. "The one that caused your little mishap."
“What’s there to tell?” Nahyuta mumbles. “We thought he killed a judge. The Divination Séance placed him at the scene of the crime. No one was there to defend him, and so he was sentenced to death within half an hour.”
“Thought?” she echoes.
“We can’t prove he did it. Not without reasonable doubt.”
“The Séance said—”
“Haven’t we been shown that the Séances can be easily misinterpreted? We barely looked at the evidence. We led a lamb to slaughter without looking behind us first to ensure that we had the right one.” Nahyuta takes a breath. He’s speaking much faster than he’s accustomed to, but he can’t help it. The worlds tumble out with or without his input. “Anyone would be angry, knowing their loved one was killed for a crime they potentially did not commit. After the trial for my attacker, I intend to revisit the original crime as well.” He exhales, deflating as he studies the knots in the wooden table. “It is very little comfort, but if I could just exonerate him…”
“And what if you don’t?” Nahyuta looks up to meet her eyes, but finds she’s examining the dirt under her nails instead. “What will you do if you discover that that man really did kill that judge?”
He hadn’t entertained the thought at all. It had briefly passed through his mind as he turned the case over and over in his head, but he didn’t believe it could be possible. Nahyuta supposes he should now, but when he thinks about it, nothing changes inside. His ribcage still feels constricted. His wound still throbs. He still feels like something is burrowing inside his hollow body.
“…I don’t know.” His fist clutches a handful of the beads tightly. His palm grows clammy. “I… I don’t know.”
“You’d have no reason to feel as though you deserve it, and your ego would be preserved. Isn’t that what you want?”
“Does it really change much?” Nahyuta mutters. “It’s not… it’s not even about him. If he was guilty, it changes nothing. There are thousands of others who can take his spot.”
Ga’ran tilts her head with knitted brows. She kneads some of her hair between her two fingers. “How so?”
Nahyuta feels prickly all over. Each word is like agony, escaping bloodied and bruised from his mouth. “Even if one man is guilty, it doesn’t change that we’ve put away dozens—hundreds—thousands more that were potentially innocent of everything.”
She bursts into laughter, high, sharp, cruel. She laughs so hard she cries. Even when she stops, Nahyuta can still hear it ringing in his ears. “Nahyuta, when did you grow a conscience?”
It stung. It stung because Nahyuta knew she was right. Too little, too late.
He still remembers the first time he recommended death for a defendant. Another name he didn’t remember. What he never forgot was the way he felt afterwards, like he’d be sick if he ever had to speak again. The face etched into his brain was an older man, about his father’s age, with patchy scruff and a big black and yellow bruise that covered a whole quarter of his face around his left eye. Nahyuta knew there were more bruises under his clothes. Prisons, and prison officers, did not take well to rebels. He saw the look of hope, the tiniest glimmer, shimmering in his black eyes when the two had made eye contact. It started to dissipate when all that was returned was Nahyuta’s icy stare and blank face.
He remembers the way the defendant collapsed under his own weight when the verdict was handed down. His jaw hung open and he kept on staring at Nahyuta in disbelief. It was very quiet, too quiet for anyone to hear, but somehow, Nahyuta had caught it.
“No… no, Dhurke said… h- he was supposed to…”
Nahyuta didn’t bother to acknowledge the defendant as he was taken away. When he informed Ga’ran of the outcome of the trial, she laughed in that hateful way she was accustomed to whenever they were alone. She laughed, and she grinned, and she held Nahyuta’s chin in her hand. The sensation of her sharpened nails digging into his soft skin made his eye twitch. She stroked his chin oh-so affectionately, and said, “Why, Nahyuta, when did you become so cruel?”
It was too easy for him. He’d slipped into it with frightening ease. Ga’ran may have been the one to push him into it, but Nahyuta knew what hand he’d had in it himself. There was something in him, deep down, that was too happy to welcome cruelty into his heart.
And now, in a world where that cruelty could finally be undone, Nahyuta knew it would never be enough. His lip curls in disgust; he can’t help it. But it only makes Ga’ran’s smile all the wider. She thinks it’s for her. Nahyuta pushes himself up from his chair, his seat scraping against the floor with an ugly sound. Guards peer in from the window in the door curiously. Ga’ran cooly watches him from across the table, lifting the now-cold tea into her hands and sips, then waves at the guards sweetly.
“You can’t escape what you’ve done, Nahyuta. Don’t forget, you did it because you wanted to. If you really cared, you would’ve accepted your loss and gone to prison like a good little rebel. But the worm turned as soon as he saw a way out.”
“I did it for Rayfa,” he says.
“No. No, I don’t think you did.” Ga’ran narrows her eyes. “You love her, sure, of course you do. She’s your only sibling in the whole world, after all.” She bats her eyes at Nahyuta and pouts. The expression vanishes the next moment. “But you loved saving your own back more. You may have gone back to the rebels with your tail between your legs, but only when you saw they were winning again. You’re spineless. The same spineless little girl I saw years ago.”
“Are you finished?” Nahyuta hisses through gritted teeth.
Ga’ran smiles with the same cloying sweetness as before. “You look just like your mother.”
Nahyuta yanks the door, but it doesn’t budge. The warden fumbles with the keys, unlocks it, and pushes it open for him. “A- Are you all finished, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi? S- Satisfied with the visit?”
Nahyuta sidles past him. “Yes. Perfectly satisfied, thank you,” he says through teeth set on edge.
They arrived early at the courthouse. Nahyuta paces about the prosecution’s lobby while Apollo and Datz stand side by side, watching his movements. Apollo rubs the bracelet around his wrist; Nahyuta doesn’t wish to know what he’ll say.
“Gotta say,” Datz says first, before either Nahyuta or Apollo could, as he sweeps his gaze around the room, “this lobby is a looot nicer than the defendant’s lobby!”
“No kidding,” Apollo sighs. “This room actually looks like it was furnished this century.”
“Refurbishing the defendant’s lobby is low on the new government’s list of priorities, Apollo,” Nahyuta says breathlessly, like he’s been running a marathon. His cheeks feel hot when he notices it, and he stops pacing in order to take a few deep breaths. He rolls a prayer bead between his thumb and forefinger nervously. He should say something to show he isn’t nervous. “A- Are you prepared for the defense today? I know it will be difficult defending someone who…”
His voice trails off. Nahyuta’s mouth feels dry and gritty and he swallows with difficulty. Apollo finishes the thought for him. “Someone who’s guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt?” he suggests. Nahyuta nods, and Apollo sighs. “Yeah. It’s not easy, but he deserves a lawyer as much as anyone. I feel bad, but I know I have to put aside my personal feelings for this. If I don’t, then… well, Khura’in is back to square one, right?”
“Ee-yup,” Datz agrees. “And, hey, it’s important to get his side of the story, right? I mean, Yuty’s gonna be runnin’ the show whether he’s prosecutor or not, but we’re all about bein’ fair here.”
“Yeah.” Apollo crosses his arms and taps his forearms. “You sure you’re gonna be okay, Nahyuta?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You just seemed kind of nervous is all,” Apollo tries. He knew better than anyone to avoid acknowledging Nahyuta’s feelings, but it’d be idiotic to think Nahyuta wasn’t nervous at a time like this. He was. God damn it, he was. He certainly wasn’t nervous for the reasons everyone else believed, but it didn’t change that he was. “You don’t have to testify if you don’t want to. Nobody would blame you if you let the prosecution handle everything.”
“And don’t forget ol’ Datz!” Datz cries with a flash of two thumbs up and a bright grin. “You know I’m testifyin’ on your behalf too, Yuty! You don’t have to say anything if you don’t wanna.”
“…thank you, Datz, Apollo. But I’m all right. I think I’m more thrown off by the fact that this trial isn’t in my hands more than having to revisit what happened.” Nahyuta fingers the half-healed scar. “I’m not used to that.”
Apollo smiles back as he rubs the nape of his neck. “Yeahhh, I think I’d be all itchy if I was a victim and not the defense. Hopefully this case’ll be as painless as it can be… for you, at least.” He huffs miserably. “It’s gonna be really painful for me no matter what…” he mutters under his breath.
“Yes,” Nahyuta agrees, a little quieter than he intends. “I hope it will turn out all right.”
Apollo strides across the room to where Nahyuta stands, alone like an island, and grips his shoulders tightly. “You’re Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, and you’re fine!” he bellows.
Nahyuta stares at him. A smile creeps into the corners of his lips. He can’t tell whether he means it or not as he does it. “Thank you, Apollo.”
Apollo lets go of Nahyuta’s shoulders and steps out of his personal space. “Say it with me, alright? I’m Apollo Justice and I’m fine!” He raises his thick eyebrows, expectant, at Nahyuta.
“…I’m Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, and I’m fine,” Nahyuta repeats, in the same soft-spoken voice he always uses.
“Nah, I think it has to be louder than that, Yuty,” Datz says. He gets himself into a wide stance and beats his chest. “Like this. I’m Datz Are’bal and I’m fine!” The shout bounces off of the rafters and the glass. A guard peeks into the lobby from outside. Nahyuta waves him off.
“It’s fi—all right,” Nahyuta tells him, and when the door shuts again, he glances at Apollo. “I’d prefer to avoid any more commotion. The guards are on edge as it is.”
“What’s he lookin’ at you for, AJ? I got your Chords of Steel beat!”
“Well, it was my idea…” Apollo admits bashfully. “Look, Nahyuta, I really wanna stay, but I think I need to go see if there’s any last things I need to discuss with my client.” He hugs Nahyuta from the side. “Good luck.”
“You’re the one who needs luck. Certainly more than I do.”
“Well, still.”
“Actually, I wanna give this guy a talkin’ to too!” Datz remarks. “I’ll come with ya, AJ—iiif Yuty doesn’t mind, that is.”
Apollo looks queasy. “Uhhh, Datz, depending on what ‘talking to’ means—”
“I wouldn’t mind a little silence for a last-minute meditation session, actually,” Nahyuta says, like he didn’t hear a single word of what Apollo was saying.
“That’s the spirit! C’mon, AJ.”
Datz herds Apollo out of the lobby despite his protests, and when the guards outside shut the door, Nahyuta is finally alone, isolated in this room, a mini-palace of sorts. It does not set him at ease. But it’s the best he’s got for now. He finds a spot on the Persian rug, clean and rich in deep purples and red, to settle himself, then removes his prayer beads. Repeating mantras and taking whatever little time he has left for meditation is the thing he desperately needs now. He’s standing on a precipice, and whatever outcome there is, he knows he is not ready for it. All he can do is brace himself for getting pushed in by everyone he loves.
All of his typical mantras float away into the ether. When Nahyuta clears his mind, there is only one phrase left. The one he knew would stay behind for him. Nahyuta puts the first bead in his string between his fingers, lowers his head, and whispers, “This is for my brother.
“This is for my brother.
“This is for my brother.
“This is for…”
The beads slip along obediently. The mechanical movement soothes him, and his brain begins to drain out. The words cling to his skull like stubborn children clinging to a mother’s leg. Everything he learned of this case and the old one, every picture he examined dozens of times, each page in the case file that he poured over, looking for secrets in between the lines, each lead he followed on his own all melt into nothingness. Nahyuta doesn’t care for once. The beads move in a perfect rhythm over his fingers. He can picture the smooth jade beads even with his eyes closed.
“This is for my brother. This is for my brother. This is for my brother. This…”
The beads feel warm and slick.
“…is… for my brother.”
The beads look red, just like his usual set. They glisten and leave little droplets of red on his cream-colored suit. His hands are wet. The red overwhelms the pale, pale color of his skin.
“Th- This… is for my b- brother… this is for my brother, this is for my brother, this is fo- for my brother…”
Head after head after head after head after head after—
“Braid Head?”
Nahyuta jumps nearly out of his skin. The beads spill from his sweating grasp and collapse in a little pile on the floor. His eyes fly up towards Rayfa, who stands above him with her staff. She studies him with confusion and suspicion. “What are you doing?”
“…reciting my mantras before I am called to the witness stand, Rayfa.”
“Really?” Rayfa throws herself on the couch, casting her staff aside. As it begins to fall, Nahyuta catches it and holds it across his lap. “Because that doesn’t sound like any mantras I’ve ever heard.”
His breath catches in his throat, and he nearly chokes on the air. Still, aside from the ever-so-slight widening of his eyes, Nahyuta manages to keep his expression even. “What did you hear?” His mind catches up to him. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be watching the trial?”
Rayfa sighs and leans her face against her fist. “Well, there’s no Divination Séance because our victim is unfortunately still alive,” she teases, “so I’ve got nothing better to do. Mother wanted me to stay and watch, but she let me go when I said I was going to come see you.”
“I’m… sure she’s pleased to see you taking your sisterly duties seriously.”
“If that’s what she wants to call it, sure.” Rayfa sighs. “She’s really worried about you, you know. Worried about how hard it’ll be when you have to take the stand against that man.” She smirks at him in typical Rayfa fashion. “But I know you. You wouldn't be afraid of him. I told her that. She still thinks you might be scared.”
Nahyuta doesn’t reply. He isn’t scared, but he knows he isn’t exactly fine either. His distorted face sits limply in the reflection on Rayfa’s golden staff. He feels the coolness of the metal in his palms, sweat still clinging to them. When he checks to see if his dragon tattoo is still there, he sees the inky black tattoo clear as day, like he’d only gotten it hours before. There was no blood on his hands, either. He doesn’t notice Rayfa rise from the couch until she snatches her staff back from him.
“Hey! Listen to me, Braid Head!”
Rayfa studies him again, really studies him this time with slitted eyes and a childish pout. Nahyuta doesn’t know who or what to look at until his eyes find the prayer beads beside him. “…what’s going on with you?” she finally asks, wary. “Are you really scared? You can tell me if you are. I won’t tell.”
“You got me, Rayfa,” Nahyuta murmurs, deciding to throw her a bone. She didn’t often get a leg up on her brother. “I’ll admit it: I’m nervous about the trial.”
Rayfa uses her staff to lower herself to the floor. She sits cross-legged next to him, close enough that her right knee touches his left. “Why?”
It’s hard to find a reason that will sound right coming out of his mouth. Hard to find when he knows nothing he could say would make any sense to anyone outside of his skull. “I don’t know,” he says instead.
“It’s an open-and-shut case, right? I mean, there were dozens of witnesses. He confessed. We found that case and then we knew the motive. What’s there to be nervous about?”
She’s eyeing him with genuine curiosity. It wasn’t easy to see that side of her. She loathed to admit when she didn’t know something. She loathed even more to show the non-curated side of herself to him, though she was growing more comfortable with him after a few months of constant work. When he peered into those soft green eyes, he could see the glimmers of real concern. He hated to lie to her.
“I wish I knew, little one,” he sighs.
Rayfa’s eyebrow twitches and her brown skin flushes with a hint of red from embarrassment. “Little one?! I told you to quit calling me that!” She throws a fist at his chest, but it halfheartedly plunks off of him as her staff clangs to the floor. It’s enough to have his lips quirk upwards the slightest bit as he grabs her wrists.
“What did we talk about, little one?”
“Clearly you don’t remember what we talked about either, Braid Head!”
She thrashes against his hold, and he eventually lets her go. She punches his arm to get one good hit in, then huffs as she stuffs her hands into her lap. Rayfa’s gaze drifts towards the rosary that still lies limply on the carpet.
“…do we have another brother?”
Nahyuta’s mouth opens, brow furrowing. “No. Why?”
“You said something about a brother. ‘This is for my brother’…?”
“…ah. That.”
He almost thought he could escape having to explain himself. Still, he hesitates to answer, even with Rayfa’s eyes burning a hole into him. “I… Rayfa, listen… if I promise to tell you later, will you promise to let it go for today?” She frowns, and he places a hand on her shoulder. “They’ll call me any minute now to the witness stand. Hardly enough time to give you the explanation that you deserve.”
As if on cue, a guard opens the door. “The court is requesting your presence, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi,” he says.
There’s an endearing little twinkle in Rayfa’s eyes. “Maybe you do have powers like me and Mother,” she whispers conspiratorially to him.
“Yes, but don’t tell anyone,” he whispers back, then winks.
Time to face what he’s been dreading all this time.
Nahyuta stands before the court, hands gripping the wood of the witness stand tightly, white-knuckling it until he feels as though his skin will burst at the seams. Behind him, he can hear Rayfa moving to take her seat beside Amara. The jingles of Rayfa’s staff fill his ears, but the high metallic chime makes his teeth feel strange. Out of the corner of his eye, Nahyuta glances towards Apollo and the defendant. Apollo is watching him, the defendant isn’t. On the opposite side, a burly, bushy-bearded prosecutor whose name suddenly escapes him stands with his back straight as a board, eyes facing the wall directly ahead of him.
“Prosecutor Sahdmadhi, although the prosecution originally planned to call you as a witness,” the judge begins, “after hearing the testimonies and cross-examinations of Detective Skye and of Mr. Are’bal, I believe that I can pass down my judgment with full confidence. However, we did wish to give you a chance to speak before the trial is over. After all, it isn’t often that a man like you falls victim to such a heinous crime. Let me be the first to say that I am immensely relieved that you are well.”
Nahyuta takes a breath, unhooks his hands from the stand, and places them behind his back. He smiles. It is so, so, so sincere. “Thank you for your words of concern and kindness, Your Magistry. If the prosecution and defense also feel that my testimony will change nothing of the case, then I am happy to forgo prolonging this trial.”
There’s no point. There’s no point in any of this. They knew how it would end well before this case ever came to trial.
“And what does the defense counsel believe?”
But it doesn’t feel right.
“I…” Apollo’s voice wavers just the slightest. “I think we have said all that we possibly could, unfortunately, for or against my client.”
Is this the inevitable end of this case?
“The prosecution rests,” comes the booming voice of the prosecutor. “Let us not force Prosecutor Sahdmadhi to relive these horrific events if it isn’t necessary.”
The judge nods. “Then that settles it. I will now pass down my verdict—”
“Hold it!”
The voice comes out so sharp and high that it surprises even him. The voice crack is enough to make him flush red, but the eyes of every single person in the court on him worsens the feeling. Here he is again. Exposed. If one looked closely, they could see the red scar trailing along towards his navel, the eternal reminder of what had happened. The actual moment of the knife plunging into him feels like a dream. It warps into the vision of the warbaa’d dagger buried in Dhurke’s chest. It warps into his attacker’s brother with his neck placed on the chopping block, and warps into heads and heads and heads and heads and heads and
“P- Prosecutor Sahdmadhi? What’s the matter?”
Nahyuta looks around the room again. The prosecutor looks confused. Apollo mouths “What are you doing?” and, for the first time, the defendant is looking right at him. He looks resigned. When their eyes meet, the defendant looks away again, coldly, but there’s a hint of fear somewhere in his expression. Nahyuta can’t place it, but he knows it’s there. The judge’s eyes are searching for an explanation from him. Nahyuta reaches up to touch his prayer beads, but finds nothing but soft fabric and suddenly his heart sinks. He must have left them behind in the lobby. Groping for anything he can use for comfort, Nahyuta instead feels over the intricate design of his prosecutor’s badge.
“I recognize that the trial has run its course. However, I would still like to… provide some final thoughts about my attacker and what shall be done with him. Will the court lend me their ears and allow me this?”
The judge mulls it over, then nods. “Yes, of course, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi. Although, I admit I find it funny that even though you’re not the prosecution this time, you still manage to call the shots.” He smiles. Nahyuta doesn’t. Sincerely. “Like a true leader. Please, go on.”
“Thank you.” He feels nauseous, like the entire courtroom is swimming. The shimmering waters of the Pool of Souls starts to overflow and flood the marble floors. No one notices but him as the water pools around his shoes. “As many of you know, I have always been a fervid believer in the concept of ‘Let it go and move on.’ I still believe strongly in this, because holding onto negative feelings and things we cannot change rots our very souls. I do not like to cling to the past or to past wrongdoings someone may have done to me. My attacker made a terrible mistake that day. It was one I believe was not pre-planned, but a spur of the moment opportunity to find revenge for a loved one he believed was wronged by myself and by our court system years ago.
“And he is not wrong. Regardless of his brother’s true guilt, whether he was responsible for the slaying of a judge or not, there was no one to defend him that day in court, and he died for it. One can’t help but be troubled, knowing the possibility that we have brought many innocents to their deaths.” He swallows. “I am deeply ashamed of this knowledge. For this, I would like to apologize to my attacker for what hand I had in bringing harm to his family. What happened to Mr. Ravindra was evil, and I am sorry that Khura’in failed you, and failed so many others.”
A sea of murmurs rise from the gallery. The judge bangs his gavel. “Peace! Well said, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi. Your words never fail to stir me. Your empathy for the man who hurt you is truly admirable. Now—”
“I’m not finished.” A slight pause. “Your Magistry,” he adds tersely.
“Oh! M- My apologies, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi. Please, go on.”
Nahyuta hardly waits for the judge to finish speaking before he starts again. He begins talking on “go on,” stepping on those words like crushing someone’s toes beneath his boot. “The punishment is solely determined by Your Magistry, and I am aware of this, but I am also aware that I have great influence in this case with regards to how we deal with him. I beg of you, whatever decision you may make, please do not allow the thought of putting him to death even cross your mind. To take another brother, another father, son, uncle away from his family for the sake of a foolish mistake would prove that nothing has changed in our nation. We are above such things now.”
The water is knee-deep.
“However, our question then shall be what punishment is suitable for this man.” Nahyuta lowers his head as if in prayer. “It is my belief that, although he has done something terrible and hurtful, that he should go free from this court today.” He lifts his head, and stares directly in the eyes of the judge as he slams his fist onto the witness stand. “Allow him to return to his family! He has suffered enough already.”
The uproar is deafening. Even so, loud and clear, he hears Rayfa shouting “WHAT?!” in her high voice. Nahyuta doesn’t turn his neck, doesn’t move a muscle. The judge’s eyes are wide open, but then he remembers himself and bangs his gavel as many times as it takes to silence the gallery.
“Peace! Peace! I will have peace in this court! Prosecutor Sahdmadhi, what is the meaning of this?!”
“Nahyuta, I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but this…?” Apollo questions. “What are you trying to—”
“I know what I’m doing,” Nahyuta cuts in, voice quivering. “The court is welcome to believe that I’ve gone mad, but I know how I feel, and I know that this is the will of the Holy Mother. Has she not taught us to treat all with kindness and mercy? When did we stray so far from her vision of this great nation? Your Magistry—”
“I understand your feelings, and I respect them, but I cannot possibly allow a man who attempted to murder our prince regent to walk free!”
“Your Magistry, please—”
“I promise you that I will not sentence him to death, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi, and I will ensure that he is given a fair and proper treatment during his punishment, but I cannot promise you any more than that.”
“Pl- Please, I—”
“Prosecutor Sahdmadhi, I’m sorry. I truly am sorry that I cannot grant your request.” His voice sounds paternal, like a father gingerly chastising his child for foolishness. Nahyuta feels microscopic. “But Khura’in is a nation of laws, and we must apply them equally, even when we don’t want to. With all the evidence and testimonies, the verdict is clear. This court finds the defendant guilty.”
The water is up to his neck. Nahyuta grips his badge tightly in his hand. His body trembles like it’ll crumble into nothing at the slightest touch. He does something that catches even himself off-guard.
Nahyuta begins to cry.
A sob cracks the floor, and the Pool of Souls drains, leaving him cold and soaked through. One hand holds onto his prosecutor’s badge for dear life, the other he uses to hold himself tightly as the tears boil over and race down his face. A shuddering cry tears out of his throat, and Nahyuta has to let go of his badge to cover his mouth. He could have fallen to his knees if not for the witness stand he keeps himself propped up against. The stunned silence is louder than anything else he’s ever heard in his life.
Two hands brush his shoulders from behind. When he turns, his mother stands there, and Rayfa stands behind her, watching him with frightened eyes. Amara draws Nahyuta into her arms and holds him lightly, like he’d shatter if she held him any tighter. When she lets go, Amara lifts her hands and wipes the tears from his face.
“My little one, please…” She speaks in a hushed tone as if he was an infant. “Let it go and move on. He’s guilty, and he must be punished.”
“He tried to kill you,” Rayfa adds in a strained voice, like she herself is holding back tears. “Why do you want to show mercy to someone who tried to kill you?”
“Because no one else will,” he blurts out shakily.
Neither can disagree with him.
Nahyuta keeps the beads tightly in his fist, allowing them to tangle together carelessly. The beads bump against each other with a smooth clack, and the sound soothes him. When the defendant finally exits the court with two guards watching him on either side and Apollo trailing behind, Nahyuta stands up straighter with a shaky, shallow breath.
“Back up, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi, please,” one guard says with a hand outstretched to ease him back.
“Wait,” Nahyuta breathes.
“Sir…” Even the guards sound exasperated with him now.
Apollo weasels his way through the guards to stand by Nahyuta’s side. He squeezes Nahyuta’s arm. “Come on, Nahyuta. You’re fine, alright? We should get out of here.”
“N- No.” He jerks his arm away from Apollo. “I just want to give him the chance to say anything he must say to me before he goes to prison. That’s all. He deserves that, does he not?”
Nahyuta stands face to face with him. The attacker whose face he didn’t learn until well after the attack. He looked so normal. His pencil mustache, the beginnings of a beard growing around his jaw, and his tough but kind eyes made him look so familiar. He could’ve been anyone Nahyuta knew growing up among the Dragons. Maybe he was someone Nahyuta once knew. He had trouble recalling so many of their faces now.
His attacker studies him. The gaze burns him and his wound throbs with phantom pain. The man exhales slowly, softly. “…why?”
“...come again?”
“I just don’t understand you. I tried to kill you. I hate you, I hate your entire family—” His voice breaks off then. His eyes grow glossy. “I hate your guts. So why…?”
“Sir,” Nahyuta chokes out, “if I were in your place, I would have done the exact same.”
Chapter Text
“Come on, Yuty, have an apple!” Datz says with his signature grin, but his heart isn’t it, and he and Nahyuta both know it. Still, he offers a precisely peeled apple slice to Nahyuta, which is only stared at. “There ain’t no use in not eating. You’re gonna make yourself sicker that way.”
Nahyuta continues to knead the beads. They are warmed by his body heat until they’re unpleasant to touch. “I’m not hungry.”
“Well, when’s the last time you ate? Just because you’re not hungry doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat!” Datz drops onto the couch beside Nahyuta with a thump and throws his arm around Nahyuta’s shoulders. “Yuty, I know you. I’ve known you since were born, brother. You never liked eatin’ when you were upset, but you know you gotta at least take a few bites for your Uncle Datz.”
“I’ll eat later.”
Datz looks to Apollo for help, but he can only shrug from his desk. “Come on, Datz, just leave him be,” he says. “He’s had a rough day. We all have.”
“Well, being all misery guts about it isn’t going to help,” Datz replies, then bites into the peeled apple he’d been offering. “Today was a good day. We put the guy who wanted to kill Yuty away, aaaand he’s only getting twenty years to life!” He elbows Nahyuta’s side. Nahyuta pulls his body away from Datz silently. “Hey, think about it like this. If this happened during the Ga’ran regime, he would’ve already gotten his head chopped off!”
“Like his brother,” Nahyuta mutters.
“Oooh, I walked into that one.” Datz sighs, but it’s punctuated with a chuckle. “Sorry, Yuty. I’m no good at cheerin’ you up. You used to be a lot easier when you were little.”
“It’s all right. I don’t need it.”
Nahyuta untangles the bead string and drops the nest of beads from his fist. They dangle as he drapes them over his fingers as if to count them. This is for my brother flickers in his mind, but the sound of each word makes his stomach churn and his throat fill with vomit like an emetic, and he forces himself to swallow it back down. There’s nothing to count. Nothing to repeat. Every mantra sounds so useless when he knows none of it changes how he feels, changes anything about what’s happening. Nahyuta begins to tug on the beads, stretching the string between his hands.
“How could I be so stupid?” he whispers.
Datz turns, unsure that he actually heard Nahyuta speak at all. “What’s that…?”
“I’m such a fool. I honestly believed that if I prayed enough and fought for him in court that he would be able to go free. I thought I could change his fate.”
The silence hangs heavy on the three of them. Apollo looks so sad, but the look is wiped away and replaced with a gentle resolve as he stands from his desk to join the other two at the couch. He sits on the table just in front of them.
“I wanted to believe there was some way I could help him, too,” he admits softly. “I always want to believe in my clients. This one tested me in a way I never thought I would be… I guess that’s a pretty silly thing to assume. He didn’t seem so bad when I was talking to him. I almost…” Apollo swallows. “No. Never mind.”
Nahyuta looks up from the beads. “Almost what?”
“N- Never mind, honestly.”
Nahyuta knows what he wanted to say. He heard the same drifting, unwilling tones in Datz and Beh’leeb’s voices when he was in the hospital. He heard it in his dreams. He heard it in his own soul. He tugs on the strings a little harder. “You almost believed he was right,” he guesses.
A jolt of shock runs through Apollo. “No!” he protests at a near-earsplitting volume. “No, I—I would never think that, Nahyuta. I just mean…” He sighs and rubs his temples. “I just mean I almost started to feel bad for him. You get to know your client’s story, and he walked me through the exact reasoning he used when he saw you at the bazaar that day. I felt for him. Losing your loved one like that… but I told him then, and I tell you now: that doesn’t justify what he did at all. What he did was wrong, and he has to pay for that, regardless of what ‘good’ reasons he felt he had.”
“Dhurke would never have approved,” Datz adds. “He never wanted any of us to use violence to get even with Ga’ran or the state. Violence begets violence, y’know? If he was alive to see this guy… oh, man. I will say, though, he was a pacifist, but he would’ve given that guy his lumps.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted him to,” Nahyuta grumbles. “I feel ill thinking about what will become of that man while in prison.”
“…yeah…” Datz sighs. “Yeah, I know you and your family are doing an awesome job fixin’ up Khura’in, but gettin’ the corruption all flushed out of the legal system ‘n’ the prisons is gonna be tough.”
“And this is the legal system I continue to uphold.”
“What other choice is there?” Apollo asks. “We have to do it right, and the rest will follow. You can’t put out every fire at once. Rome wasn’t built in a day, y’know?”
Platitudes. Useless fucking platitudes. He knows they’re trying to help. Nahyuta knows they’re right. He knows he should just let it go and move on. But how is he supposed to? It’s miserable. It’s miserable knowing that there’s so much he can’t do anything about. He’s just one person, one little wretch given power that he should never have been anywhere near in the first place. What was Mother thinking? What was he thinking? No wonder he was so unpopular. He saw the dirty looks he got from people when he went out. He saw the gleam of sympathy in so many eyes for his attacker. Even in the eyes of people he knew and loved.
Nahyuta pulls the prayer beads as hard as he can without thinking, and the string finally snaps and the jade beads go flying in all different directions with a cacophony of clatters. He drops the broken string to the floor and buries his face in his hands with a choked whine as he curls into himself. Datz puts a hand on his back but luckily takes the hint when Nahyuta shakes him off.
“H- Hey, come on, Yuty, it’ll be okay,” Datz assures him in a gentle tone. Like he’s a kid. Like everyone does lately whenever he’s upset.
“Yeah. I know it’s hard right now, but… we care about you, and we’re doing this together, okay?” Apollo stands. “Here, I’ll pick up the beads, and I’ll help you put it back together later.”
Nahyuta hears the soft thunk of Apollo getting to his knees as he begins to pick up any stray beads he sees. Every sound feels so loud in his ears. Each anchor point with this world, the couch, his clothes, the floorboards make his skin crawl. Nahyuta wants to peel his skin off, letting it slough in a bloody pile to the floor as he crawls out of it and finally escapes. His nails dig into his scalp and he tastes the oily, coppery blood coating his mouth like paint. He wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to destroy something, but he can’t. He can’t make things worse for them. He can’t make himself bigger, can’t be seen or heard. They’ve all seen enough of him already.
He stands abruptly. Apollo and Datz watch him with wary eyes. He doesn’t know where he’s going or what he even wants to do now. He stands unevenly on a couple of stray beads that he kicks under the couch. Nahyuta feels overwhelmed with the knowledge that he has no idea what to do anymore. His hands curl into tight fists. Every part of him feels like he’s going to explode if he doesn’t do something, but he can’t. What is there to do anymore?
“It’s…” Nahyuta’s voice cracks on that one syllable in the most pathetic fashion. A lump forms in his throat, whether out of embarrassment or anguish, he isn’t sure. “It’s too far gone now.”
“What is?” Datz, or Apollo, whoever it is, perhaps even both of them, asks.
“Everything,” Nahyuta croaks. “I can’t… do this anymore. I hate being a prosecutor. I hate being regent. I hate being a monk, as if I could ever even consider myself a proper servant of the Holy Mother in the first place. What good have I done for Khura’in? What good have I done anyone?”
Apollo and Datz exchange glances. Apollo goes first as he stuffs the jade beads cradled in his hand into his vest pockets until they bulge. “You’re helping us overturn old cases! You’re providing a fair trial for new cases! You’re fixing the legal system, making reparations, and making sure the monarchy does something good for this country. You’re leading Khura’in when no one else can. How can you say you haven’t done anything good?!”
Nahyuta turns away. On the wall before him, he sees a portrait of Dhurke, the same old one, one of the only pictures of him left. It’s him and Nahyuta’s mother before he was born. When they were still happy. Nahyuta feels sick, but he can’t take his eyes off of it. He hardly notices the silence until his shoe accidentally bumps another bead.
“…at what cost?” he finally says. “We have to face it: it’s too little, too late.” Nahyuta finally manages to tear his eyes from Dhurke’s. He hugs himself again, a self-soothing gesture that never worked for him in the first place. “Think of all the people who have died because of the old regime. Because of me. Because I was too spineless to dare go against Ga’ran. And for what?”
“For Rayfa,” Apollo answers. “You were keeping her safe.”
“No. Inga and Ga’ran would never have done it. They loved her too much, even if Ga’ran was using her as collateral.”
Nahyuta searches Amara’s youthful face for traces of himself. He wants to think that that’s how he’d look if he was happier. The judge once remarked during a dinner, “You two have the same smile.” Nahyuta tried smiling in the mirror dozens of times afterwards, but he couldn’t replicate her smile.
You look just like your mother, comes Ga’ran’s voice in his head.
He wishes he did.
“I did it for myself,” he says coldly. “No matter what I try to tell myself, I know it’s true. I think I always have.”
“But that’s not you—”
“What do you know about me?” Nahyuta whips around to face Apollo, only to see Apollo’s crestfallen look. Nahyuta can’t bear to look at him, and his angry expression falters. “What does it matter anyway? Does her life and mine outweigh thousands of others’? Does it make it acceptable that I happily sent so many to their deaths for crimes they may have never committed? Does it change that I played pawn for Ga’ran for years? Is it all all right because now I feel sorry? Am I even sorry for that, or am I simply sorry for myself?”
Apollo cannot answer. No one can, not even Nahyuta. Datz looks so badly like he wants to say something, but he can’t find the words to. He hates the way they look at him, with so much sorrow, so much pity in their eyes. Don’t fucking look at me like that, his mind screams, but his lips stay shut tightly. He wants to tear the portrait of his parents to shreds until no sign of those happy eyes and faces exists anymore.
“…and everyone knows what I deserve. The assassination attempt made it clear.” Apollo goes pale. “He knew just as well as I that I deserved it. No—I deserved more than that. Even if I spend the rest of eternity in Bahlgilpo’kon, it will not make up for what I have done.” Nahyuta smiles. It is so fucking sincere. “And even you know it. Datz, even you understood where he was coming from. You and Beh’leeb talked it over, did you not?”
Datz’s jaw slackens, and his eyes flit around to everywhere that Nahyuta isn’t. “Nahyuta, please,” he starts. Nahyuta can’t remember the last time Datz ever used his actual name like that. “I- I didn’t know ya heard that, but listen… Beh’leeb and I weren’t saying you deserved it. You know we would never think that. We love you. You’re like my nephew, y’know? All she was sayin’—a- and I didn’t like that she was sayin’ it anyways!—was that—”
“That she understood,” Nahyuta finishes. “She understood exactly why someone like him would want to kill me.”
“…y- yeah, but… she doesn’t know what she’s sayin’, man—”
“I think she understands perfectly, Datz. And I feel the same as her. I understand why, too.”
“Just like how you said you’d have done the same thing,” Apollo mumbles, “wh- when you were talking to him earlier. Nahyuta, you can’t possibly think you really deserve to die.”
Nahyuta can’t bear to look at him. Apollo takes the silence as being the answer he didn’t want to hear. He exhales shakily, like he’s holding back tears. Nahyuta feels guilt pooling at the bottom of his stomach. He reaches for the prayer beads he should have known weren’t there, and suddenly, he has the urge to help Apollo pick them all up. With silent movements Nahyuta gets to his knees and wordlessly plucks the beads he finds up. Nahyuta doesn’t dare look up from Datz and Apollo’s shoes that are motionless before him. It’s another meaningful—and yet meaningless—silence, one that feels like it’s burrowing under Nahyuta’s skin like a parasite. His skin prickles with anticipation, but he keeps groping for beads, stuffing more and more into his pockets. When he’s found every one he sees as well as a few under the couch or furniture, Nahyuta stands and approaches Apollo.
Apollo silently offers his bunch of beads. Their fingers brush, and for a moment Nahyuta tears his eyes from the floor to meet Apollo’s. The whites of his eyes are reddish and glossy, and they remind Nahyuta of his red prayer beads at home. He misses them now. The jade feels so cold and hostile.
“I’m… I apologize,” Nahyuta offers limply.
Apollo says nothing in return, but then, he suddenly drags Nahyuta into a crushing hug. The contact surprises him. It’s like he was born starving for touch the way Nahyuta sinks into it, pathetic and desperate for it, even though his brain screams at him to shove Apollo away, to keep everyone at a distance to avoid his poison infecting them, too. But he lets himself have it just this once. Nahyuta wraps his hands around Apollo’s back awkwardly as if this was the first time he’d ever hugged someone before. From behind Datz joins in, leaving Nahyuta sandwiched between the two.
“I’m sorry,” Nahyuta repeats.
“Don’t apologize, Yuty,” Datz murmurs.
“But how can I fix this? How can I fix everything?”
“Just keep trying,” Apollo says, muffled by Nahyuta’s coat. “Please, don’t give up. Very few other people would bother to put in even a tenth of the work you’ve done. The fact you’re even trying to make things right to the level you are proves you’re a good person.”
“No,” Nahyuta breathes.
“AJ’s right. I’ve never seen anybody care as much as you do. The only reason I’m not scared of Khura’in goin’ back to the old ways is because of you. I know we’re in good hands with you at the helm. I know a lotta people are gonna get the justice they deserved, and it’s all ‘cause of you.”
“St- Stop…”
Nahyuta suddenly feels crushed between the two of them. The panic rises in his chest, and he starts to push back against Apollo. He gets the hint, and releases Nahyuta. Datz is slower on the uptake, but eventually, he lets go, too. Nahyuta holds his hands close to his chest as he backs away from the both of them, towards the front door of the office.
“You don’t understand,” he pants.
Apollo frowns. “I… guess we don’t, yeah. I’ll never know what it’s like to feel the way you do right now—”
“But so what?!” Datz exclaims. “Yuty, no one can tell you how to feel, but we love you! So many people in this country love you because of everything you’re doing for us. Not everyone is gonna forgive you, but so what? They’re allowed to, and you’re allowed to keep on livin’, and keep on fightin’ the good fight! You can’t make everyone forgive you, and you can’t hate yourself forever for it, y’know? Who does that help? Is it gonna make their spirits feel any better if you’re miserable?”
They don’t get it. The words are kind, but they stick in his ribcage like pins until his chest aches and tingles with each breath. If it was that easy, Nahyuta would have found a way to lighten his load, to leave his guilt in the past. But nothing ever was that easy, was it? Nahyuta wants to chalk it up to a test from the Holy Mother, but if it was, then he was certain to fail. He was still trapped in the labyrinth. He was a fool for ever thinking he’d get out.
It occurs to him that he hasn’t answered any of Datz’s questions, but there’s nothing he wishes to say. Nahyuta silently reaches for the doorknob, but as he does, Datz narrows the gap between them and places a hand on his shoulder with a serious look.
“Nahyuta. Promise me you’re not gonna do anything stupid.”
Is that what he’s worried about…? Nahyuta wets his lips and tries to swallow, but his throat feels dry. “I don’t plan on it, Datz.”
Datz nods, and his eyes soften. “Okay, good. ‘Cause I was serious when I told you that Dhurke was gonna haunt my ass if anything happened to you.” He smiles, but Nahyuta doesn’t have the energy to even pretend. “You know, you remind me so much of Dhurke sometimes. The more time passes, the more I know you’re your father’s son.”
…him? Like Dhurke? It was impossible. Nahyuta didn’t see a single thing that he and his father had in common. Nahyuta didn’t look like him. Nahyuta didn’t act like him. Nahyuta didn’t have a shred of the same courage that Dhurke did. The thought was nice, but no. It was useless to try and compare them.
Datz seems to know what he was thinking, and he grins. “I know you’re probably thinkin’ I’m crazy, but it’s true. You and your dad, you’re both so intense about justice. I know you hadn’t seen him in a long time before he died, so maybe you don’t remember. He was constantly worried about doin’ the right thing. He was scared of hurting people and he agonized over it whenever he accidentally did. Shit, he agonized over havin’ to send you to that monastery when it wasn’t safe to keep you ‘n’ AJ around anymore even though he knew it was the right thing to do. Stuff like that crushed him.”
“I… hardly think that compares,” Nahyuta objects. “Datz, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but—”
“Nahyuta, stop.” Nahyuta shuts his mouth with dumbfounded surprise. The sharpness that crept into Datz’s voice came out of nowhere. It wasn’t often he ever saw the man that serious. "You don’t have to agree, but I swear, you’re just like him. Before you go, lemme tell you a story.”
Datz sits on the back of the couch. He fidgets with his knife like he needs something to focus on. “So, this was way back in the day—back when you were, what, nine or ten? You remember how bad it was for the Dragons back then, right? How they took your mom and sister?”
Nahyuta feels like he’s choking on sand. He nods.
“Yeah. This was after Dhurke had to send you away so you wouldn’t get hurt in case Ga’ran came back to get revenge. Who knew whether she just wanted Amara and the baby or if she wanted to wipe you ‘n’ Dhurke out, too, ya know? So, Dhurke, me, ‘n’ some other members of the group decided to try and strike back at Ga’ran because there was a huge uptick in arrests and killings among the Dragons. Well, there was this family that we thought were sympathetic to the cause. I don’t even remember how the hell we figured it out, but turned out that someone among ‘em was rattin’ us out. It always felt like Ga’ran knew exactly what we were doin’ and when. We had spies in our midst. We knew it after they took Amara, but we started trying to plug all these holes.
“Dhurke was so beside himself in those days. His wife, his children were taken away from him. He was angry, and he knew we had to make sure we didn’t have any more spies or else the movement would really be over. So we thought we figured out who it was. He was a real nervous guy, this one. Fidgety. Weird. Something was real off with him. We were so sure it was him…”
Datz’s voice trails off and he frowns. He shifts, uneasy and ashamed, and decides to stand and pace, holding his elbows and casually strolling along as if he could convince himself that nothing was the matter. “We were wrong, Yuta. And not only that…” He stops in front of the portrait of Dhurke and Amara. “That was far from the only time we were wrong.”
Nahyuta’s jaw clenches and quivers. Apollo stares in awe and horror and his chest heaves in big gulps for air. Datz turns back to face them both. His eyes look so distant, like he’s trapped in distant memories. “It tore Dhurke apart. It ate him up inside. It’s why he became such a damn pacifist by the end of everything. He couldn’t bear the thought that we might’a sent someone who didn’t do anything wrong to their death because we thought wrong. But there were a lot of times where innocents were the collateral damage. How can you avoid it? That’s the nature of a revolution, whether we like it or not.” He sighs slow, savoring the breath. “Dhurke would bring up the innocent people he—we—killed until damn near the day he died. He never forgot about any of them. And I dunno if he ever forgave himself.”
Datz suddenly smiles again, but it’s a bitter one. It doesn’t suit his face at all, especially now that Nahyuta notices how much older Datz is nowadays. He’s a man who’s seen a lot more than he’s given credit for. It just makes Nahyuta feel all the younger. But even now, he still can’t picture Dhurke as anything but the young, not yet broken man he was when Nahyuta was a child. He’d always known Dhurke was tormented by the position he was in, although he never complained of it openly. He had to be a strong man. The revolution was more important than his personal feelings.
“Nahyuta, you are just like him when it comes to stuff like that. But you know that it never stopped him for a second. Dhurke never stopped fighting for the right thing. And now you’re at the same crossroads. If you give up now because you hate everything you’re doing, I… I mean, I hafta trust that you know what you’re doing and what’s best for you, and I’ll accept it. But you fought too hard to give up bein’ a lawyer. You’re too smart and talented to just throw everything you are away ‘cause you don’t… like yourself anymore.”
I never liked myself, Nahyuta thinks, but he does not say it. He doesn’t want to disappoint Datz.
For how much Datz was insisting Nahyuta was like Dhurke, Nahyuta still didn’t feel like it. The comparison just makes him nauseous, a sickly feeling like he’d eaten something rotten that spreads throughout his core. Nahyuta spent so much time trying to be Dhurke, only to be like him in the worst of ways, left to fret over mistakes he could never take back. But even then, what Dhurke agonized over was nowhere near what Nahyuta had done. Dhurke made mistakes. Nahyuta willingly lent his efforts to cruelty to protect himself. How could anyone think that was remotely similar beyond the surface level?
But Datz is right about not giving up. Shame blooms in his chest and he feels his face grow hot with embarrassment. He couldn’t give up. To give up would be to forfeit any chance at redemption after his death, to forfeit the ability to mend what he could, to leave Khura’in better than what he started with. Nahyuta just knew it would never be enough. That wasn’t pessimism, it was realism. But if he didn’t try, then why was he even alive? Nahyuta was not sure why he had been put on this earth, but he knew that running wouldn’t help him figure it out either. There was no getting out of this, for better or for worse. Nahyuta had yet to decide which it would be.
He's at a loss for words. Nahyuta begins to open the door to the outside, but as he does, he tries to find the words to make this all sound right. So they would stop looking at him like that. “…thank you for telling me about that, Datz,” he decides to say. “I suppose I really am my father’s son in some ways. I just wish it was in a way that I could be proud of.”
“You’ve got his determination, willpower, and kindness, Yuty,” Datz tells him. “Don’t ever lose that.”
“I don’t think I’m kind. Perhaps I will be eventually. But not yet. I… appreciate the kind words, though.”
“We love ya, Yuty. Don’t forget.”
Apollo suddenly finds his voice again. “Y- Yeah. Nahyuta, don’t give up on yourself. And don’t think I’ll ever give up on you either. I’ll always be there to cheer you on!”
“Damn right,” Datz affirms. “And if ya ever forget, just remember what AJ told ya, ‘kay? You’re Nahyuta Sahdmadhi, and you’re fine.” He winks at Nahyuta.
Apollo tries to smile. “Yeah… yeah! You’re Nahyuta Sahdmadhi and you’re fine!”
The emotional exhaustion is too much for him to be able to smile, but his lips still manage the slightest twitch upwards. “Thank you. I’m sorry again. Please forget everything I said about… not wanting to do any of this anymore. I allowed my emotions to get the best of me.”
“I’m just glad you were actually open with us for once,” Apollo says. “I- I mean, not to make you feel bad! It’s not your fault if you don’t wanna talk—”
Datz laughs, and he’s finally back to his proper cheery self as usual as he slaps Apollo’s back hard. Apollo almost folds in half under the force of the slap. “Jeeeez, AJ, quit stickin’ your foot in your mouth! But yeah, look. We want what’s best for you, kid. So if you ever need our help, or just need somebody to ramble to, you can come here any time. I’m sure AJ’ll find the time between his twenty-six clients!”
Apollo’s smile grows strained. “Ahah, yeah… really, though, I’m here for you any time, Nahyuta.”
It’s all too much, but Nahyuta simply nods. “I’ll… keep that in mind.” He bites back another useless apology. They don’t want any to begin with, but it still feels like the right thing to say. He is sorry. There’s nothing else to be but sorry anymore. Instead, he chooses to say something that he knows will make Apollo and Datz feel better. “Thank you for believing in me. I will do my best to…” He swallows. “…make the both of you proud.”
They’re empty words, and he knows it. But it’s enough to get them both to stop looking at him so piteously that Nahyuta doesn’t mind it at all. Just as he’s finally about to slip out the door, Datz calls after him, “Hey! Fuck that guy, alright? And fuck anybody who tells you you’re not good enough!”
He wishes he could smile. He wishes it could be so simple. There’s so much Nahyuta didn’t get to say, not that they would have understood anyhow. It wasn’t just that man, it was every man Nahyuta put away that could’ve been innocent. But something troubles him still, triggering an itch in his skull that he can’t get at on his own. Call him desperate, but he has to ask. If Dhurke ever felt even the slightest bit like this before, then Nahyuta needs answers.
“…Datz?” He turns back to Nahyuta, curious. “My father, did he… ever find a way to move on? I know he never forgave himself, but how did he convince himself to keep going?”
Datz rubs his chin. “I dunno. Dhurke kept stuff pretty close to his chest a lotta the time. Huh, wonder who that sounds like.” He grins, and Nahyuta still can’t smile. Instead, his face falls in disappointment at Datz’s non-answer. Datz sputters a bit, and hastily continues, “Buuut! Hang on, now! I do know this: Dhurke would never let that stuff stop him for anything. No matter how he felt about himself, he never slowed down. Y’know why? Because a dragon never yields, Yuta. Don’t forget that.”
Nahyuta glances down at his right hand. He’s been forgetting about his oath more and more lately, straying from the only ideals that should have mattered in the first place. Although it wasn’t by much, Nahyuta could only admit to himself that the reminder made his head feel just the slightest bit clearer after everything that had happened. Now he just feels embarrassed for ranting about how much he hates himself and hates everything he’s doing as if he’s a petulant child. And Datz trusted him to make the right choices…?
He has to make the right choices from then on. Any less is choosing death, an eternal damnation that he shall never escape.
“Thank you. I won’t forget it, I promise.”
Chapter Text
Nahyuta sits primly on a metal chair, one leg crossed over the other with his hands clasped in his lap. Across from him, the prisoner sips his tea, but his hooded eyes never leave Nahyuta’s form, like he expects that Nahyuta will do something the moment he looks away. This isn’t the first time he’s visited, but the growing pains of becoming used to one another is a slow, slow process. Whenever he makes sudden moves, Nahyuta cannot help but flinch. Whenever Nahyuta calls a guard for something, the prisoner holds his breath and Nahyuta remembers just how much power he holds here.
Vidhan. Nahyuta swore never to forget that name the way he forgot his brother’s. Another name now permanently inscribed into his hippocampus. Vidhan. Ravindra. Vidhan and Ravindra. They’re names that fit together like perfect puzzle pieces. One without the other… well. Where were they now?
The guilt gnaws on his stomach all the time, but after a while, it just feels like a puppy nibbling on something absentmindedly. It’s a gnawing guilt Nahyuta is forced to grow used to again, a reunion with an old friend that always dutifully kept him company in the old days. Ga’ran was in prison and the world had changed, but Nahyuta had not changed with it yet. He’s still searching for that change, and some idiotic part of him convinces him that he might find the change at the bottom of enough conversations with Vidhan. His attacker. The one who so badly wanted him to die for the hurt he caused. It’s a selfish desire, and he knows it, but Nahyuta can’t stop himself from coming back each week to sit mostly in silence with a man who hates him more than anyone else. Nahyuta wishes he could hate Vidhan right back. It’d be better that way. But he doesn’t. And, if he’s being honest, he never will.
Sometimes, they talk. Not much, but Nahyuta fills him in on the goings-on of the outside world, or they discuss Ravindra, his case, Vidhan’s case. They talk in circles like they’re going somewhere, only to arrive at the same conclusions they always had. At least when Nayhuta brings current news, Nahyuta can do more than apologize profusely for being alive.
“The world keeps turning,” Vidhan remarks, arms crossed as he looks out a barred window, “but I stay the same.”
“The punitive nature of prison doesn’t make it easy to grow,” Nahyuta agrees, “but if it makes you feel any better, none of us are changing as much as we’d like.”
Vidhan turns to look at Nahyuta. It feels like a shock running down his spine. “Is that the way you feel, or is it really the way everyone is?”
His breath comes out in a way that almost sounds like a discomforted laugh. “I suppose I more so hope that it isn’t just me.”
“You and me,” Vidhan corrects. “Well, I guess that’d really prove we were bound together by fate.”
“I try not to think about fate much nowadays, I admit.”
“Hmph.”
It’s difficult not to read deeply into even the most minute of sounds and movements from Vidhan, but Nahyuta can’t help but feel like he’s already made another misstep. He makes at least one each time they meet. Nahyuta keeps track of each one in his mind, putting them away for further review and embarrassment when his brain least expects it. His nails tap on the top of his other hand. Now it’s his turn to look out the window, though he can see nothing but blue sky and wispy clouds passing through, nothing of the earth below. Being suspended in the sky like this almost makes him feel a bit dizzy.
“I still have trouble believing it," Vidhan starts, “but you really agonize over this, don’t you?”
Nahyuta’s breath catches in his throat, startled. “Over what?” he asks. Like he doesn’t know.
“Over me, and… everything that’s happened. If you didn’t feel guilty, you wouldn’t bother to keep showing up. You would’ve forgotten about me and moved on, just like you forget about everybody else you prosecute, I guess. Or—well, I guess you weren’t the one prosecuting me this time.”
It’s easy to get tunnel vision over this. It’s the cover he uses to avoid having to think too much of the other case files that still clutter his home. He creeps around them silently, like daring to open any of them now will consume his soul down to the last bite. The precinct keeps asking for them back. Nahyuta can’t bring himself to, and so they sit like graves, the souls filling every cubic meter of his house. At least Nahyuta is never alone in there anymore. He just wishes he appreciated the company more.
Nahyuta’s skin prickles as if on cue, a phantom brushing by his side. He instinctively reaches for the now-fully healed scar on his side. He’s never yet forgotten it was there. In the brief moments where he’s naked before a bath, Nahyuta always examines the slowly paling, ragged line across his side, tracing it with his finger as if he could find some answer in it.
It was senseless violence, Amara tells him whenever she notices a distant look in his eyes. Really, my darling, you should try and forget all about it.
He never will. Never.
Nahyuta will never allow himself to let any of this go. He will carry the memories in the scar like a pouch, the same way Dhurke carried his close inside his chest. I am my father’s son, Nahyuta reminds himself. And a dragon never yields.
He wonders too often what Dhurke would think of him now. If he’d admire the scar the way he often lionized each one of his own. Would he be able to read the struggle in it, the shame? Would he see that the scar was a punishment, not a celebration? Nahyuta wishes he could stop picturing Dhurke as looking disappointed. It’s the only face he ever sees when he thinks of his father anymore.
But the disappointment is part of why he’s here. That maybe if he finds a way to make up for everything, that Dhurke might find it in his heart to forgive his son for everything by the time they would hopefully see each other again in the Twilight Realm. It’s been almost a year since his death. It could be just that, but Nahyuta hasn’t been able to get Dhurke off his mind since the day Vidhan was found guilty. It’s like Dhurke is watching over his shoulder at all times. Nahyuta is constantly monitoring himself, even when he’s alone. Each choice he makes in the day down to the last detail is saddled with more and more thought put into it.
He’s getting away from what’s at hand now. Another misstep. Nahyuta lets the silence dangle too long between them, and when he finally parts the quiet, it feels like an admission. “I try hard not to forget about anyone now. Mr. Justice and I have so many old cases to comb through and potentially overturn. It is difficult to find time in the day for everything I feel I must do.”
Excuses piled on top of excuses. Pathetic.
“But you always find time to sit here and haunt this prison for… well, I’m not certain if it’s for my sake or yours.”
“I know. I apologize.”
“You should let it go and move on, Mr. Sahdmadhi.” Vidhan smirks. Nahyuta hasn’t been able to bring himself to smile in weeks, even sincerely. The smirk drops from Vidhan’s face eerily quickly. “Look… it’s not that I mind the company. I actually… appreciate it sometimes, really. Not like my family is going to visit me. But I don’t know what you could possibly be getting out of this anymore. So can I ask you to tell me, completely seriously, why you keep coming here?”
“I… have been nothing but serious with you.” Nahyuta is stalling. He touches his prayer beads. He still has not yet mended the jade string, so his typical red beads have returned to his shoulders. They feel so light on him, pure. Redeeming. “Personally, I cannot handle the thought of you being here to begin with. I meant it seriously when I said I wanted you to go free that day in court. Even now, I’ve been working on getting my mother and sister to permit a pardon, or at least to commute your sentence. Because I just don’t think that you—”
“Why?” That one word sends a chill down Nahyuta’s spine. “I mean, I know you think you deserve it for whatever reason. I still remember everything we talked about that day in court. But why? Have you even thought about it?”
Nahyuta stops to think as his gaze drops to his lap. He watches the prayer beads and Dhurke’s butterfly pendant rise and fall with the soft heaving of his chest. The red string reminds him of the blood pooling in his coat, nearly two months ago now. His fingers brush the string, just like he always does. For the first time in a long time, he hears those words in his head again.
“…this is for your brother.”
Vidhan’s mouth parts, a jaw drop in slow motion. His eyebrows knit. He does not understand what Nahyuta means. The way, almost imperceptibly, Vidhan leans forward in interest makes Nahyuta feel the pressure of saying this right all the more. Dhurke’s watching, too.
“Because I can’t save him. He’s dead, and it is by my hand, although indirectly. So… I suppose I thought… that if I could make some difference in your life, that I perhaps could forgive myself. At least for that.” He sighs. “I know it’s a selfish reason. But I suppose that must be it. I make myself responsible for you however I can. I know prison will never be happy or comfortable. But I want to make it easier for you. Ravindra deserves that much: for his brother to be safe and alive, although he was never given that opportunity himself. I am sincerely sorry for my selfishness, Vidhan. I know I’ve achieved nothing I sought for you.”
Vidhan ruminates. Nahyuta can’t remember the last time he was so honest. He wishes he could say it made him feel relieved. It did, in a way, but all it did was allow more and more thoughts to come tumbling down about everyone else he’s sworn not to forget. Nahyuta can’t bring himself to review their cases just yet, but he could name every single one like a brother or sister. He's counted them out a few times on his prayer beads. After the trial, he could never bring himself to use the old mantra again.
“You remind me so much of my brother sometimes,” Vidhan sighs. “It kills me. It fucking kills me. He always cared too much about the right thing, but he never knew what the right thing was for him. But he knew he wanted to protect me and protect our neighborhood. It’s why he got into the Defiant Dragons.” He swallows. “I don’t know if he killed that judge. Maybe he did. They wouldn’t let me see him, and, to be honest, I don’t care. I love him either way, and that will never change. But I think he’d probably feel guilty that you still agonized over this years after he died no matter what he did. That’s the kind of person he was. He wouldn’t want you to feel bad. Or like you deserved to die. That?” Vidhan smiles bitterly. “That was all me. I always was the hot-headed one between the two of us.”
Nahyuta doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even know what he could say, and so it’s his turn to be stunned. Would this man really feel that way…? He couldn’t make sense of it. Anyone would be right to be angry with him, cocooned in an anger that dries the well of forgiveness entirely. Nahyuta expected to die starving for forgiveness, bleeding out on the ground, surrounded by strangers as they watched the light finally dim from his eyes.
Why does he feel sick thinking about it again? It’s what he deserved.
Vidhan can read him like a book. “You still think you deserve it. There’s no use in that.”
“It wouldn’t make up for what I did,” Nahyuta murmurs, “but it’s felt like that is the only way I could find redemption.”
“Well, I don’t really think it’d make anybody you hurt feel better. Not really. I’ve had nothing but time to think since I’ve been in here, and to be honest, I’m glad you’re still alive. I… don’t know if I’ve ever said it yet, and I know it doesn’t change what I did, but I am sincerely sorry about what I did to you. Me killing you isn’t going to bring Ravindra back. It isn’t going to make me feel any better that he’s gone if you’re gone, too. After all… I mean, you’re somebody’s brother, too, right?”
Nahyuta could cry. It’s a kindness he never expected, never felt he deserved. How can someone who hates him so much be the one to convince him that he didn't deserve it...? Had Nahyuta been holding onto this for nothing? The silence feels so light, a sheer shroud that blankets the both of them, swaddled lovingly like infants. He chokes back tears that threaten to blur his vision and the lump that makes it hard to breathe and speak. He wants to speak, but instead he allows himself to say nothing. Vidhan doesn’t expect him to say anything either. He simply sips the last of his cooled tea and looks out the window again. Nahyuta tries to clear his head. He takes deep breaths. He fidgets with his beads, anxiously tapping his fingers on them. But nothing can stop it now. The more he thinks about what Vidhan says, the more he can’t control himself.
Tears start to roll down his face in rivers. His breathing goes shallow and shaky, turning into hiccups halfway up his windpipe. “V- Vidhan,” Nahyuta says shakily. Only then does the man look back at him. And despite himself, Nahyuta smiles. He smiles, and he means it for the first time in years. He means it sincerely. It's never felt so good to be wrong. “Th- Thank y- you.”
Vidhan’s expression is soft. “Don’t thank me, Mr. Sahdmadhi. I haven’t done a damn thing for you, and I never will, so don’t make a habit of thanking your almost-killer. I just can’t stand seeing you feel sorry for yourself.” He says it like he’s put barbs in his words, but it comes out like a stern father’s voice. Vidhan leans his head back and pours the last few drops of tea into his mouth. “Maybe you should get going soon. I’m not trying to push you outta here for crying, I just mean… you should get home. That’s all.”
Nahyuta doesn’t disagree. He wipes the hot tears from his face and tries to take a few breaths as he stands. Vidhan does the same. He holds his wrist with his other hand, just above the handcuffs that the guards continue to insist on although there wasn’t a sharp thing in this room, nor hidden on Vidhan’s person, that he could use to hurt Nahyuta. For the first time since they’ve started, Nahyuta allows himself to approach Vidhan. Stupidly, he puts his arms around Vidhan and hugs him tightly. Vidhan’s shackled arms press uselessly against Nahyuta’s torso, but he tries a few experimental and awkward pats. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to do this, but Nahyuta doesn’t have the energy to be embarrassed for himself.
He lets go after that brief embrace. “I will… continue to do my best,” Nahyuta promises. “And… if you prefer it, I shall stop insisting on visiting you each week.”
Vidhan rubs his chin through the scraggly beard he’s grown over the past few weeks. “I didn’t say I wanted that,” he replies. “I told you, I don’t mind the company. If you feel like you have any reason to keep coming, then do it. I’m not going to stop you. You just have to promise to stop… you know. Doing this because you feel like you deserve punishment.”
“…right. Yes. I will ensure this does not happen again.”
He gestures to himself, like that explains what he means. His eyes are still watery from the tears and his head is pounding, but it feels clear despite that. “Take care, Vidhan. Please, do not hesitate to get in contact with me if any issues arise. If I can assist you in any way, I am happy to do so.”
Vidhan thinks it over. “Hey, yeah. There is something you can do for me, actually.”
“By all means.”
“Instead of focusing all on me, or on Ravindra… do you think you can visit some of the other guys you put away? I know you’re working on overturning cases, but… I think it’s important that they know not everyone’s forgotten about them. Maybe some of them are guilty, and I know most of them will probably hate you the way I did—do,” Vidhan hastily corrects, but it all sounds so fake. “But it shouldn’t stop you. It’s the right thing to do. I’m in prison for a good reason, but a lotta those people aren’t. So quit wasting all your energy on me and put it towards doing some good, alright?”
Nahyuta blinks, surprised. “Why, I… yes. Yes, of course. Vidhan, I promise you that I will happily fulfill this task for you.”
“Thanks, Nahyuta.”
That’s the first time Vidhan has ever said his first name. He always kept it formal, distant, and Nahyuta expected nothing less. It catches him wholly off-guard, yet it also feels so natural to hear. All Nahyuta can do is nod, and offer a quiet, “Take care, Vidhan.”
He has work to do, and his body itches to get home and start pouring over his cases in earnest again. To do anything less would be to disrespect Vidhan’s one wish, the one thing he has ever asked of Nahyuta. It’s reinvigorating in an odd way. Not perfect. His spirit feels released from at least one chain holding him down. It isn't much, but it's something. He still feels the heaviness of despair and guilt upon him, but it feels… doable. It feels worthwhile.
It feels like he might have a reason to stop wishing for something worse.
As Nahyuta steps out into the hall after the guard unlocks the door, the warden stops him like he always does. “Was your visit satisfactory, Prosecutor Sahdmadhi?” But when he sees Nahyuta’s red, puffy eyes and the dried tears on his face, he nervously adds, “A- Are you all right? Did anything happen in there?”
Nahyuta smiles again. “Not at all. I’m perfectly satisfied with my visit, thank you.”
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