Someone in the crowd muttered first.
"...He's so damn wrong."
It wasn't even grief.
A quiet rejection of everything Malik had just said.
And then, slowly, it spread.
"He called himself selfish?"
"That… that couldn't be farther from the truth."
"His self-worth it's..."
"A life that wouldn't amount to anything, huh..."
The one where he listed their names like crimes.
As if he murdered them. As if he had killed them with his bare hands.
He chose them to be saved.
And not just once. Every single time.
It was only that his one... his one choice, his final choice, got stuck.
Heads started rising, just a little—a dawn daring to peek over the horizon.
Among them was the silver-bearded man.
"The Sultan weaved his soul into theirs…"
He murmured almost to himself:
"You understand what that means? That's beyond Aether. Beyond anything a Jinn should be capable of... That's... It's divine. Something only a Mithqal could do."
The old man beside him followed:
"That was genius. Pure, impossible genius. And he just—did it."
The murmurs began to echo, one voice folding into another.
"He figured out his immunity… back with Lady Layla, remember?"
"Right. When he Fell. When Depravity should've devoured him whole, IT didn't."
"That was the first piece."
"He must've realized something then. And now it all—"
"—It all makes sense. Every act, every blink, every failure—it all led to this."
"Everything... everything had led to this choice."
A moment passed, then another, but no one said anything more.
This realization had them all turn mute.
Malik had broken out of his design.
Whatever path Fate forced him to walk on had momentarily lost its hold on him.
Such a thing... what else could it be but incredible?
Was this not enough to call him Sultan?
From now till the end of time?
It wasn't a happy laugh. No, not at all.
It was a laugh that came when awe collided with agony.
A bone-deep recognition of greatness cloaked in tragedy.
"He says he wouldn't impact the world like Lady Safira or our Nasir."
Her words struggled between sobs.
"But they only live to impact the world because he chose to let them."
"He is the reason we still have both our commander and backbone."
Another beside her added.
"They once carried his soul. A part of him. Literally."
"He gave them his immunity. His damn fix. And what does he call it?"
That word echoed: disgusted, bitter, furious.
The camp around Safira—no, the entire hall had shifted.
That quiet reverence turned to something else—defiance. Defiance on his behalf.
Because their Sultan—the Stranger—was wrong.
He was wrong about one thing.
Malik thought he was small.
That his story would fade quietly so others could shine.
But... he was so incredibly wrong. HE was the one who made it all possible.
He believed himself a curse. But he was the thread that held the tapestry together.
He said the world didn't need his saving. But this world—their world—only exists because he did.
No one knew what to say anymore.
What could they even say?
This wasn't a speech.
This wasn't a martyr's last cry or a king's final order.
It was a man… a man who chose to lose so others could win.
A man who carried an impossible burden into an unwinnable war and still found a way to twist fate, cheat destiny, and give the little guy a fighting chance.
That wasn't selfish. That wasn't small. That wasn't forgettable.
Especially so to the Twelvers.
He was their Stranger. Their Sultan. The Dreamer of a Dream that saved them from a crushing end.
And... and they would never be able to thank him for it.
They had lost that chance.
That woman spoke true. They made their savior a pariah.
They stood still and watched him get locked in those damned chains.
Chains that ensured his death, chains that cared not for time or space, chains that would never let go of their target, chains that would devour him whole, leaving nothing behind, not even his soul.
They granted him an end without an afterlife.
They granted him a home with IT.
A home with darkness.
While the hall still reeled, he stepped forward.
Past his people, who still hadn't fully breathed since the projection ended.
He stopped before the one who mattered most to him.
He looked at her, trembling, cloth pressed to her mouth, sniffling like a child who had been too brave for too long. Her eyes swollen, her lips bitten raw. She kept wiping, over and over, wiping at something invisible, like if she rubbed hard enough, she could erase the feeling of failing him. Like she could erase the shame, the moment she abandoned him.
Duban said nothing at first; he only turned his head and found Faqir.
That poor man hadn't lifted his head once since joining them.
His hands were clasped together, not in prayer, but in pressure.
He was clinging to some final thread of restraint.
A thread that was soon about to snap.
Noticing that, Duban exhaled and finally spoke:
"…He was better than this."
Unlike Layla or Huda, he wasn't brave enough to call him what he used to.
"The Sultan wasn't selfish. He wasn't lesser. He wasn't cursed. He was brilliant. And we let him carry all of this—alone."
No one interrupted him.
"Lady Safira... you're not here because you're stronger than him. You're here because he made you strong. Because he laced his soul into you. Into me. We survived because of him. Not because we were special."
Safira whimpered—barely.
The cloth fell from her hand.
She didn't even notice.
Duban's voice cracked for the first time.
"I know. I know what his choice did to you. I know how impossible it was. I, too, lost my father. He chose me over him... He chose me over someone better. But I'm not here to argue about his decision. God above, do you think he wanted to choose? He gave everything he had to protect everyone… and in the end, he had to kill the one who he thought deserved saving the most."
Faqir still didn't speak.
Duban spoke louder now, for everyone to hear.
"About all of it. About himself. About his worth. About his place in this world... He is the impact. The answer. The one who performed miracles only to save the unworthy... only to save us."
He turned, looking between the two of them.
"So what now? Do we stand here and let him vanish into the dark just because he thinks he deserves it?"
The words dropped, a blade being unsheathed.
It was Faqir who said them.
He didn't care if they found it disrespectful. Didn't care if it went against Malik's final plea. Didn't care if it was delusion or desperation or both.
He only wanted to do one thing right.
For his father's brother.
Duban nodded without pause.
"No matter the sacrifices."
They waited for one more voice.
Safira didn't speak, though not for long.
Eventually, she found her voice, and her mouth moved.
But they spoke words the two didn't like.
Because, well, she didn't know. Not really.
Malik had wanted this.
That was what haunted her.
His wish had been clear—he didn't want saving.
He wanted release. A "break." Rest.
Could she go against that?
Could she pull him back into the same endless war he had just clawed his way out of?
Would saving him be betrayal?
And so she stayed quiet.
Safira truly didn't know whether respecting his wish meant letting him die… or refusing to let him disappear.
If only any of them knew…
That Malik had already been granted this wish.
Long before this began. Long before the halls of Fam Iblis first witnessed the Stranger. Long before he saw a dream, or watched a sparrow fall, or heard a bell toll, or asked to be remembered.
The wish had already been spoken.
The dream had been seen.
The price had been paid.