Chapter 64: The Forge and Oblivion
I was lying on my back, stretched out on the cold floor, lost in the meanders of my thoughts. My vacant gaze pierced the ceiling without really seeing it, while my mind drifted, tossed about by the turmoil of this relentless chaos.
I knew, deep down, that I had no other choice. I had to move forward, no matter the cost, face the inevitable, even if each step seemed to bring me closer to a bottomless abyss. But... it was hard. Terribly hard.
A nagging question gnawed at me: had I really made the right choice by dragging Lysara into this senseless madness? Had I not, deep down, sealed her fate, condemning her to a hell even crueler than the slavery I had wanted to free her from? A bitter taste, heavy with guilt, rose in my throat, almost choking me under the weight of my own doubts.
That day... had I really made the right decision? Everything had been decided in an instant. A simple choice, suspended between courage and madness. A heartbeat, a breath of audacity or misjudgment, that had been enough to tip everything over.
Maybe... maybe I should have died that day. Accepted the end without trying to cling to a chimera of reincarnation. Abandoned this world to its own decay, without interfering further.
Eyes closed, I let myself be overwhelmed by the crushing weight of my regrets, by the bitterness of those choices that, one by one, had sealed my fate.
As I drowned in my darkest thoughts, a strange sensation slowly pulled me from my inner abyss: a presence, discreet but palpable, motionless at the entrance to the library.
I lifted my head, with the heaviness of one who carries too many regrets. Of course... it was her. Lysara.
My daughter, my precious child, stood there, silent and still, her large eyes bathed in mute sadness fixed on me.
She had heard the commotion. Of course she had heard it... Without a word, she approached, step by step, each of her movements imbued with an almost painful delicacy, as if she feared breaking me further.
Once by my side, she knelt with infinite gentleness. Then, without the slightest hesitation, she slid against me, resting her small head on my slumped shoulder.