Climbing the wooden stairs that creaked with every step, Niko wiped away the tears that were streaming down his cheeks. When Nafız, who was walking behind him, looked at the state of the man in front of her, she was both sad and happy that they found a strong supporter.
“Open the door, Niko, if you dare to face the facts!”
When they waited for ten breaths in front of the door, Nafız called out to the man whose tears did not stop.
Pain and suffering were coming out, accompanied by the heavy smell of blood, along with the sound of crying from their hinges. Niko had closed this place immediately after the tragic event, but he had not been able to destroy the last memory of his beloved wife.
“Now, watch what happens without moving. You will soon find out who the murderer of your wife is!”
When the man in pain collapsed into sobs and collapsed at the foot of the bed, Nafız was convinced that the atmosphere had formed. With daggers protruding from her wristbands that became visible, she made two deep cuts on her arms. Blood began to pour into the cauldron that she had removed from her ring.
The tiny cauldron was half full when Nafız decided enough and covered her wounds with a poultice. Although her injuries, which soon healed, did not draw attention, Niko had noticed that her face had turned white.
“What is that blood for? Do you intend to tarnish my wife’s memory?”
Blood was Nafız’s source of cultivation, and she would spend a considerable amount on this job. The pained man might have been right in his rebellion, but the Blood God had no time for romance.
”Shut up! There has always been a doubt that haunts you, right? The reason you left this place was not because of the memories you attached to, but because of your hope that one day you would find the courage to search for the truth!”
Nafız, who entered the stone house the night before and did detailed research, realized many things when she saw the room. Now she just needed to take the first steps in place of the cowardly man.
“No, I won’t let you!”
The gray-haired man dared to rise to his feet; to protect the place where his wife lived her last moments.
“Sit down! Cowards like you have no right to speak in any world!”
Nafız, who tied the painful man to the irons of the bed with the whip that came out of her wrists, adjusted his face to the bed so that he could see everything.
Nafız, who started to draw a circle to enclose the bed using the blood in the cauldron, when she finished her work and came to the star above the mattress, Niko cried out for mercy.
”Please do not! I beg you, don’t!”
Nafız, who completed the symbol by ignoring the man’s voice who was shouting, finished her work, went behind Niko and put her head on his right shoulder.
“I guess you were waiting outside the door during the birth, and when your wife started screaming, you couldn’t take it anymore and entered the room!”
As his blue eyes turned red from the tears he shed, Niko almost returned to that day. The woman he loved was about to bring the fruit of their love into the world. This excitement could not fit inside him; he was doing the sweetest of tortures by squeezing his heart like a vice.
He had counted the carvings of the wooden door a few tens, in the hope of having his first child in his arms, forgetting the number of paces he took down the short corridor. As his wife groaned to cope with the difficulties of childbirth, the uplifting words of the midwives came to his ears.
The young man froze as a shrill scream left the room and reached Niko, who was waiting in the hallway. This was not like the previous ones; his wife was screaming in great pain. He was sure. Something was wrong.
When he heard the second cry, he couldn’t stop, he had to see his wife. He came through the door in a fury and cried out to the shocked eyes of the amazed midwives.
”What is going on here? What’s wrong with my wife?”
It was almost as if the roaring man directed his gaze to his wife, and he would see the sight that would not give him a good sleep for the rest of his life. The face of his beautiful wife, which he could not bear to look at and touch, remained skin and bone, and her eyes had shrunk to the point of falling out of their sockets.
“Maria, my dear, my love!”
When he finished his words, the man fell to his knees and held on to the iron at the foot of the bed to avoid falling to the ground. His wife was screaming, and no one could come near her because of the frantic movements of her body.
Watching this sight with his hands tied, Niko wanted to get up, hug his wife and save her, but the fear he was in did not allow him to take a single step. The blood splattered on the bed, and the agonizing screams took dozens of breaths; the desperate screaming woman was in her last struggles.
“Niko darling, take care of our daughter!”
At the end of it all, there was a brief moment. A moment, when the voices in the room stopped, and only the woman who took her last breath spoke.
Anyone who had fallen in tears understood what was happening. The young woman passed away; the silence that ensued was absolute. For ten seconds, there was no sound until a crying sound rang out.
The adults in the room were crying, but this was different. It was a baby’s voice. It is heard. She became the head midwife of the Partheni family, who was the first to recover. She jumped out of her collapsed place, reached the baby lying between the sheets, and cut the umbilical cord.
Although the mother and daughter would never meet after what had happened, their blood was mixing on the bed covered with white sheets. Niko was staring blankly at the midwife who brought his daughter. Then he raised his hands to take the little creature offered to him.
It was the first time he felt the warmth that his daughter radiated. The first moment when he tasted the emotion that would cover the sadness and darkness that were churning inside him.
“Niko, you can open your eyes now!”
When he heard Nafız’s voice close to his ear, the painful man would wake up from his dream world. Experiencing the moment when he lifted his daughter into the air in his hands, Niko found himself clutching the iron bars of the bed tightly and his head staring at the ceiling of the room.
The whip that surrounded him had long since abandoned him, but the Partheni family leader’s gaze was on what he had seen after he awoke from the dream.
“Tell me it’s a lie; tell me it’s a trick you made to make me suffer!”
Nafız was standing behind the begging man and looking at the figure that appeared on the ceiling.
“Blood never lies. This is your wife’s murderer!”
The gray-haired man’s earlier words were not in vain. The room saw the symbol formed on the ceiling, and it wasn’t the first time he saw this shape. What both people witnessed at the end of it all was a black lily.
The symbol was the same tattoo found on the City Lord’s neck, but why did Astute want to kill his wife? A hundred years ago, his family’s dominance over the city had ended, and they had obeyed the newly sent lord.
During this period, they did not even have the slightest objection to the orders given. They were not a warrior family. Their ancestors had developed the city when it was a small port town, and based on this. The people gave their family names to the place where they lived.
Drowning in thoughts, the man saw Nafız go to bed. The storm of questions and mischief raged on his mind. The female orc muttered as she stared at the bed, the blood slowly disappearing.
“Maria! A brave woman who spent all her life force for her daughter’s survival, keep an eye out. I will heal your daughter and drown those who did this to you in their blood!”
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But darling, if I were to come again, I would love you again in the world. It was knowing that I would rot alive!
Frida Kahlo
