The man walked forward. Each of his steps were measured. Not from hesitation or fear but from respect.

And I could see he wasn’t looking at Dorian like he was some demon. He was looking at him as someone of his own. His eyes went to Dorian’s body which was now turning to half dark ashes and half evaporating into the air.

He reached Mariam’s side and stood there as Dorian started to stare at him. Stare at his broad shoulders and rough hands. The hands of a man who worked with them every single day.

Mariam gestured to him while still holding Dorian in her lap. "Father, this is Ryan. We married a year ago."

Dorian’s eyes stayed on the man.

"He is a blacksmith and runs a small forge at the edge of the village. He isn’t nobility. He doesn’t have a title or a crest or land or anything the world says should matter."

Then Mariam smiled and looked at Ryan with something that told everything without saying a word.

"But from the first day I met him, he never once made me feel like I was missing anything. I grew up without parents. Without people to call my own except grandma. Without many friends. And there were nights when that emptiness was so loud it kept me awake."

Her smile only widened as she kept looking at him. "But he made that silence disappear. Not by filling it with grand promises or expensive things. Just by being there. Every morning at the same table. Every evening at the same door. Every night holding my hand until I fell asleep."

Then she looked down at her lap. At her father. Carrying the same smile.

"I never had a palace or a title like my family. But I never needed one. Because he made me feel like a queen of the smallest, most beautiful kingdom in the world. A kingdom of two."

She placed a hand on her stomach. "And now three."

Dorian’s eyes were glistening. Whatever tears he had left weren’t red anymore. Weren’t black either. They were something in between. Something that belonged to neither the demon nor the man but to the father who was hearing for the first time that his daughter had been loved.

After he composed himself from the revelation, from her words, from knowing about her child and about her love, he turned to Ryan.

"How much do you love my daughter?"

Ryan looked at Mariam first. Then answered. "Enough to listen when she is quiet. Enough to stay when she is difficult. Enough to be gentle with the parts of her she hides."

Dorian smiled at that. Then asked. "And if she hurts you?"

Ryan smiled faintly. "Then I will remember she is human. And humans can’t be perfect. And neither am I. I would rather grow beside her than love some flawless idea of her."

Dorian’s smile carried pride in it now. He turned to Mariam and said. "You really found a gem. I feel so happy right now that I can’t wait to tell Mirena about it."

Then the moment he said her name a realization hit him. His face fell and sadness crept back in. He looked at Ryan and said.

"Boy. Love her. But not the way I loved Mirena."

Ryan listened.

"I loved her like she was the only light in my darkness. And when that light went out I had nothing left to see by." His dissolving hand found Ryan’s wrist. "Don’t make her your only light. Be your own. And then stand beside hers. The two of you should always be two flames. So that if one flickers, the other keeps the room warm."

Ryan simply nodded. "I will. I swear it."

Dorian shook his head slightly. "Don’t swear it to me. I will be dead in a minute. Swear it to her. Every day you wake up. That’s the only oath that matters."

His voice was getting weaker but the words refused to slow down.

"Don’t waste a single morning thinking there will be another one just as good. Don’t save words for later. Because later is a lie the world sells to people who are too scared to speak now."

Ryan nodded again. The depth of those words had clearly reached him.

Then Dorian’s eyes found someone else. The old woman had made her way toward them and was standing beside the group now.

"Big sis Emma."

The tears in her eyes told everything. Whether it was seeing him like this or knowing he still remembered her after all these years and so she asked. "You still remember me?"

He said with whatever strength was left in his voice. "How could I forget? How can someone forget their family? Especially the most strict one."

He tried to laugh.

"I still remember your scoldings. Those motherly threats you used to give me. I still remember how you used to sneak desserts for me and then chase me across the estate when I did something you clearly told me not to do."

He scanned her from head to toe and his face changed to something playful. "But you look terrible by the way. Forget about chasing me, you can’t even walk without that stick."

He laughed at her.

Emma scolded him through her tears immediately. "Forty years happened, you ungrateful brat!"

His mocking faded as something clicked behind his eyes. "I see. More than forty years since those days."

He looked around at everyone gathered. Every face was in tears. Every eye was watching him dissolve.

Then he said. "Before I go, sis. There is a confession I need to make."

Emma blinked through her tears.

"Remember the day you made your special honey cake for Lord Harren’s guests? The one you spent six hours preparing? The one you said would finally get the head chef to promote you?"

Emma’s grip on her stick tightened.

Dorian continued with an apologetic face that was barely hiding the grin underneath. "And remember how it vanished from the kitchen window where you left it to cool? And how you blamed the stray cats? And how you spent the next two years putting up fences and traps around every window in that kitchen to protect your baking from what you called the most organised pack of thieves in the animal kingdom?"

Emma’s voice shifted from grief to suspicion at a speed that would make any mage jealous. "Dorian."

"It was me." He grinned through his dissolving face. "I ate the whole thing. In one sitting. Behind the stable. And I threw up twice. But I regret nothing because that was the greatest thing I had ever tasted in my life."

"I BUILT SEVENTEEN FENCES BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"And every single one of them was a masterpiece. You should have been a carpenter instead of a maid."

The two of them laughed. Mariam and Ryan couldn’t help but join in. And then Emma laughed through her tears too and said. "You haven’t changed a bit, Dorian. Lighting up the mood even when everything is dark."

Dorian’s laughter faded into something softer. "But thank you so much, big sis. I owe you a debt that a thousand lifetimes couldn’t repay. You saved her. You raised her. You gave her everything I couldn’t."

Emma wiped her face and said. "She was really easy to raise. She got the best parents’ genes, I suppose."

Pride filled his dissolving features but then a sudden jolt of pain shot through what was left of his body. He knew it was almost over.

"Looks like it’s time to bid farewell." His voice was fading like the rest of him. "But this was the best end I could have ever asked for."

He looked at each of them.

"Thank you, Emma. Thank you, Ryan. And thank you, my Mariam."

His chest was vanishing now. Crumbling into dark particles that floated upward and disappeared.

"Remember, I am just leaving this body. But my soul and Mirena’s soul will always be watching you from above. Always blessing you. Always praying for your happiness. So live as you want to live and give us the greatest show."

Mariam was crying openly now. Watching his head start to fade. His features blurring at the edges.

"I will."

Then what was left of his head turned to me.

His dissolving hands came together. Joined in front of his chest.

"I don’t know who you are, boy. I don’t know why you helped me. Why you went to such lengths to pull me back to my senses knowing very well what it could have done to you."

His voice was barely a whisper now.

"I have never seen someone like you. Standing fearless against death itself. Staring at it as if threatening it back. All while weaponless and powerless."

He smiled one last time.

"And you broke a cage that I had been trapped in for years. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. Whoever you are, just remember..."

He raised his fading hand above my head. As if to bless me.

"This hand will always be above your head. I can’t show with words alone what you did for me. But the blessing of this man will always remain with you. Not just as protection."

His fingers dissolved into dark particles as the last of his voice reached my ears.

"But as a reminder. That you once changed the fate of a man."