Misunderstood Hero: My Family Are All Villains

***

Minutes Earlier...

Hakim, his clothes dirty from sitting on the mountain for so long, returned to the Holy Palace.

His first destination, before he even went to fix himself up, was the living quarters.

Namely, his daughter-in-law’s and grandchild’s living quarters.

He needed to see them, to reassure himself that they were safe.

But on his way there, he suddenly paused.

Hakim found his family in the gardens.

It was a beautiful place.

The trees had golden leaves, thousands of which drifted down through the air, spinning and tumbling, carpeting the ground in layers of amber and gold. The scene was beyond words, a painting brought to life.

Nothing about this was natural.

The Holy Palace sat on arid land, far from any source of water, the soil thin and bitter.

But that would not stop the Arcanists—the architects of Runes like Zafar—from bending the laws of the world to their Will.

They had coaxed life from the dead earth through their incredible designs, their love letter to their Sultan.

What made the scene even more beautiful was who was in it.

Layla sat on a wooden bench near the center of the garden, her hands folded in her lap.

A female crimson owl rested on her legs, its feathers bright against the dark fabric of her dress.

The owl’s eyes were half-closed, content, occasionally letting out a soft coo or two.

Amal sat on a carpet of leaves in front of them, her legs crossed beneath her.

Many crimson owls surrounded her.

They hopped around her, nuzzling against her hands, perching on her shoulders, and nibbling at her fingers.

She giggled as one of them climbed onto her head and settled there, much like Isha liked to do.

Hakim stopped at the edge of the garden and watched.

A soft smile crossed his weathered face.

He seemed to hold them very close to his heart.

This... he missed this. Missed them. The years he had spent on that throne, constantly drifting between life and death, had stolen so much from him. But now he was free from the crown, and they were here, and the world was not entirely lost.

He stepped forward, avoiding the leaves.

"Daughter. I have returned."

Layla snapped her head around, her purple eyes widening.

For a moment, there was surprise, perhaps even a flash of guardedness.

But then she saw his smile, and her expression softened.

"Father."

She returned his smile.

"Have your injuries healed?"

Hakim nodded as he approached, stopping behind the bench. He placed his hands on the backrest, leaning forward slightly.

"I’m good as new! Don’t you worry about me!"

Layla giggled at his attempt to stave off her concern, a rare and most precious thing.

"Like father, like son."

Hakim made a show of being offended, puffing out his chest.

"Hey, don’t lump me in with him!"

He gestured vaguely towards the palace, perhaps the throne room where his son sat.

"He’d been gone for so long, and now that he’s finally back, he barely sees you two."

Layla’s warmth did not leave her eyes, but a glare revealed itself.

"Don’t blame my husband. You know that he is extremely busy."

Hakim held up his hands in surrender, chuckling in defeat.

"Alright, alright! I was just kidding."

Layla huffed and looked away from him, turning her attention back to the garden.

Funnily enough, the owl on her lap did the same, turning her head in perfect sync, seemingly feeling the same about Hakim’s attempt at a joke.

Hakim used all of his willpower to stop himself from chuckling again and looked at his granddaughter.

Amal had not noticed him yet.

She was too busy with the owls, laughing as one of them stole a leaf from her hair and flew away with it.

"...ah."

Slowly, Hakim’s eyes began to widen.

He had noticed the change in Amal that everyone had noticed.

She was happier now; her smiles were easier and her laughter less forced.

But it was more than that.

Physically, she looked healthier. Her cheeks had color, and her eyes were bright.

Everyone else had noticed it too, of course, but they had simply attributed it to her father’s return.

A child reunited with her parent, finally at peace.

But Hakim knew the truth.

The truth of her blood and the Corruption that came with it.

He had seen them in Malik, in the one time they had met before he was forced to leave him. Leave him to Corruption that ate at what was left of him until his inevitable death.

A death that was somehow made false.

And Hakim had seen the same signs in Amal, who grew worse with each passing season, despite all that he did to help her.

But now... all of that was gone.

Just like that.

So...

***

"Just what did you do?!"

He confronted Malik about it.

"Do what?"

Hakim pointed at the gates behind him, or rather, at the garden beyond, the little one in it, his one granddaughter who was still playing among the owls.

"Your daughter! How did you cure her?!"

His question came out desperate, stripped of all pretense.

He had been searching for the answer for so very long. Through years of study and sleepless nights.

But his son had solved it in what, a week?

Malik paused at such unbridled emotion.

’I think I have to tell him the truth. Otherwise, I’m not sure what he will do.’

He could see it in his father’s face—the guilt and the desperate hunger for answers.

Hakim had been carrying this weight for decades. If Malik denied him now, it would break something between them that could never be repaired.

"It is no cure, simply a cleanse. My fire can burn the Corruption in her Soul without hurting her."

Hakim stared at Malik.

His son sat calmly on the Golden Throne, having so easily solved—at least for a time—what he had struggled with for so long.

’Like father, like son, eh?’

He found those words almost hilarious.

Earlier, he had not been completely joking with Layla.

Hakim had tried to compare himself to his son, to claim some share of his greatness, to pretend that they were equals.

But they were not.

They had never been.

Even in a joking manner, he could not be compared to his son. The gap between them was too wide, the difference too vast.

Hakim saw himself as so very inadequate.

Always had, always would.

"Son..."

He let out a long sigh and looked down at the marble floor.

"Will you... can I ever hope that you would forgive me?"

Malik nearly tilted his head.

Forgive his father for what?

Hakim had not even been in Devil’s Maw when the insurrection happened. Had he been involved in the plot against him somehow?

Malik did not think so.

Oh, or was he asking for forgiveness about that? About not being present in Malik’s life from the get-go, abandoning him to grow up alone?

Or perhaps there was another reason, one Malik did not know about?

The recent fragments of memory showed him much, but not everything. There were gaps where the past refused to take shape.

So left with vagueness, Malik took the stance of pettiness:

"Forgive you for what?"

Hakim deprecatingly chuckled, buying the response.

"That is true."

He could not hear the question beneath the question, but only the unhidden dismissal.

"There are many things that I must apologize for."

He looked back up at his son, his golden eyes wet.

"I... I couldn’t—I wasn’t allowed to stay here, you know that."

No, Malik did not know that, though at this point, he did suspect it.

"Before you were born. I was the last of our family, Al-Assad. The Order hunted down everyone else... My father, my mother, my siblings, my cousins. All of them. They burned our strongholds and salted our fields. They erased our name from every record they could find."

Of course, it had to be the damned Order.

"Our blood is special, you see."

Hakim touched his chest, right hand over his heart.

"Our fire. It is not like other flames. It burns Corruption. It burns everything. And the Order... they wanted it for themselves. When they could not take it, they tried to destroy it."

Another reason among many for why Malik had to end them.

"Before I was forced to escape..."

Hakim’s voice grew much guiltier, his face twisting with self-disgust.

"I needed to find someone to continue the bloodline."

He paused, swallowing hard.

"Your mother, Mariam..."

The name painfully hung in the air.

"Even though she was already married and had a life she had built for herself. I... It is no excuse. I know that. But she was the only one compatible with our blood."

His disgust seemed to come from a valid reason, valid enough for Malik’s eyes to turn much, much colder.

"The only one who could bear a child who would inherit the fire. If there was ever a chance of our family’s survival, it was with her."

Hakim’s hands trembled at his sides.

"Once, I thought it justified. I told myself that the ends would outweigh the means, that it did not matter if it meant saving our bloodline... But no."

He shook his head.

"It was not justified. It was never justified."

Hakim looked down at the floor, unable to meet his son’s freezing eyes.

"She was a mere mortal. She had no Runes, no way to resist. Despite the consequences and what would later happen to you, I twisted her mind, and well..."

There was no need for him to continue speaking.

Malik understood everything.

His father, using whatever Holy Relics at his disposal, had hypnotized his mother, bent her will to his own, and had taken from her something she had not freely given.

It was why he had grown up in Zawaya with no family, growing up as a beggar in a town that hated him, surrounded by criminals and outcasts.

His mother had abandoned him.

Whether it was as a punishment forced upon her by her husband, much like her act of... adultery or something that she had decided to do herself to appease that husband... it did not matter.

In the end, there was no one left to care for the boy.

A boy abandoned by no fault of his own.

Abandoned because of the very man before him.

"I am sorry."

Hakim finally dared to look up, meeting his son’s eyes, his own eyes red from crying.

"I am so sorry, my son."