Chapter 124
Voices piled over one another, creating an uproar that was unusual in the grand chamber that was normally filled only with diplomatic whispers.
Yet Nirma and Arya stood still at the center of that storm of questions, like two rocks unmoved by the crashing waves.
Nirma's single eye remained calm, almost flat, while the empty socket beside it seemed to speak in a silent language no one could translate.
Arya stood firmly at her side, his shoulders not lowering in the slightest even as he felt the heat of six pairs of eyes piercing him from every direction.
As the commotion began to subside under its own exhaustion, when Emperor Alexios raised his hand to demand silence, Nirma finally spoke.
Her voice was soft yet firm, like silk wrapped around steel.
"Your Majesty, honored lords, forgive us for being unable to provide the answers you seek. There are things that cannot be explained with words, destinies that must be lived not through reason but through conviction."
She paused briefly, her gaze sweeping across the six figures before her one by one, as if carving their faces into her memory.
"What we can say is this. Our presence in Heraclea Cybistra is not an escape from responsibility, but the highest form of responsibility we can offer to Byzantium, to Constantinople, and to all of you who have received us with honor."
Arya nodded slowly beside her, affirming that he stood behind every word she spoke, that he was ready to face whatever consequences might come from this decision.
Emperor Alexios looked at them for a long time, a very long time, with the eyes of a ruler accustomed to reading lies and sincerity from human expressions.
And what he saw on the faces of Nirma and Arya made him finally let out a long breath, a breath that stirred his purple robes.
"I do not understand," he said softly, almost as if speaking to himself.
"I do not understand why you choose this path. But I have lived in this palace long enough to know that there are truths that do not need to be understood, only respected."
He stepped forward, standing directly before Nirma and Arya, then placed his hands on their shoulders in turn, a gesture he rarely gave to anyone.
"Go, if that is truly what you believe. But remember, Constantinople will always be your home. The doors of this palace will never close to Nirmala Surdaya and Arya Wiratama."
Behind the Emperor, the five nobles remained frozen with mixed expressions, yet none spoke anymore, for when the Emperor had spoken, only silence was worthy as a reply.
The morning sun had climbed slightly higher, now pointing to half past nine, its golden hue growing bolder as it touched every inch of the hill at Heraclea Cybistra.
The light washed over Nirma's face as she lay on the dry ground, creating a sharp contrast between her pale skin and the glare that made her eyelids twitch even as she kept them tightly shut.
Fine dust drifted slowly, dancing above her loose hair, occasionally settling on her cheeks and forehead before being carried away again by the warming morning breeze.
From afar, the faint sound of thousands of footsteps and the creaking wheels of the crusader army still flowed endlessly along the road below the hill, yet for her it was now merely background noise, for what she saw behind her closed eyelids felt far more real than the thousands of people passing below.
Arya lowered his telescope for a moment, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his worn robe, then directed the cylindrical object from the future back toward the crusader camp below.
"They've stopped, Nirma," he said quietly, his tone more serious than before.
"Right at the Muddy Ground, just as recorded in the Linear Time Police archives. This is the place we've been looking for, the place where the Abnormal is hiding, the place where eighteen lives were lost before this case was uncovered."
Nirma, still lying lazily, let out a long sigh, then slowly reached for a drink bottle from her waist pouch, opened it, and gulped it down so quickly that within three seconds it was empty.
She tossed the plastic bottle carelessly, an act far from environmentally friendly but one that would have no consequence in the year 1101, as the object would degrade long before anyone found it.
"Poor crusaders," she murmured, her eyes still fixed on the sky.
"They don't know that beneath their tents, in the ground they stand on, there is something waiting to devour them. And official history will never record it, because their agency is too busy glorifying each other's achievements instead of working."
But before Nirma could continue, before she could pour out all her bitterness about the corruption of the institution they worked for, Arya suddenly froze.
The telescope in his hands no longer remained steady, instead moving rapidly as he tried to refocus, and from his lips came a different sound, one filled with panic he had never shown before.
"No… that's impossible…" he whispered.
Then his voice rose.
"Nirma, they're under attack! Not an Abnormal… this is a Seljuk army!"
He swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the shifting shadows behind the dust.
"Kilij Arslan… his forces are storming the camp."
Nirma immediately sat upright, all laziness vanishing in an instant, her single eye narrowing sharply toward the direction Arya pointed.
From afar, even without the telescope, she could see the dust clouds suddenly rising high above the camp, could faintly hear screams unlike the usual noise, screams of war, of shock, of pain.
"Damn," Nirma muttered, grabbing a spare telescope from within her robe.
"This event is recorded… but not like this. In historical records, chaos in the camp only happens after a storm hits. If they're already killing each other now, then something has disrupted the sequence."
She narrowed her eyes toward the thickening dust clouds.
"Quick, Arya. Watch their movements. If this is the work of an Abnormal, then history has already begun to shift."
Below them, on the Muddy Ground that just minutes ago had been quiet with resting soldiers, it had now turned into a living hell.
Through his telescope, Arya watched how crusader soldiers who had been sitting leisurely in front of their tents were suddenly showered with arrows from the east, how some collapsed before they could even reach for their weapons, how blood began to soak the same dry ground they had used moments earlier to lay mats and share bread.
Commands in Old French and High German rang out in fragments, clashing with cries of "Allahu Akbar" from the Seljuk forces pouring in from the gaps between the hills.
A young knight Arya had seen earlier that morning, who had stared blankly ahead, was now running half-crouched while dragging a longsword too heavy to draw in panic, but before he reached the first defensive line, a mounted Seljuk soldier struck from the side, and the knight's head separated from his body in a single swift slash.
Arya closed his eyes for a moment, suppressing the nausea rising in his throat, then forced himself to keep watching.
The battle grew fiercer, louder, bloodier.
Beside him, Nirma observed with cold eyes, recording every detail in her memory like a camera that never blinked.
To be continued…