The lone statue

[Matías]

He watched the tears trace paths down her cheeks, saw the involuntary, frantic rub of her hands against her forearms. A visceral, horrifying display of phantom pain that he knew meant something far worse than a simple bruise. A physical manifestation of the crimes his lineage had sanctioned, facilitated, and profited from. The crimes he, by his presence alone, had implicitly condoned. He’d hadn’t turned many weapons for the cartel, never been the architect of a bloody scheme, but he hadn't stopped it, either. Silence, in the face of such monstrous cruelty, was its own kind of blood.

His own hands, gloved and still, felt suddenly heavy and useless. He didn't flinch, didn't move to defend himself, didn't offer the shallow platitude of an excuse. He just listened, remaining entirely focused on her.

Her forgiveness struck him with the force of a physical blow not that she was forgiving the cartel’s atrocities, but that she was focusing that raw, agonizing grace upon him. Upon Matías, the man who had done nothing more than exist in the periphery of that sin. He felt the immense, almost crippling weight of it, recognizing the truth he had read in the stories of his family's faith: forgiveness was not a gift to the recipient, but a liberation for the one who offered it. A severance of the chain that bound her to the bitterness, the pain, and the memory. She was releasing her own spirit, and in doing so, offering him a chance at breath he hadn't earned.

"And I accept it:" spoken as if an unbreakable contract was struck. A slow, deliberate nod settled upon him. His jaw remained taut, but his eyes softened with a genuine, profound sorrow and respect. He couldn’t speak the words of apology that had been stuck in his throat for years. They felt cheap, inadequate for the scope of the harm. But he could accept the gift. He would accept the freedom she was granting herself, and the impossible mercy she was extending to him.

He reached out a gloved hand, not to touch her, but a slight, almost imperceptible gesture of acknowledgement toward the pain on her forearm. Wishing he could do something to take that pain away, but he was proud that she could use it. Transform that pain into determination. Then, he let it fall back to his side, letting her keep her space, her power, her moment.

He had not made his peace with his past. Not truly. That was a mountain he would have to climb alone, for years. But for Marta, right now, he could simply be the landing point for her grace.

As the heavy emotion of the moment settled, and the silence stretched tight, his focus shifted. It was a faint, almost subconscious shift, pulled by an unseen tether.

He lifted his gaze past the small group, past the statue of the silent angel, and caught the eye of the man who had lingered by the gate.

The air around the other man seemed thin and distorted, as if the cold night air was a pane of glass reflecting an impossible geometry. The sight flared, not with the heat of a warning, but the cold clarity of a pattern. He saw this stranger, but then saw echoes layered on top of the physical man: armored, a messenger standing resolute against an impossible surge; as a quiet, caring father, his hands gentle; as a fractured mirror, each piece showing a different life, a different path, all leading back to this single, quiet man in the shadows of a Moscow church.

Matías didn't see him as a threat, not in the direct, physical sense. There was no malevolence in the stare, only a strange, open curiosity, an unsettling quietude that seemed to absorb the entire scene without comment. But the prophetic echo was vast. A great, complicated tapestry of pivotal roles. This man, the one who had simply left a moment ago, was many things, and all of them were threads that would weave into Matías’s own future, and perhaps the future of others in this cold, alien place. The stranger’s quiet watchfulness felt like the turning of a great, invisible wheel.

Matías simply returned the stare, his face unreadable, his mind reeling with the silent, complex visions the sight was showing him. He saw a hundred possibilities, but no clear purpose. Just the man who previous walked away, was somehow still here, and was fundamental to all of them.

“Are you alright, sir?”