Noor stepped inside her suite and locked the door behind. Pain coiled around her ribs, a noose tightening with every breath. The suite was dim, swallowed in half-light. Yet, by the window—something waited.
A figure. Not man. Not shadow. The night itself wrapped around it, silver hair spilling like liquid moonlight. Eyes—gleaming, depthless—watched her, unblinking.
Beside it, an hourglass. Silver. Ancient. The sand did not fall. It rushed.
"You're running out of time."
Noor exhaled, mocking. "Time has always been my enemy."
The figure tilted its head. "Enemies fight back. This is surrender."
Pain lashed through her spine. Her obsidian eyes flickered gold. She smirked, sharp as a knife's edge. "You mistake suffering for defeat."
"And you mistake defiance for meaning."
The sand fell faster.
"You're breaking."
Noor's nails dug into her palm. "I chose this."
"Then what is that I hear? The sound of something fracturing?"
The walls creaked. The air trembled.
"Tell me—" The figure stepped forward, its presence wrong in a way that defied words. "What are you clinging to?"
Her vision blurred. The poison laughed in her veins.
"When the last grain falls, what will be left of you?"
Noor smiled. Blood on her lips, gold in her gaze. "A ghost. A whisper. A forgotten dream. But he will remain."
A pause. A silence so deep it felt like the universe holding its breath.
Then, the figure leaned in, voice like silk stretched over steel.
"And when he too is dust?"
The final grain trembled.
Noor's knees buckled. The price was due.
"Then I will have been a story no one remembers."
The last grain fell.
So did she.
The figure watched. A whisper of something ancient, almost tired.
"And yet, even gods are forgotten."
Then, with a sigh that sounded almost like pity—
It was gone.
_________
"Of course, she drank it." Maya scoffed, arms crossed. "Because why not? Let's just add another layer of misery to her already impossible existence."
Zeyla didn't respond. Didn't even blink.
"You're too quiet." Maya frowned.
Still, nothing. Just that unsettling stillness, like Zeyla was listening to something only she could hear.
Then—Maya felt it. That shift in the air. That scent. Subtle, but wrong.
Her breath hitched.
She glanced at Zeyla.
Zeyla's gaze flickered.
A wet sound. A deliberate squelch.
Maya's breath hitched. The marble beneath her feet was no longer pristine. A thick, dark trail slithered from beneath the wall, inching toward them like a living thing.
Zeyla stiffened. The air was thick—tainted. A scent they recognized but refused to name.
The door creaked open.
And hell opened with it.
Bodies—torn, twisted, defiled.
Flesh flayed open like parchment. Limbs discarded like broken dolls. The walls, streaked with something dark, something still warm.
One body had no face. Another had fingers shoved down its own throat.
The room stank of death. Of something worse.
Maya staggered back, bile rising—she turned and vomited, the sound swallowed by the sheer wrongness of the scene.
Zeyla did not move. She only stared.
Because she knew these men.
She had spoken to them hours ago. Had seen their eyes blink. Had watched their lips move.
And now—only vacant, ruined things remained.
And then—movement.
Tall. Unmoving. A shadow made flesh.
Then—silver.
His eyes gleamed through the dark, cold as moonlight on an open grave.
Janir.
Maya choked on her own breath.
Zeyla's pulse roared in her ears.
Maya wiped her mouth, her body trembling. Her voice barely a whisper.
"This… this isn't just killing." Her breath hitched. "This is ___."
Zeyla's hands clenched at her sides, knuckles white. Her voice was eerily steady.
"Judgment."
Maya turned to her, eyes wide with horror. "You call this judgment?" She gestured to the ruin around them. "This is madness. This is—"
"This is what she let loose." Zeyla's gaze didn't waver. She stared at Janir, at those gleaming silver grey eyes.
"She knew exactly what she was doing."
Maya took a step back. "Then what has she done?"
A silence stretched, thick as blood.
And then Zeyla murmured, barely audible—
"She's given the devil a reason to exist."
Janir exhaled, long and slow, as if bored. His boot nudged a lifeless hand aside, smearing blood across the floor. "Curious, isn't it?" he murmured, "how silence can kill just as surely as a blade?"
Zeyla's throat tightened. Maya clutched her stomach, bile burning her throat. The air was thick—drenched in iron, in death.
Janir turned his silver grey eyes on them, gleaming like molten frost. "A peculiar thing, loyalty… It bends so easily under the weight of hesitation."
Zeyla stiffened. "What have you done?"
Janir tilted his head, as if considering. "Strange. I was going to ask you the same thing."
Maya recoiled as he stepped forward, the sickening squelch of blood beneath his feet making her stomach turn.
"Tell me," Janir mused, "when the poison touched her lips, did your hands shake? Did your heart stop?" His smirk was almost kind. "Or have you learned to watch your master fall without blinking?"
Zeyla's nails dug into her palm. "This… this isn't what she would have wanted."
"What she wants?" Janir let out a quiet chuckle. "She wants a world that gnaws at her bones and calls it devotion. But tell me—" his gaze flickered, unreadable, "when did your devotion last draw blood?"
Maya's legs buckled.
"Tsk." Janir clicked his tongue, his voice dipped in mock pity. "What fragile things you are. And yet, you call yourselves hers."
He turned away, as if the conversation itself bored him. "A disappointment, really. But then…" He glanced back, silver eyes dull with indifference. "Some things were never meant to be trusted."
Janir stepped in, shutting the door behind him. His silver eyes locked onto Noor's still form, the blood at the corner of her lips like a cruel mockery of her strength. His jaw tightened.
He moved to her, hands steady, but his heart a battlefield. Lifting her effortlessly, he placed her onto the bed, fingers brushing against her cold skin longer than necessary. He wiped the blood from her mouth, slow, reverent.
A tear slipped past his guard, landing on her cheek.
Noor's obsidian eyes flickered open. Her gaze met his—sharp, knowing, unshaken.
She wiped his tear away. "Tears don't suit you."
His grip on her wrist tightened. "You weren't supposed to fall."
She let out a breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. "Even gods fall. It's the landing that matters."
His eyes darkened. "Not you."
Noor studied him, the weight of centuries in her silence. Then, finally, she murmured, "You remind me of someone."
His chest tightened. "Who?"
"A lost child I met long ago."
"Mother, don't." His voice was almost a growl, something dangerous beneath the surface.
Noor's lips curled—an unreadable smile, edged with sorrow. "You don't know him. But I did."
The silence stretched.
Then, softly, she spoke again.
"And like all lost things, he will either be found… or he will destroy everything searching for what was never his to begin with."
Janir tilted her head back, forcing the antidote past her lips, watching every drop vanish between them. His fingers traced the line of her throat, lingering over the faint flutter of her pulse—too slow.
His jaw clenched. "You let them do this to you." His voice was soft, almost tender, but the weight behind it was anything but. "You let them tear you apart like you owe them the pieces."
Noor didn't stir.
His fingers brushed over her cheek, his silver eyes dark with something unreadable. "Tell me—what is it like?" His breath barely a whisper against her skin. "To be worshipped by the world but left to die in its shadows?"
Silence. Only the slow, shallow rise of her chest.
"They poison you, and you call it fate. They betray you, and you call it duty." A sharp exhale, something bitter curling at the edges of his voice. "Is there anything left of you that still belongs to you?"
His fingers curled against the sheets, possessively.
"You are not untouchable. You only pretend to be." His voice dipped lower, almost a whisper. "But I know the truth. I've seen you bleed."
A muscle in his jaw twitched.His grip tightened on her hand, almost shaking. "I ll let them pray for a death more merciful than yours."
He leaned in, his forehead almost touching hers, breath shallow, gaze burning.
"You once told me gods do not fear death." His lips hovered over her temple, his voice like a vow. "Then tell me, mother—why does mine feel so small in your absence?"
She didn't answer. She was already slipping into the abyss.
Janir traced his fingers over the curve of her knuckles, his touch light—too light. As if he feared she would shatter beneath him. As if she hadn't already.
His breath was slow. Controlled. Lies.
Inside, he was burning.
His fingers curled around her wrist, thumb pressing against the faint, stubborn beat of her pulse.
"You never ask for help," he murmured. "And yet you fall, again and again, as if daring the world to catch you." His lips twisted. "Or perhaps you don't believe anyone ever will."
He leaned closer, silver eyes dark with something sharp.
"You've let the world devour you piece by piece, and for what? A throne built from your own bones?" His jaw clenched. "If that is what it takes to be a god, then I would burn every altar before I let them make you a martyr."
His breath ghosted against her skin, voice dropping lower, heavier.
"They do not deserve your suffering." His grip tightened. "But me?" His thumb traced over the inside of her wrist, where her pulse fought to remind him she was still here. "I have earned it, haven't I?"
A bitter chuckle, almost mocking himself.
"The child you saved. The shadow you raised. The devil you gave a name."
He exhaled, forehead brushing against hers.
"If you die, mother—what do I become?"
The weight of a universe in silence.
Then, softer. "Tell me you… would you still call it love if I tore this world apart to keep you breathing?"
Her lips parted, but no sound came. She was already gone. Slipping into the abyss.
Janir sat there, watching.
A silent war raging behind his silver-grey eyes.