The penthouse smelled of something dying.
The scent of a life unraveling, breath by breath, moment by moment.
Zeyla stepped inside.
The weight in the air pressed against her ribs, choking her.
Sanlang lay on the bed, half-consumed by fever, his body betraying itself. His skin burned with an unnatural heat, slick with sweat, and beneath it—veins like ink. Thick, black, curling under his flesh like roots dragging him down.
The doctors stood around him, their hands poised, trembling. Their silence said more than their words ever could.
They knew.
This was beyond them.
Yilan stood near the bed, fists clenched, eyes wide with a terror she refused to name.
"Do something!" she screamed.
No one answered.
Zeyla did not move.
Her fingers curled tighter.
And then—she saw it.
Noor.
The same veins. The same slow death.
Zeyla blinked. The past bled into the present, seeping in like a wound that refused to close.
She had held death in her hands before.
—
YEARS AGO—THE NIGHT OF FIRE
The sky had been painted in flame.
The streets ran red. Smoke coiled in the air, thick with the smell of burned bodies and dying prayers.
Zeyla had run until she had no breath left.
She had run until she knew it was useless.
The city was falling. She was next.
She turned a corner and crashed to the ground, a sharp cry breaking from her lips.
A hand gripped her wrist.
She looked up—into Noor's eyes.
Noor stood before her, untouched by the chaos, the firelight casting her in shadow.
Behind her—the bodies.
Dozens. Maybe more. Limbs tangled in the dirt, faces frozen in expressions of agony.
Zeyla's stomach churned.
"Why?" she whispered.
Noor looked at her.
"Mercy is not kindness."
Zeyla's breath hitched. "They were—"
"In the way."
Zeyla recoiled, eyes darting back to the slaughter.
They had begged. She had heard them.
"You think choice is about right or wrong,"
Noor said, voice quiet, absolute.
"It is not."
Zeyla clenched her fists. "Then what is it about?"
Noor looked at her. Truly looked at her.
"Power does not ask what is right."
A pause.
"Power asks what must be done."
Zeyla felt the words like a blade against her ribs.
Noor lifted a hand, a single drop of blood sliding down her fingers.
"You hesitate because you believe there is another way."
She let the blood fall. It hit the ground.
"There isn't."
Zeyla's pulse pounded.
Noor's gaze did not soften.
"The moment you choose, someone suffers."
A longer silence.
"Some debts must be paid in blood."
The world burned around them.
Zeyla did not understand. Not then.
But the fire had swallowed the city.
And Noor had led her away from the ashes.
—
The memory shattered.
Zeyla inhaled sharply, as if coming up for air.
Sanlang arched, body convulsing. The black veins pulsed, twisting, writhing under his skin.
The doctors murmured to each other, but their words were meaningless. Empty sounds against the inevitable.
Yilan sobbed, hands shaking, voice raw from screaming.
And in Zeyla's palm—the vial.
It had the weight of something far greater than it should.
"Choose."
The voice. In her head. In the air. In the marrow of her bones.
If I let him go, we lose you forever.
If I save him, we may never reach you.
Sanlang was Noor's last tether to the world. The last flicker of something Noor had once allowed herself to feel.
And yet—
"Death is not the worst fate."
The vial pressed into her palm.
"Suffering is."
Her breath trembled.
"A ruler does not weep for the fallen."
Zeyla's pulse pounded.
"She decides."
The choice had already been made.
She turned.
Stepped away.
And then—
"Noor."
A whisper.
An aching whisper.
Sanlang's lips barely moved.
But the name left him like a plea.
"Noor."
Zeyla stopped.
The world pressed in.
The walls. The air. The weight of the choice she thought she had made.
Sanlang's fingers twitched. His breath shuddered. His body fought.
And then—
"Zeyla."
A voice.
Noor's.
Right here.
Zeyla turned back.
Her fingers tightened around the vial.
It gleamed—too red to be wine, too bright to be blood.
She knew what it was.
The same scene of the poison but the same sent of the antidote she has served noor for years but very different from it all.
Sanlang's breath rattled. His lips barely moved, but the name still left him like a plea, like a curse—
"Noor."
Zeyla exhaled.
And then—she chose.
The vial tipped.
The liquid touched his lips.
The world stopped.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then—
A sharp inhale. A gasp. Sanlang's back arched, his body snapping taut like a wire pulled to breaking. His breath came in ragged shudders, the black veins surging, writhing, spreading.
The spider lily on the table—
It closed.
Like a secret never meant to be known.
Something sealed itself away.
Zeyla barely had time to process it before—
The world collapsed.
Something ripped.
The doctors—silent before they hit the ground.
Yilan—eyes wide, mouth open, frozen mid-scream.
They simply—stopped.
As if reality had forgotten them.
Zeyla staggered.
The air pulsed.
And then—the mirror cracked.
It almost split open.
Down the center, a single line stretching like a wound torn into the world.
And from within it—
A voice.
"So this is what fate has chosen."
Zeyla turned sharply, breath shallow.
The mirror pulsed. The crack widened. And then—
A vision.
Zeyla's breath hitched.
Noor was there—but not as she should be.
Chained.
Her wrists bound, skin raw where the metal cut deep. Her dress in tatters, her hair loose, strands clinging to her sweat-dampened face.
Her throat was bruised—as if something unseen had been choking her for far too long.
The black veins had reached her eyes.
"You must fall," the voice whispered.
"Yet once again."
Noor lifted her head. The weight of her chains did not matter.
Her eyes met Zeyla's through the mirror.
She smiled.
And then—
A ripple in the mirror.
And then—he stepped through.
The weight of his presence pressing against the walls, the air, the fragile concept of reality itself.
Maya and Janir collapsed. Their bodies crumpled to the floor like marionettes with their strings severed.
His gaze was for Noor alone.
She lay still. Chains at her wrists. Shadows pooling beneath her, twisting, curling, whispering.
And yet—she smiled.
Slowly, almost lazily, her deep endless dark eyes opened.
The figure exhaled, shaking his head.
"Yet again you are not the one chosen."
Noor's voice was a whisper.
"And yet, I am."
The figure took a step closer.
In his hands—the spider lily.
Red as spilled blood.
"They fell because of you." He nodded toward Janir, toward Maya.
Noor did not look.
The figure chuckled.
"So cold, little god."
Noor's fingers twitched against the iron shackles. They did not tremble.
"No colder than fate itself."
The figure crouched beside her. Too close.
"And yet, you fight it."
A pause.
Noor did not answer.
The figure smiled.
"What are you hiding?"
The chains at her wrists hummed. The shadows coiled. The air pressed inward, thick with something unseen.
Noor did not move.
"If you have to ask," she murmured, "you are not ready to know."
The figure tilted his head. Studying her. Searching.
"You have done it again."
Not a question. Not an accusation.
A fact.
"And now, you must suffer again."
Noor exhaled.
"Suffering is the cost of knowing."
She lifted her gaze, meeting his without flinching.
"And I do not regret the price."
The figure watched her for a long moment.
And then—he laughed.
"Then suffer."
He placed the spider lily beside her.
"Suffer, as only those who defy fate can."
The petals curled. The chains tightened.
And Noor—smiled.
The world was quiet when Zeyla woke.
She blinked, her body heavy, her mind caught between memory and the now. The penthouse was still. She was not able to piece the fragments of what happened, her head throbbing.
And then—
Her phone rang.
The shrill sound tore through the silence, jolting her upright. Her hands trembled as she reached for it, breath shallow.
She barely had time to say hello before—
"Zeyla!"
Janir's voice. Sharp. Wild. Almost manic.
And behind him—Maya. "She's awake!"
Zeyla's pulse slammed against her ribs.
"What?" Her voice was hoarse, as if she had swallowed the weight of a thousand nights.
"She," Janir choked out. "She's awake—she's fine—she's—"
Zeyla couldn't breathe.
Noor was awake.
But deep in bones, Zeyla knew—something was wrong.