Zeyla stood across from Noor, fists clenched. "You're still acting like everything's fine. What's wrong with you?"
Noor didn't flinch. She barely even looked up. "The world keeps spinning, Zeyla. It doesn't stop."
"Pretending like it's just another day at the office," Zeyla hissed. "Are you so deluded that you think a child couldn't kill you? You're a warrior, but you've got your pride blindfolding you."
"I've faced worse," Noor said flatly.
Zeyla's anger flared. "Yeah? Well, this is different. That boy could've done it, and you didn't see it coming. I warned you about letting him into your life. He's dangerous, and you just—"
Maya's voice cut through. "Zeyla, calm down—"
"Not now, Maya," Zeyla snapped. "I'm done pretending like everything's okay." She turned back to Noor. "I'll find him. And when I do, I'll break him into pieces so small, even the puzzle won't fit back together."
Noor's gaze flickered for the briefest second.
"I will break him," Zeyla's voice was ice. "Then I'll make him feel every second of it."
Maya spoke again, softer. "Zeyla, please—"
Zeyla didn't even look at her. "Stay out of it."
Noor's lips twitched, barely a smile. "Vengeance doesn't fill the hole, Zeyla. It only makes you crave more."
"I'm not waiting for someone to hand me what I want. I'm going to take it."
Noor leaned back, not looking at Zeyla anymore. "You'll find out soon enough that breaking him isn't the hardest part."
Zeyla's eyes burned. "We'll see."
She turned and strode toward the door, every step echoing her resolve. Noor's voice followed her, soft and almost pitying.
"Just remember, Zeyla… sometimes, the ones you try to destroy are the ones who destroy you."
Maya left the room. Zeyla stayed behind, her gaze fixed on Noor, her concern deepening with every passing second.
Noor's hand trembled as the cup came to her lips, but she didn't drink. Her eyes fluttered shut.
A violent cough tore through her, shaking her whole frame. Blood spilled from her lips, staining the handkerchief.
Zeyla froze, every inch of her body betraying her as shock flooded through her, choking her words. She reached for Noor, but her fingers trembled.
"No," Noor's voice cracked like ice breaking. "Don't."
Zeyla's chest tightened, her throat constricting. She could barely breathe. "Madam..."
"No," she repeated, her voice colder this time. The steel in her gaze pierced through Zeyla as she spoke. "Don't, Zeyla."
Zeyla stepped back, her legs heavy. "This isn't nothing," she whispered, the words tasting like blood in her mouth.
Noor's eyes slid to the window, where pale morning light filtered in, but it only made her seem even more fragile. Her voice softened, but it carried the weight of a thousand years of regret. "Vengeance... this is what it turns you into. You're not you anymore. You're just an echo of what you used to be."
Zeyla's heart thundered. "No, you don't have to. Please—"
Noor's laugh came, bitter and hollow, a sound that clung to the air. "I made my choice, Zeyla. And now I pay for it. Vengeance doesn't free you, it devours you. It eats everything... even the part of you that still believed in anything."
Zeyla reached for her again, desperate, but Noor lifted her hand, holding it up like a barrier. "You can't fix this," she whispered, her voice breaking. "You never could."
Noor wiped the blood from her lips again, her eyes growing distant. Her whole being felt like a threadbare blanket—nothing left to give, nothing left to take. "When you choose revenge, it takes pieces of you... slowly, quietly... until you can't even feel who you were before." She coughed again, her breath sharp and jagged, like broken glass.
Zeyla's voice cracked, raw and desperate, "I don't want to watch you die, My Lady."
"You already are." The words were barely a whisper, but they hit Zeyla like a knife to the chest.
Zeyla's hands shook at her sides, the ache in her chest suffocating her. "No, please... let me____."
"You can't, Zeyla. This is my war. And now it's too late to stop the destruction."
Her voice dropped lower, something that had been buried so deep, it could never come back. "Vengeance... you think it will make things right. But it doesn't. It makes you disappear. The truth is, it never gives you back what you lost. All it does is take."
Zeyla's voice broke on a sob, the weight of Noor's words crushing her. "I can't... we don't want to lose you, My Lady."
Noor's lips barely curled into a sad, broken smile. She whispered, her voice barely audible, "I was already gone the moment I made that choice."
The silence between them stretched, thick with every word left unsaid. Zeyla couldn't breathe, couldn't think.
"I didn't want this, Zeyla. I didn't want to be this," Noor whispered, as if confessing the last secret of her soul. "But when you choose vengeance, it changes you. It devours the person you were and leaves nothing but an empty shell. And now I'm just a shadow... nothing more."
Zeyla reached out, her fingers brushing Noor's skin, but it felt cold, unreal. "My Lady, even if that is true, I shall fight for you."
Noor closed her eyes, a single tear slipping down her cheek.
Zeyla stood frozen, her voice barely a whisper. "I'll follow you—no matter where it leads."
Zeyla stepped closer, but her hand remained frozen in the space between them. Her voice cracked as she spoke, raw and desperate. "I don't need to understand. I just need to be here. Let me walk beside you."
Noor's lips parted, her whisper barely touched the air — a breath, a wound.
"Like the sun and the moon…drawn to the same light, yet cursed to orbit in silence. I am held in something pure, and it burns. Can't touch it. Can't speak. Just have to endure."
Noor didn't look at her. She just breathed—slow.
Then, a whisper, so faint Zeyla almost missed it. "Some things are born only to be buried... we walked through fire, but I was always the ash."
"There are names that vanish the moment you try to hold them…and I was never meant to stay."
"There are truths that split you open the moment you speak them…and I've already bled enough."
Zeyla shook her head, voice breaking. "Then let me bleed with you."
Noor turned slightly, eyes distant as if looking at something no longer here.
"Loyalty like yours...it doesn't save people like me. It just teaches them how to die slower."
Noor drifted in and out of consciousness, her skin burning with fever. Zeyla's eyes narrowed, watching her with growing concern. The cold spring. It was their last hope.
With a soft grunt, Zeyla lifted Noor, her fragile body limp in her arms. The moment her fingers brushed the water's surface, pain shot through her like acid, scorching her skin. She hissed through her teeth, but her resolve didn't waver. She placed Noor gently in the spring, cradling her head to avoid the shock of the cold.
Zeyla stepped back quickly, her hands raw and red from the brief contact. The burn lingered, but there was no time for it now. She sat beside the water, watching Noor's pale form sink into the depths, the fever still raging but somehow subdued by the cold.
The fog curled around her like silk unraveling from a scroll.
Barefoot on polished wood, she stood still — hair loose, trailing down her back like ink across rice paper. The lake beyond shimmered silver beneath the moon. Crickets hushed.
A breeze stirred. And with it—he came.
His eyes drank her in with quiet desperation.
"You look like something the heavens made… then kept secret for themselves."
Noor's breath hitched. She didn't turn. Her lashes fluttered, her cheeks blooming with that delicate, innocent flush of love.
"I wonder," he murmured, stepping closer, "How many eons have I drifted through, waited for you to smile at me like that again."
His fingers ghosted the space near her shoulder.
"You don't speak," he whispered, "yet your silence calls louder than any prayer I've ever heard."
She tilted her head, a bashful smile curving her lips.
He inhaled—like he could live off that moment alone.
"Are you shy?" he teased softly. "Or are you trying to undo me one glance at a time?"
Her eyes darted to his, bright as stars—then lowered again.
"Ah," he smiled, voice rough with affection. "Still you."
He finally dared to touch her waist—light as moonlight—thumb tracing the curve of her spine with unbearable reverence.
"If the gods had taste, they'd envy this moment."
He leaned in close, his breath brushing the shell of her ear.
He said, voice thick. "Let me carry the memory of your warmth into the next thousand years."
Her fingers tightened in his robes.
He brushed his forehead against hers—his other hand catching hers and pressing it to his chest, right where his heart thundered.
"If I asked you to stay here forever—just like this—would you?"
Her breath was trembling now.
"You don't have to answer," he said.
They swayed.
"This is where I worship," he said.
"Your breath is the sacred hymn."
Her heart was a soft prayer, wrapped in flesh.
And her answer... almost came out like a tear, a slow escape into silence.
They swayed.
"This is where I worship," he said. "Right here, in the temple of your eyes."
But then—
The sky cracked.
Fire licked at the edges of the vision. The stars screamed without sound.
His mouth opened, and he cried her name—but the fog swallowed it.
Noor clutched her chest as pain—blinding, —ripped through her.
The world burned.
And she awoke.
Gasping in the cold spring, the water clinging to her like frost. Her chest still ached. Her hands trembled.