It had been nearly three days since Noor vanished.
Zeyla said nothing.
She simply waited.
Far from the estate, beyond the edge of the map and memory, a small hut stood beneath the weight of trees. Rain whispered through the leaves.
Inside, Noor stirred.
Her lashes fluttered. Her breath caught.
A faint sound escaped her lips—barely audible.
She opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw—
Was him.
Standing motionless at the edge of the room, half-veiled by shadow. His robes flowed like mist, untouched by the damp. His long hair fell in perfect silence.
He looked at her with those jewel like ruby eyes.
And for a moment—
He said nothing.
Noor turned her head toward him, slowly. The motion hurt. Her breath hitched.
Still, she smiled.
"…Too soon," she whispered.
"…Too late."
He stepped forward.
One step only.
He knelt beside her, robes folding beneath him like water over stone.His hands stayed folded in his lap—long, graceful fingers wrapped around stillness itself.
He looked at the bruises on her throat. The dried blood beneath her ribs.
Then, softly—his voice low, lined in dust and divinity:
"The stars were asked to look away the day you were born.
They have not opened their eyes since."
She looked beyond him. Through the small window.
Outside, thunder cracked.
He followed her gaze. Saw the sky roil with slow fury. Felt the ache buried deep within the clouds.
"You have torn open what should never have stirred," he said, voice almost reverent. "And still, they listen when you breathe."
She didn't answer.
The silence between them was worshipful.
Then, quieter still—he spoke again:
"The pain you carry… would turn the marrow of the heavens black. I stepped into it. I wore it for the length of a breath. And it broke me."
He closed his eyes.
"Yet still… I would wear it again. If only to be near."
Noor turned to him then. Slowly. Her eyes met his.
There was a pause.
He looked at her the way like one looks at something that once belonged but never reached.
He tried to smile. He failed.
Then he rose.
"You were never meant to come back this way."
He looked down at her one last time.
"And still you return. Ashes in your lungs. Chains on your soul."
His eyes dimmed slightly.
"But never for me."
A faint wind pressed through the broken edges of the roof.
From the doorway, EN stood, silent. Waiting.
His voice was barely more than a breath now:
"I remain only because you are here.
And when you go… so will I."
He stepped back. His figure blurred in the half-light.
And as he turned, the thunder outside cracked again—this time, closer.
Noor blinked.
Raindrops slipped through the wooden slats. A chill moved through the room.
She stared up at the sky. Eyes wide. A tear slipped down her cheek.
Something inside her had heard a name not spoken aloud.
And something far away had answered.
---------------
The monitors screamed.
A single long note.
Flatline.
"He's crashing—charge—clear!"
Sanlang's body jolted under the shock.
No response.
Yilan stood frozen—her fingers numb against the bed rail.
A tremor passed through her as the cold sound filled her skull.
Again.
"Three hundred—clear!"
The lead doctor's voice strained—measured,
Another shock.
Another jolt of flesh.
Still the flatline.
Yilan pressed her face to her hand.
A whisper, ragged, near voiceless:
"Sanlang... please... I beg you... don't leave me now..."
Her tears streaked down her wrist, warm against a skin turning cold.
Yilan stood without breath, fingers crushed white around the rail.
Sanlang's skin beneath her touch was cold.
Her voice came low, hoarse:
"No... Sanlang, please... no..."
Her tears ran unchecked, falling to the sheets.
A sound escaped her lips—half a cry, half a prayer—shaken, broken.
Another shock.
Silence.
A second, a third—time hung still.
And then—
beep
a faint tremor.
beep
a pulse—uncertain—returning.
Eyes opened.
Not the familiar emerald.
Silver—deep as moonlit ice, vast and empty.
Breath caught in Yilan's throat.
His lips moved—barely—voice worn to a thread:
"...Noor..."
Then the silver flickered—
the emerald green returned—dimming.
Lashes lowered.
He sank back—breath faint but steady.
Alive.
Yilan collapsed forward, forehead to his arm, sobbing.
---
Night broke.
The sky cracked open—thunder in black waves.
Lightning veined the clouds, the air sharp with rain.
The children gathered in the old hall—blankets tight around thin shoulders.
Their voices hushed—fear beneath the surface.
Maya moved through them, arms gentle, voice low:
"Shhh...Stay close. The storm will pass."
But even as she spoke—
another roar of wind struck the walls.
Windows strained, glass groaning in their frames.
A strange cold rose beneath her skin—old instinct—wrongness.
Her gaze flicked to Zeyla.
There—standing before the window, silent, unmoving.
Eyes fixed to the storm—seeing something beyond it.
"Zeyla...?"
A great peal of thunder—
then the crash.
One of the high windows shattered—glass and rain burst inward.
The children screamed.
Maya pulled them close, heart racing.
Still Zeyla did not move.
Her voice came low—flat as stone:
"She is Awake."
Maya's breath caught.
Lightning flared again—
the room lit in stark white.
The wind screamed through the broken pane—
high and sharp, near human.
Zeyla's voice again—softer now, as if to herself:
"Some storms... do not pass."
Maya gathered the children fast, voice calm though her throat was tight:
"We go below. Now."
Zeyla lingered—eyes still locked to the sky.
-------
Outside the hut his feet were like restless serpents, as if the very air sought to pull him deeper into the abyss. His steps were weightless, a being adrift in his own domain.
He stopped.
And it was then that the earth—if such a thing could be called earth—shuddered beneath him. His knees buckled, from the weight of a presence so vast it threatened to drown him. The fog swirled tighter around his form.
The EN was there—always there, a shadow in the distance.
She did not speak at first.
His head bowed, eyes closed, and the tears slipped from him without sound as he spoke almost to himself.
"I walk between the realms of fire and ice, yet she burns without flame," he murmured, his voice heavy.
"What is a god to do when the very air he breathes is born of her absence?"
He inhaled sharply, as though each breath was drawn from a world that no longer belonged to him. The EN remained behind him, a figure carved from eternity, not daring to approach.
"I was made to command the heavens, to hold the stars in the palm of my hand. Yet before her, I find myself…" he paused, the words choking on their own weight. "I find myself beneath the very dust I once shaped."
His voice broke like the rumbling of distant storms, each syllable soaked in an agony that could not be quenched.
"She is a tempest within me. A call I can neither obey nor resist. I would crumble before her touch... if she would only turn her gaze."
The fog swirled tighter, as though the world itself sought to fold around him in his despair. But he remained still, his chest rising and falling with the tremors of existence itself.
"I was made to witness the unraveling of worlds… yet it becomes the very unraveling of me."
He was silent for a long moment, his eyes still closed as if the mere act of seeing was too much to bear.
The EN moved closer, her voice low, the ancient weight of her words undeniable.
"You've been summoned. You must return."
He did not move at once. The command echoed in the fog, but he did not obey.
"What is a god," he whispered into the ether, "if not a servant to time's cruel hand? I have touched the edge of eternity, and yet she remains a shadow, always too far to grasp."
The EN's figure remained unmoving, though she felt the storm.
"It is a punishment to exist outside of time, and yet she is the one who reminds me that time exists." He took a step forward, but it was slow, dragging his being through the fog as though the air itself sought to hold him back.
His gaze lifted, his ruby eyes finally resting on the hut—a dim light flickering within.
"I was not meant to kneel. I was not made for such weakness. Yet... I crumble."
The EN, sensing his inner torment, stepped closer.
"And yet, you still linger," she said, her voice a gentle echo of ancient understanding. " It is not for you to remain."
His eyes, dark with a thousand unspoken words, focused on the hut.
"I was not chosen. Nor will I ever be," he muttered, almost to himself. "But still, I wait in silence, though it is not my silence to endure."
A breath. Another beat. And he turned his back to the hut.
"But the burden of such silence... it is unbearable."
The EN watched him. There was no comfort in her gaze—only the cold certainty of inevitability.
But in that moment, before he walked away, a whisper slipped through his lips like a vow.
"I will never be the one to claim you... but I will remember. I will always remember."
The fog swallowed him as he took his final step away from the hut.
And inside, Noor stirred. Her voice, soft but so heavy with the weight of what could never be, filled the silence.
"So soon…"
And from the fog that surrounded him, his voice responded.
"Always... too late."