Her body bent as though lightning itself had entered her marrow. Each vein curled inward, flesh twisting against bone, every fragment of her being screaming in revolt. She staggered, choking on silence, until her eyes fell upon the bed.
A letter.
The seal broken. The ink heavy as coagulated blood.
"You once told me every action births a shadow. Cause, effect. I have found mine. The chain that bound me to you. The root of my hunger, the wound I cannot close. You will see, Mother. I will return with the truth of us, and you will not turn away. Not from me.___J"
She smirked, the sound almost laughter but colder than grief.
"What will you do, child, when you discover there is nothing left to save?"
The paper fell from her hand as she moved, dragging herself toward the balcony.
The night had swallowed the sky whole. She leaned against the railing, her body trembling with unspent pain. Then it came—black smoke rising through the floor, curling like serpents. It brushed her ankles, wound up her thighs, circled her waist, her back, her neck.
The balcony breathed frost. Noor's hands clutched the rail, her knuckles bone-white beneath the moonlight. Pain coiled through her ribs like iron wires, each breath a broken shard. From the night itself, smoke began to gather—thick, serpentine, curling around her shoulders like an embrace she had once known.
A voice, rich and venom-soft, rose from within it.
"Ah, how pitiful you've become. Once you were fire. Now you tremble like a candle dying in the wind."
The smoke coiled tighter, brushing against her as though caressing a forgotten lover.
"Do you remember," it purred, "how the stars sang when you fell? And now look at you, coughing blood, clutching at the edge of your cage. You should have returned to me. I would have kept you. I would have preserved what light you squandered."
Noor's lips curled into a ghost of a smile. She did not flinch. "Old friend," she whispered, her voice hoarse yet steady, "you always did mistake hunger for devotion."
The shadow stirred at her naming of it. It pulsed, as though the title carried a weight too heavy for its smoke to hold.
"Old friend?You were always above the frailty of men and gods. Yet here you stand, bleeding, unguarded, mortal in every fragile breath."
The smoke pressed closer, curling along her throat like a collar, teasing, mocking.
"Do you feel it? The loneliness of your choice. The ache of every betrayal you endured. Come back to me. I will not scorn you as they did. I will wrap you in the darkness you deserve, and it will be a gentler cradle than this pitiful existence."
Noor's eyes lifted to the sky, gold flickering in their depths like dying embers. "You speak of cradles as though I were ever a child in your arms." She reached forward, fingers piercing into the smoke. Her touch cut deeper than any blade, finding the heart hidden within its endless shifting form.
The shadow shrieked, splitting the night.
Noor drew her hand back, dark heart clutched in her palm. "My first betrayer," she breathed, steady even as blood dripped from her lips. "You forgot— I was the flame you could not contain."
The smoke writhed violently, unraveling at its core. Its whispers turned to screams, its caresses to claws that failed to hold her.
Yet Noor stood still, the heart in her grasp, her pain shining brighter than any weakness.
"Return to the void that bore you," she whispered, pressing her fingers tighter around the heart. "I walk where no shadow can follow."
The night trembled. The smoke collapsed inward, dragged back into the silence from which it came. Noor swayed but did not fall, her hand still clenched around nothingness, her breath shallow but triumphant.
Noor's garden breathed with silence, save for the groan of the oldest tree. Beneath its heavy branches, her hand closed around something soft. A lock of hair, black as pitch. Smoke curled upward, as though the forgotten was finding its way back. But before it could coil around her, her palm blazed blue. Flames devoured the strands, licking up the darkness until it shrieked into nothing.
Her anger broke loose. Shadows spilled from her back, thick and wild, wings—shattered, the image of ruin. The air bent beneath her fury. The garden trembled. The earth quaked. Roots cracked, and stones split like old bones.
The scene tore away.
Inside the estate, teacups rattled against saucers. Zeyla and Maya sat with quiet composure, until the floor shook beneath them. Both rose at once, wide-eyed.
"What is it?" Maya whispered, setting her cup down before it shattered.
Before Zeyla could answer, Janir was already there. He had appeared without sound. Calm, unblinking, he reached out, took Zeyla's teacup, and drank as if the tremor was nothing.
"She is angry," he murmured, lips curving into something that might have been a smile, though it was too misplaced. "Perhaps she liked my gift."
And suddenly—everything stopped. The floor stilled, the air lightened, silence swelled.
Zeyla's voice cut through. "When did you return?"
Janir tilted his head, and his eyes seemed too alive. His words came disjointed, slipping past sense, stitched from pieces of thought.
"When?" He laughed softly. "I never left. Doors, rooms, oceans—only tricks. Flesh and time are fabric, and I… I cut fabric when it bores me." He leaned forward just slightly, enough to make the air tighten.
Maya froze, her hand half raised. For a moment, she wasn't in the estate. She was back in the dark of that night—where Janir had stood on a mound of bodies, their blood spattered across his face, and he had smiled as though the carnage was a symphony meant for him alone.
Her breath caught.
Janir turned, slow and deliberate, walking toward the great doors. Just before the lock caught, he glanced back.
Janir lingered at the doorway, head tilted as though listening. His voice came low, steady, too calm.
"She spoke of kindness as if it were light." A pause. His fingers twitched at his side. "But light blinds, doesn't it? It softens the flesh, makes it easy to carve."
He gave a hollow laugh, no mirth in it. "I think that's what she meant. To be kind is to open yourself… so someone like me can walk straight through."
He turned, his shadow stretching long across the trembling floor. "Yes. Kindness is just another name for permission."
"I will come back for you," he said, the words low, vibrating with something feral. "I swear I will."
And then he was gone.