The sun was already high, flooding the garden with a warmth that smelled of roses and wet grass. Noor stood by the fountain, her hand trailing idly along its rim. Her robe was light, her hair loosely tied, strands catching the breeze.
Sanlang arrived quickly, breathless though he tried to hide it. "You could have sent for me sooner," he said, irritation laced with relief.
Noor tilted her head, dark eyes gleaming. "Anticipation makes the meal sweeter."
He stepped closer, almost too close. "Or it makes the man starve."
Her lips twitched.
"Ohh...cruel." He caught her wrist, his thumb brushing the inside of her palm. Her breath betrayed her with the faintest hitch.
"Cruel?" she echoed, feigning innocence.
"Yes," he said, lowering his voice, "Yet I can't stay away."
Something in his tone struck her. She laughed—light, unguarded—and the sound startled even her. Heat rose to her cheeks, a color soft and impossible against her ivory calm. She turned, as though the roses could shield her embarrassment.
"You're blushing," he said, triumphant, leaning closer.
Her lashes lowered, but the corner of her mouth curved. "From the sun."
"From me," he insisted.
"Arrogant," she muttered, but the word was drowned by another laugh, gentler than the first.
He reached to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She swatted his hand away, but not fast enough to hide the smile breaking across her lips.
Across the hedge, Maya clutched her tablet like a lifeline. "Well, I'll be damned," she whispered.
Maya nearly ripped Zeyla's sleeve off.
"Zeyla. Look. Look. She's smiling."
Zeyla blinked, leaned in, then burst into a crooked grin. "Oh, hell. And blushing. Our ice Queen."
Maya slapped her own tablet against her mouth to stifle the laugh. "She's laughing like a girl. A girl, Zeyla. I didn't think her face muscles did that."
Zeyla's eyes glittered with wicked delight. " That man's cursed her. Look at him,standing there like a starving dog who's finally been fed."
Maya snorted so loud she had to clap a hand over her face. "Stop. Stop. You're going to kill me."
"Kill you?" Zeyla whispered. "If she hears us, we'll both vanish before nightfall.Come to think of it,might be worth it."
Maya shook with muffled laughter. "You're insane. But god, look at her. She looks… happy."
Zeyla smirked, softening for just a breath. "Good, isn't it? Seeing her like that."
Before Maya could reply, her tablet shrilled. The sharp sound jolted both of them.
She fumbled, whispering, "Damn it, damn it—" and swiped it off.
Zeyla hissed, eyes wide. "Wait—that was the investor. Maya?"
Maya shrugged, breathless from half-laughing still. "So what?You expect me to miss this? Its rarer than funding."
Zeyla stared at her, half-shocked, half-amused. "You're insane."
"Maybe," Maya said, grinning as she leaned back over the hedge. "But if I'm going down, I'm going down with this memory burned into me."
They both peeked again and Noor's laugh rang across the roses.
Maya whispered, gleeful, "I swear, if she twirls in those flowers, I'm fainting right here."
Zeyla choked on a laugh.
The two of them doubled over, laughing too hard to breathe until Zeyla's smile froze.
Her gaze had slid past the hedge, toward the archway of the hall.
Janir.
He stood motionless, half-swallowed in shadow. His face was empty, his eyes fixed on Noor with a gaze so blank it pressed on Zeyla like stone.
Her chest seized. The laughter died in her ribs. That void stared back at her like a mirror filled with silence.
She blinked, and he was gone.
The garden was still warm. But Zeyla's smile was gone.
______
The estate glowed too brightly.
Noor sat before the mirror. The reflection was sharper than flesh.
Maya hovered at the doorway, voice trembling.
"The guests will be here soon."
Noor did not look up.
"Time escorts them better than I could."
Maya bowed too quickly and vanished, as though her absence had been commanded.
Only Zeyla stayed.
Her voice cracked. "So it was all...pretense."
Noor's eyes rose in the mirror. Gold rimmed the black.
And then she spoke,"I've dreamed it before, Zeyla. And again. And again.
The festival comes first. I sit apart while colours whirl. A face I once trusted appears, smiling as though forgiveness were a coin still unspent. I turn away. Always away.
Then the man. He waits in a bed I never enter. Later, he cradles a child that was never mine. I reach to speak, but the words rot before my tongue.
And the houses. Mud walls. Wooden doors. I walk on. Always walking. I carry grief like water in my palms , spilling, refilling, spilling again.
It never alters. Not in one life. Not in the next. Each time I wake, it is only to walk it again."
Her lips curved faintly.
"So tell me, Zeyla… if a dream repeats until it outlives you, is it still a dream? Or have you been asleep all along, only imagining you ever woke?"
The reflection blinked late.
Zeyla staggered, because the cruelty wasn't in the dream itself but in the realisation it planted.
__________
The Gala burned bright, the strings played too sweet, but all anyone really watched was Noor.
She moved among them like a slow flame, and they glittering heirs, powdered wives, men in black silk leaned in, then leaned back, unable to decide if she was salvation or execution.
Maya snorted into her glass. "Look at them. They don't know whether to kneel or strip."
Zeyla smirked, eyes sharp. "Both, probably. In that order."
One young minister nearly dropped his champagne when Noor's gaze flicked his way; another woman fanned herself so violently it looked like she was fighting off a seizure.
Maya's mouth twisted. "If she told them to jump into the fountain outside, they'd ask whether she preferred headfirst or feet first."
Zeyla hummed. "Headfirst. Less noise."
Maya bit back a laugh, leaning close. "Do you see that one? He's clutching his wedding ring like it's holy water. Give him five minutes and he'll pawn it just to touch her sleeve."
Their laughter was low, dangerous. Because even as they mocked, both knew if Noor turned, if those gold-rimmed obsidian eyes caught theirs they'd fall silent too.
And then Noor stopped. Still. The music went on, but Zeyla's grin vanished.
Something in the air shifted.
Noor moved, black silk trailing, drifting from the hall into the narrowing corridor.
Zeyla's breath tightened. She followed.
The music and chatter dulled behind her. Zeyla pressed herself against the wall, heart racing. She had followed Noor without thinking, and now she stood in a sliver of darkness where she could not see the end of the corridor.
Somewhere ahead, Noor's voice slid through the silence, soft, steady and answered by something else. A voice like cracked stone, low enough to crawl along the floor:
"You dress yourself in power, but beneath it you owe."
Noor's reply came quiet, almost tired.
"Debts are for those who intend to pay."
Zeyla's knuckles whitened on the wall. She couldn't see Noor, couldn't see who she was speaking to, only the pressure in air.
The shadow hissed:"You walk as if eternity is yours."
Noor's voice was even lower,"Wrong. I walk because IT IS... mine."
Something in the air cracked. A windowpane trembled.
The voice hissed, nearer now, right against the stone:
"You dare to claim what even gods abandon."
Noor's tone dropped, intimate, lethal:
"Touch what is mine..Even in thought and I ...will hunt you past ruin, past silence, past the bones of worlds. There will be nowhere left to hide. Not even in oblivion."
Then nothing. No sound but Zeyla's heartbeat.
Silence closed over the corridor like water over a stone.
Zeyla pressed herself harder into the wall, frozen. She hadn't seen anything. No movement. Only voices.
And as she crept back toward the hall, the laughter and music rushed to meet her like a mask slamming shut.
Zeyla lingered at the edge of the hall, breath uneven. Noor stood beneath the chandeliers, flawless , shadows bending faintly at her outline.
"Where did you slip off to?" Maya's voice jolted her back. She nudged Zeyla's arm with her glass.
Zeyla didn't turn. Her voice came low, almost hoarse:
"We mistake her distance for tenderness… the way men mistake silence for God."
Maya blinked, then gave a short, sharp laugh. "Listen to you. Careful, Zeyla ...one more line like that and she'll start speaking through you." She clinked her glass, forcing levity. "Too much influence of our Ice Queen."
Zeyla's lips parted as if to answer, but no words came. Her gaze stayed locked on Noor.
Noor returned to her admirers.
Maya nudged Zeyla. "See? Untouched. You're the one unraveling." A quick laugh.
Zeyla froze. Her lips parted. A whisper slipped out before she could stop it:
"Not even oblivion…"
She bit her tongue, tasting iron.
Maya had already turned away, glass raised, oblivious.
Across the hall, Noor smiled faintly.
Zeyla felt only a voice inside her that wasn't entirely her own.