The city of Zheir rose like a new world of steel and light. The skyscrapers reflected the sun without mercy, creating blinding flashes that forced one to squint.
The implacable sun shone in a sky adorned with cotton-like clouds, bathing in clarity a metropolis where blue glass towers stood as monuments to its full urbanity.
There were no shadows to hide in here; the architecture was designed to expose life, not to conceal death.
Janab walked through the polished streets, where time flowed with a frenetic speed, very different from the misty rhythm of Caprissia. Passersby dodged her without looking at her, a ghost among ghosts in light and colorful clothes. The environment flourished in a mixture of hot asphalt and a chemical fragrance that clung to the palate. In her mind, the name Dan Debellis resonated as a constant and obsessive end, carved into her consciousness like a divine—or infernal—mandate. It was not a thought of her own, but a mechanical repetition, a secondary heartbeat that marked the tempo of her steps.
Her hands were empty, but in her left, she held a lapis lazuli necklace—an object that was neither a gift nor a loan, but an invisible chain that bound her to Isaiah. The stone was cold, too cold to be exposed to the afternoon sun. Every time her eyes met the deep blue stone, the vampire's face—tyrannical and unforgettable—resurfaced in her memory. The rough texture of the metal beneath her fingers reminded her of the touch of his skin, frozen and dead.
She stopped in front of a mirrored building just as the sky began to tint with scarlet tones and the night announced its arrival. The reflection in the glass multiplied her image, creating a multitude of herself, innately solitary. The interior lights turned on one by one. Janab had no idea how to find someone she had never seen. The task was impossible, and would remain so even as the days passed. But what moved the threads of fate in Zheir was not chance, but the hand of a weaver of circumstances—a demon playing with the flow of time.
The sensation of being watched from the dark windows made the back of her neck prickle.
The digital clocks on the facades marked 9:00 pm when a whisper carried by the wind caressed her skin, forcing her to look ahead. The air suddenly turned gelid, cutting through the warm humidity of the night. Cars stopped at the red light of the traffic signal. Suddenly, time seemed to distort; sound faded away, plunging everything into an absence of noise and vital flow. The roar of traffic died out, leaving an absolute, unnatural silence that pressed against the eardrums.
—Isaiah? —she murmured, almost breathless.
The word escaped her before she could contain it, a reflex conditioned by fear. On the other side of the street, a tall man halted his steps. He was there. She knew it even with the distance between them. An invisible connection tightened the space between the two, like a thread on the verge of snapping.
His short, messy hair falling over his eyes had nothing to do with the straight, perfect mane of the specter. His skin was lightly tanned, highlighting masculine features and thick lips that, though different, held a disturbing echo of Isaiah. There was something in the way he stood motionless, in the way the shadow projected from his feet, that screamed familiarity. The man's eyes locked onto hers through the stalled traffic, and for an instant, Janab felt the ground beneath her feet turn liquid.
But the impression remained engraved within her: Zheir was not just a city. It was a chessboard, and she—and perhaps that man—were pieces in a game whose rules she was only beginning to glimpse.
The traffic lights flickered, breaking the spell. Life flowed once more; the city embraced her with its warmth.
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