The storm was not outside.
It was inside her.
Noor convulsed against the stone bed, silk sheets soaked with fever sweat and rain that wasn't falling—it was pouring from the sky itself, as if the heavens wept in rhythm with her pain.
The hut groaned. Wood bent. The wind howled with a voice that wasn't wind.
Her back arched, and she screamed.
Her wrist snapped forward, bound in golden chains. Veins bloomed black across her left hand, pulsing with poison. But on the right—light. Gold. Molten gold pulsing like an angel dying slowly inside her skin.
She was splitting down the middle.
Moaning, crawling, dragging her body across the slick surface—her bones cracking like wet glass, her breath short and hissing.
He was too still. Too precise. Beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. White hair fell to his shoulders, gleaming like frost kissed by moonlight. His ruby eyes glowed with something unspoken — old, holy, damned.
His hands were folded. But his knuckles were bloodless, white from pressure.
He had not moved in hours.
She whimpered again.
And his mask shattered.
"I cannot watch you do this again. You are breaking the world again."
His voice was carved from silence older than speech.
Her breath hitched.
The chains clinked.
A gust howled through the broken window as the door creaked open.
His eyes—red—glowed like coals from a dying star.
"Noor," he whispered, fingers hovering over her face, trembling.
"You are unraveling. And I am still too small to hold you."
Her body twisted. Her mouth opened but only a soundless sob came out.
The door cracked open.
The En entered.
She was small, cloaked, old in the way that stars are old. Her presence made the air fall still. She stepped through the flickering light like death on pilgrimage — unhurried, unafraid.
In her hand, she carried a single spider lily. Red. And broken.
Only two petals clung to the stem.
The EN looked at him. Not with fear. With pity.
"When the last petal falls," she said, "the world resets. She will ____ Again."
A beat.
"And you—" she looked at him with sorrow, "will begin forgetting her. Again."
The room darkened, warped. Walls bent inward.
His jaw clenched.
"No," he said, voice low. "Not this time."
"Once the final petal falls," the En said, "the cycle resets. The soul will be scattered. Not even the name shall remain."
He rose. The room shuddered.
Stormlight bent around his body.
He said. "I have walked behind her shadow across a thousand eternities. I have waited in silence through every death, every memory. And you speak to me of resets—like I haven't bled for each one?"
The En did not move. Not even her robe stirred.
"Then bleed again," she said.
He stilled.
The EN did not blink.
"You are not him. You never were."
"I know," he breathed. "I have always known.
But I have never asked her but___
Only… to let me stay."
Noor groaned. The gold in her veins dimmed. The black spread.
He touched her shoulder gently—then flinched, as light burned his fingertips.
"This body wasn't made for her," he whispered.
"And still—I would burn a thousand more just to be near her one more time."
Her back arched violently—ripping sound, flesh torn.
From her shoulders burst blood—not bright red but a blackish plum, thick and wet. And then—Bone protruding like broken harps.
She wailed.
And he—he knelt over her, pressed his lips to her temple.
"Let me carry it," he begged. "Let me bleed. Let me break."
"I cannot watch you leave again, little star.
You were the first light I ever saw when time began.
And you will be the last sound when it ends."
The EN stepped closer.
"There is one way," she said quietly. "To pull her out."
His head snapped toward her.
"Speak it. Speak it now."
"You must remind her of the first name she ever had. But you must go in"
He blinked. A tear—ruby—fell from his cheek and sizzled on the stone floor.
"She has had so many names…"
"But only one she never let them take. Not even in death."
Noor thrashed. Her eyes flickered—white, gold, then black.
He leaned down, lips close to hers, whispering a name the stars themselves had long forgotten.
Her breath caught.
For a moment, the storm stopped.
The EN watched.
And the last petal… trembled.
___________________
The rain came down like war drums.
Sanlang stood at the mouth of the estate—coat dark with rain, hair plastered to his forehead, a trail of blood like spilled ink down the side of his neck. His breath came sharp.
Zeyla was already there.
She stood beneath the stone archway, one hand gloved, the other bare—light catching on the knuckles like a warning. Her cloak whipped behind her like a second shadow, soaked and heavy.
"Turn back," she said,too calmly.
"You still have your legs. Walk away."
Her voice wasn't raised.
But the thunder quieted for her.
Sanlang took a step forward.
Dropped something in the mud between them—her glove.
"I'm not going back," he said, voice hoarse.
"I'm here for truth. Or blood. Whichever comes first."
Zeyla looked at the glove.
Then him.
And for a moment—just a moment—her eyes flickered with something close to pain. Close.
But it died before it reached her mouth.
He reached for his gun.
Fast. Almost too fast.
Zeyla didn't blink.
Her hand snapped forward.
Metal met flesh—
And bent.
She gripped the gun mid-air like it was made of paper, snapped the barrel with a twist of her wrist, and let the ruined pieces fall at his feet.
The rain hissed on steel.
She stepped forward.
Her boot crushed the trigger into the earth.
And then she unslung her saber—a long, ancient blade so black it seemed to devour the light around it.
She dropped it between them.
It hit the ground like a gavel.
"You think pain taught you something. But there is a pain greater that make one ate its own name to survive."
Sanlang's chest rose and fell.
His hands curled, but he didn't reach again.
"Do you know who my owner is?" she went on, stepping once, twice.
"She carved obedience into our bones. Our screams fed the floors. We were not taught to fight—we were stripped down until violence was the only thing left that remembered our names."
Sanlang's jaw clenched.
But he didn't step back.
"Then show me," he said.
Zeyla tilted her head.
Rain ran down her jawline like tears she refused to own.
"No," she said.
"You must turn back"
She moved.
And the storm followed.
Sanlang stared at the saber—then at her.She hadn't picked it up.
"I'm not here to fight a ghost," he said.
Zeyla didn't smile.
"Then why do you look like one?"
He reached for the saber.
The moment his hand closed around it—
She was already in front of him.
He didn't see her move. Only felt it.
A blur. A thunderclap. A fist in his ribs.
Sanlang's feet left the ground.
He hit the earth hard—rolling, coughing, a warm burst of blood blooming in his mouth. He grinned through it. Stood.
"Feels like you've been waiting to kill me."
Zeyla's expression never changed.
She said, stepping forward. "This is mercy. The ones who made me—they would have peeled the skin from your face and taught your bones to scream."
He lunged.
Steel met air.
She didn't block—she vanished. Shifted to the left, let his swing pass her face like a breeze, then—
Her hand wrapped around his throat.
She didn't squeeze.
She just held him there.
Up. Inches off the ground.
Her eyes bored into him.
"You walk in here with a gun and a name like it means something.You know nothing.You think Noor needs protection?"A cruel smile."You are a wound she once pitied. Nothing more."
She dropped him.
He crumpled, coughing.
His ribs screamed. His knee throbbed from the last fall.But he rose.
Because the storm wasn't over.
Elsewhere.
A phone rang.
Yilan answered in half a breath. Rain pounded the glass behind her.
"Ms. Yilan?" Lia's voice crackled. "He's at the estate. With her. He—he'll be fine, right? I mean—he's Sanlang. He's trained since birth. The best we have—he—"
"YOU FOOL."
Yilan's scream cracked the room like thunder.
"You think this is about training? This isn't some academy spar.She was raised by demons wearing human faces.She doesn't fight to win—she fights because that's how she prays."
"Call the doctor. No—call the priest. And stay out of the way."
She was already running before Lia replied.
Back to the Gates.
Sanlang was limping now.
One hand clutched the broken side of his coat—ribs cracked. Blood in his teeth.
He slashed.
She caught the blade with two fingers.
And snapped it in half.
Just like that.
"This is not a duel," she said softly."This is a lesson."
Then came the real violence.
A knee to the stomach—he choked.
An elbow to the jaw—he staggered.
She moved like liquid vengeance, every hit deliberate, precise.
Sanlang dropped to one knee.
Mud splashed up his arm.
"I… I'm not leaving without her."
"Then you leave without bones."
Zeyla's eyes burned.
And for the first time—
She drew her own weapon.
Not the saber.
But a thin, black blade curved like a crescent moon—elegant, cruel, and humming with something that shouldn't exist.
"You think you've bled?" she whispered."We used to name each other by scars. Our bodies were maps of survival."
"I was seven when I learned how to make a man forget his name.""I was nine when I buried my sister's teeth behind the barracks.""I was eleven… when they made me choose who dies and who starves."Her voice dropped, cold as the grave."And I always chose me."
"So don't bring your righteousness here.Bring your will. Or your coffin."
From the hill above, Yilan's car skidded to a stop. She flung the door open, breath fogging the air, and saw Sanlang fall again.
Blood on his sleeve.
A torn gash across his cheek.
Zeyla stood like judgment.
The storm roared behind .
And in that moment, Yilan didn't scream.
She just whispered.
"Noor… what have you ____?"
(((((Bleeding words—your support means everything.))))))