Chapter Six
1466 Words
“This…” he said, his voice lower than before, as though he didn’t want the walls to hear,
“…is the secret of my mark.”
Lian froze.
She hesitated for a moment, then stepped closer.
“Your mark…?”
It wasn’t a clear question.
She was only saying it to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming.
Azar lifted his eyes to her.
He didn’t answer right away.
He simply gestured toward the papers with a small motion of his hand.
Lian moved closer and leaned slightly over the table.
The drawing was clear.
A broken crescent moon.
The same shape… the same lines… the same sharp curve she had recently seen on her own body.
A shiver crawled down her spine.
“How… it looks just like the mark I saw?” she whispered, not realizing she had spoken aloud.
She reached out cautiously, her fingers hovering over the paper…
But before she could touch it—
She felt a faint warmth beneath her skin, exactly where the mark was.
A small heat, but it wasn’t normal at all.
As if something inside her had awakened.
She pulled her hand back at once.
Then she looked up at Azar.
He was watching her.
Not with surprise. Not with curiosity.
But with the gaze of a man who had been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
She swallowed hard.
“I don’t understand anything,” she said, pressing her hands to her eyes in nervous tension.
Azar didn’t move.
He didn’t say much.
He only said one word, slowly:
“Read this.”
Lian gasped.
“What?”
He didn’t repeat himself.
He took a small sheet from inside the document, placed it in front of her, then pointed to the first line.
The letters were strange, twisted—nothing like any writing she knew… as if it wasn’t even a language.
She shook her head immediately.
“I don’t know this language.”
A brief silence followed.
Then Azar stepped forward.
Only one step.
But it was enough to make Lian feel as though the air had grown heavier.
In a low voice, he said,
“You will. Come closer.”
She couldn’t respond.
She didn’t know why… but suddenly she felt she shouldn’t resist, that she had to try.
She looked back at the paper.
She tried to read, but she couldn’t.
Then… for no clear reason…
The meaning of a word slipped into her mind.
As if she wasn’t reading… but remembering.
Her lips moved without her intending them to.
“The crescent…”
The word left her in a whisper.
In that same moment… she felt the heat of the mark intensify, as if it were burning against her neck.
Lian trembled and gripped the edge of the table to steady herself.
Azar lifted his head quickly.
And for the first time, something shifted in his expression.
It wasn’t obvious fear… but it wasn’t calm either.
He moved closer.
Lian stepped back, but her feet seemed to stick to the floor, as if she couldn’t run.
Azar raised his hand.
Lian tried to say “no,” tried to ask him to step away…
But her voice vanished.
Her throat went dry.
As if the word died before it could be born.
This time, his hand didn’t touch her face…
It stopped at her shoulder, tugging the fabric aside slightly, as though he needed to see.
Lian shuddered violently.
The touch wasn’t painful… but it was frightening in a way she couldn’t explain.
As if his hand carried the weight of something older than the palace itself.
Lian felt exposed, even while she was covered.
Azar studied the mark carefully.
The broken crescent… and the fine lines surrounding it.
He stayed silent for several seconds.
Then he lowered his hand gently.
Lian stepped back at once, as if she’d been holding her breath the entire time.
She took a deep breath… but it came out trembling.
“What am I?” she finally asked, her voice rough.
Azar didn’t answer.
He turned to the table, opened a small drawer, and pulled out an old leather manuscript, dark as if it had been pulled from ash.
He opened it in front of her.
Inside… the same symbol was drawn dozens of times.
But beside it were names.
Dates.
Bloodlines.
Places.
Lian’s eyes widened in shock.
“This…” she murmured.
She couldn’t finish.
Azar said calmly,
“This is not a curse.”
Then, after a pause, he added:
“It is a path… Lian.”
Lian felt the blood drain from her face when he said her name, but she answered quickly, trying to hide her unease.
“A path? To what?!”
He didn’t respond.
He raised his finger and placed it on a single line.
Lian looked.
The words were unclear to her, but she managed to read one word in the middle of the line:
“Heiress.”
She lifted her eyes to him at once, startled.
“Heiress?”
Azar didn’t explain.
He only said,
“When this heiress appears… everything changes.”
The sentence was simple, yet it made her chest tighten painfully.
“You mean me?”
She continued without waiting for his answer.
“I’m not from here,” she said with quiet agitation. “I’m from a small town far away… no one knows me…”
She stopped.
Because Azar slowly lifted his eyes to her.
And a very faint smile… crossed his lips, then vanished.
It wasn’t a mocking smile.
It was the smile of someone who knew far more than he should.
In a low voice, he said,
“Your town…”
Then he paused, as if choosing his words.
And finished:
“…is not as far from me as you think.”
Lian shivered.
She stepped back.
“What do you mean?”
The air in the library was still… painfully still.
Lian couldn’t tear her eyes away from the word she had just read, even though she barely understood what it meant.
“Heiress.”
It wasn’t just letters on old paper.
It felt like a slap… or a sentence.
She lifted her gaze slowly toward Azar, waiting for an explanation, any word, any sign that she hadn’t fallen into a trap with no escape.
But he didn’t move.
He stood before the table like a statue, his features rigid, his eyes fixed on the manuscript, as if he wasn’t reading it now… but remembering it.
Lian trembled, moistening her dry lips.
“What do you mean…?” her voice came out weak, barely audible.
He didn’t answer.
The silence he left her wasn’t indifference—it was a kind of control… as if he were saying without words: you have no right to ask.
The candles were melting slowly, drop by drop, and the light trembled across the towering shelves, casting long shadows that seemed to creep forward, then retreat.
Lian felt the space tightening around her.
She was about to take another step, to force her question, when—
A knock.
Then a second knock… faster.
It wasn’t random.
It was sharp, military knocking—no servant knocked like that.
This was the knock of a man carrying news that didn’t wait for permission.
Lian’s body tensed immediately, as if she’d been caught doing something forbidden.
But Azar didn’t turn quickly. He didn’t flinch.
He only lifted his head… slowly.
As if the knocking hadn’t surprised him at all.
In a low voice, he said:
“Enter.”
The door opened at once.
A man stepped inside.
He wasn’t one of the ordinary guards… not one of those who stood at doors without thought.
This one was different.
Tall. Broad-shouldered.
He wore black armor traced with faded silver lines, like old marks never polished clean.
His sword was still sheathed… but its hilt was smeared with dark mud, and the edge of his boot was stained with blood that hadn’t fully dried.
Even his scent… wasn’t the scent of the palace.
It smelled of smoke… gunpowder… and something like ash.
The man bowed quickly, but he couldn’t hide the unevenness of his breathing.
“My lord.”
He said it, then lifted his head immediately, as if time itself were chasing him.
Azar didn’t ask what was wrong.
He didn’t say, What is it?
He only looked at him.
One look… was enough to make the man speak.
The guard swallowed, then said in a low voice filled with tension:
“The eastern borders… are burning.”
Lian didn’t move, but she felt her heart leap in her chest.
The guard continued, as though the words were forcing themselves out of him:
“Veriata and Wetlasa… the war has begun between them, my lord.”
- Writer
