With the cure now in his hand, he turned, his gaze meeting Rosa’s across the room. He did not need to speak. She simply nodded, her own face a mask of pale, strained, and almost unbearable hope. She rose and led the way, a silent, silver-haired priestess leading a god to a final, sacred rite. He followed her, with a quiet, weary Mina falling into step behind them, through the silent, pre-dawn corridors of the sleeping manor, to the chambers of the matriarch. The room was as he remembered it, a beautiful, silent, and grief-soaked shrine. Lady Nilufa lay on the bed, a serene, sleeping queen, utterly unaware of the impossible, world-breaking wars that had been waged in her name. Lloyd knelt by her bedside. He did not rely on hope. He did not rely on faith. He relied on precision. He activated his [All-Seeing Eye], the world of flesh dissolving once more into a luminous, multi-layered schematic of her soul. He saw the familiar, foul, and coiling dark smoke of the curse, still wrapped tightly, parasitically, around her Spirit Core. With a surgeon’s steady, unwavering hand, he found the vein in her arm. And with a single, smooth, and perfect motion, he administered the injection, sending the pure, divine, and life-giving essence of their impossible cure directly into the heart of the ancient, soul-devouring darkness. The effect was not a violent explosion. It was not a dramatic, fiery confrontation. It was a quiet, beautiful, and absolute sunrise. The clear, moonlight-colored liquid, upon entering her system, began to glow, a warm, golden light that spread through her veins, a river of pure, divine life. And the dark, smoky, and parasitic entity of the curse, the ancient, malevolent being that had held her in its grip for a decade… it did not scream. It did not fight. It simply… dissolved. It unraveled, like a thread of smoke in a strong, clean wind, its darkness utterly, completely, and absolutely overwhelmed by the pure, unadulterated, and life-affirming light of the cure. The battle was over. The curse was broken. The long, dark, and ten-year winter of the House of Siddik had, in a single, quiet, and miraculous instant, finally, and completely, come to an end. The silent, beautiful, and utterly absolute sunrise that was taking place within the very soul of Lady Nilufa Siddik was a spectacle that only Lloyd, with his impossible, otherworldly sight, was privileged to witness. The dark, coiling serpent of the curse, which had been a thing of such profound, ancient, and seemingly invincible malevolence, was simply, beautifully, and completely unmade. It did not die; it was erased, its foul, negative energy not just defeated, but purified, transformed by the overwhelming, life-affirming light of the cure into a harmless, neutral state. He watched as the last, final vestiges of the darkness dissolved, leaving her Spirit Core, which had been a dim, flickering, and strangled thing, now a bright, clear, and steady flame. The long, ten-year siege was over. The queen was, once again, the sole, and absolute, sovereign of her own soul. He deactivated his [All-Seeing Eye], the world of luminous, spiritual schematics snapping back into the familiar, tangible reality of the quiet, dimly lit bedchamber. The miracle was complete. Now, all they could do was wait. He stood up, his part in the divine, alchemical drama over, and retreated to the corner of the room, a silent, weary observer. He was no longer the healer, the warrior, the god. He was just a man, a tired, broken, and profoundly lonely man, who had just, perhaps, managed to do a single, good, and beautiful thing. He stood beside Mina and Rosa, the three of them a silent, anxious, and deeply personal trinity of hope, their collective, unspoken prayers a palpable, living force in the quiet, expectant air. They waited. The only sound in the room was the slow, steady, and maddeningly calm ticking of the grand, ornate clock in the corner. Each second was an eternity. Each minute, an age. For thirty long, soul-crushing minutes, they waited in that absolute, profound silence. Thirty minutes, in which the hope that had been a roaring, triumphant bonfire in their hearts began to dwindle, to flicker, to be replaced by the cold, creeping, and all-too-familiar tendrils of despair. Had they been too late? Had the curse’s damage been too profound, too permanent? Had they won the battle, only to find that the war had already been lost, a decade ago? A soft, quiet, and utterly, breathtakingly beautiful sound. A gasp. A soft, gentle, and very, very human intake of breath. Lady Nilufa’s eyes, which had been closed for five long, silent years, fluttered. Once. Twice. And then, they opened. They were not the dull, unfocused eyes of a person lost in a coma. They were the clear, lucid, and deeply, profoundly intelligent eyes of a woman who had just awoken from a very, very long, and very, very dark, dream. The reunion that followed was not a loud, boisterous, and theatrical explosion of emotion. It was a storm. A quiet, profound, and utterly overwhelming storm of silent, streaming tears, of choked, desperate sobs, of a decade of suppressed grief and love and loss finally, completely, and beautifully unleashed. Mina was the first to break, her pragmatic, iron-clad composure shattering into a million pieces. She collapsed to her knees by the bedside, her head buried in her mother’s hand, her body wracked with the silent, shuddering sobs of a daughter who had just had her entire world, her entire reason for being, given back to her. Nilufa’s first words were a whisper, a rough, unused, and beautiful sound. “My Mina,” she said, her voice a fragile, delicate thing. “So strong. So brave. You have held this house together. You have been the rock.” She learned, with a quiet, profound, and heartbreaking sorrow, of the ten years she had lost. She learned that the small, boisterous little boy she had left behind, her Yacob, was now a young man of twelve, his childhood a thing she had missed entirely. She learned that her fierce, pragmatic, and beautiful Mina, who had married for love, for a future of her own, was now a widow, her own heart broken, her own dreams turned to ash. But her greatest, and most profound, tears were for her youngest. For her ice queen. Her winter child. She turned her gaze to Rosa, who stood frozen, a silent, silver-haired statue, a few feet from the bed. And in her mother’s eyes, Rosa saw not just love, not just relief, but a deep, profound, and heartbreaking understanding. An understanding of the terrible, silent, and soul-crushing sacrifice her youngest daughter had made. “My Rose,” Nilufa whispered, her voice breaking, her arms outstretched. “My winter flower. You have stood vigil. You have sacrificed your own spring, your own summer, to stand guard over my long, endless winter.” And that… that was the thing that finally, completely, and irrevocably, broke the queen. Orıginal content can be found at 𝖓𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖑~𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖾~𝖓𝖊𝖙 The monumental, perfect, and absolute fortress of ice that Rosa had so meticulously, so painfully, built around her own heart for ten long, lonely years, did not just crack. It did not just melt. It was utterly, completely, and beautifully obliterated. She did not walk to her mother. She did not glide. She stumbled. A single, clumsy, and utterly human step. And then she was in her mother’s arms, her face buried in her mother’s shoulder, her body wracked with the silent, shuddering sobs of a small, lost, and very, very lonely child who had finally, after a lifetime of waiting, come home. She did not resist. She did not fight. For the first time in years, she clung. She held on to her mother, to the warm, living, breathing reality of her, as if she were the only solid, real thing in a world of cold, shifting, and treacherous ice. And as she held her mother, as she allowed the dam of her own decade of grief to finally, completely break, the monumental fortress of ice she had built around her heart began, at last, and irrevocably, to thaw. She had forgotten how to weep. She had forgotten how to feel. And though she had, in the process, also forgotten how to smile, the look on her face, as she held her mother in her arms, was a thing of such profound, such absolute, and such soul-deep relief that it was, in its own way, the most beautiful, and the most hopeful, thing in the entire, vast, and now forever-changed world. Lloyd stood in the corner of the room, a silent, forgotten, and utterly invisible observer to the quiet, beautiful, and world-altering storm of the Siddik family’s reunion. He was the architect of this miracle, the god in their machine, and yet, he had never felt more like a stranger, a ghost in the hallowed, sacred space of their shared, and now healing, grief.