(Lahiba’s Perspective)

The gates of Blackridge rose like monoliths against the dying light, forged from iron so black it seemed to drink in the last remnants of the sun. Magic wove through its steel lattice, humming beneath the surface, a silent promise that nothing—nothing dead—would breach these walls.

Inside, the city stood as the final bastion of order, a place where fear was as tangible as stone, where survival was built on discipline, war, and the unwavering certainty that beyond these walls lay only ruin. To the weary, the desperate, the damned—those huddled in the line stretching back into the wasteland—these gates were salvation. The guards, clad in armor that gleamed despite the dusk, were the last line between life and the unrelenting horrors outside.

But Lahiba knew better.

She had always known.

Because she could feel it.

Not the presence of the guards. Not the cold weight of their steel-tipped gazes scanning the crowd. No—something else. Something watching from beyond sight, beyond understanding.

A tension in the air. A shift too subtle for the untrained to perceive. It was there. Not just watching. Waiting.

She lowered her head beneath the tattered hood of her cloak, her movements precise, calculated. A slow breath. A careful step. Just another face among the weary masses, another nameless traveler seeking sanctuary. That’s what she wanted them to believe.

But then—there. A flicker in the periphery of her senses.

A presence.

Not seen. Not heard. But felt.

The weight of an unseen gaze pressed against her like an unspoken question. Not a passing glance. Not a momentary curiosity. No—this was something deeper. A recognition. A knowing.

Her fingers curled beneath the fabric of her cloak, brushing against the hilt of the blade hidden at her waist. Every instinct screamed at her to run. To disappear before it was too late.

But she didn’t.

Because running meant death.

So she walked.

One step. Then another.

Not too fast. Not too slow.

Measured. Controlled.

And as the great gates of Blackridge yawned open before her, swallowing her in their shadow, she crossed the threshold—into the city, into its secrets, into whatever unseen force had just marked her as its own.

---

Lahiba didn’t look back.

But she felt it.

A presence. Silent. Unrelenting. Moving through the crowd like a ripple in still water, unseen yet undeniable. There were no footsteps, no shifting of fabric, no breath against the cold night air. It was there, and yet it wasn’t.

Whoever—whatever—was following her, it wasn’t human.

Not in any way that mattered.

She had heard the whispers before, spoken in hushed, fearful tones. The unseen hands of Blackridge. The hidden ones who moved before the guards could. The ghosts that walked among the living.

And she knew what they hunted.

Witches.

The word pulsed in her mind like a heartbeat. Witches. The damned. The forsaken. The ones the city would never allow to exist.

Lahiba exhaled slowly, her breath barely visible in the cold air, but inside, her pulse pounded like war drums in her ears. Control. She had to control it. The magic beneath her skin. The fire in her blood. If they sensed it—if they even suspected—she would never leave Blackridge alive.

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And yet…

They weren’t stopping her.

Not yet.

That was the part that unsettled her the most.

---

Lahiba found refuge in the lower districts of Blackridge, where the desperate travellers found refuge.

The inn she chose was more ruin than refuge, its walls sagging under the weight of too many stories left untold. The air inside was thick—damp with sweat, laced with quiet desperation. Faces blurred together in the dim candlelight, worn by travel, by hunger, by fear.

No one asked questions here.

No one looked twice.

That’s why she had chosen it.

She kept to the shadows, speaking only when necessary. She did not ask about the city. She did not linger where eyes could follow. She became just another nameless traveler.

And for a time, it worked.

Days bled into nights. She listened, watched, waited.

Then, the whispers began.

They drifted through the inn like smoke, curling into conversations at the edges of firelight, spoken in voices too afraid to rise above a murmur.

The King of the Dead.

Lahiba froze the first time she heard the name. A name she had buried in Kasian. A name she had tried—needed—to forget.

But Blackridge.

They spoke in reverence, in fear, of something more than the dead that roamed beyond the gates. A monster that was different. A creature that did not simply hunger—but commanded. A mind behind the madness. A will beneath the ruin.

They spoke of Gufran.

Her Gufran.

Lahiba’s fingers curled around the edge of the table in her rented room, the rough wood biting into her palms. Before her, a candle flickered in the still air, its light dancing against the walls, fragile, uncertain.

Could it really be him?

She had seen him fall. Seen the sickness take hold. She had run because there had been nothing left to save.

Had she been wrong?

And if she had…

What did that mean?

A slow exhale. She closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temple. She needed time. Needed to think.

And then—

A knock.

Soft. Light.

Lahiba’s breath stilled. Her body tensed.

She was no longer alone.

---

Lahiba barely had time to move.

The moment the door cracked open—it came inside.

Shadow shifted, fluid and seamless, slipping through the narrow gap as if it had always been there, waiting. The room, once hers, no longer belonged to her.

A hand clamped over her mouth. Firm. Unyielding. The press of skin against her lips was neither rushed nor panicked—it was deliberate and measured.

Then, a whisper. Low. Calm. Absolute.

"Stay quiet, witch. Or they’ll find us both."

Not a threat. Not a plea. A fact.

Before she could resist, before she could think, before her magic could rise to the surface—

The world turned black.

And just like that—

She was gone.

---

Lahiba woke to darkness.

Not the crude, suffocating black of a cell. Not the cold, impersonal void of a prison.

Something else.

She felt it before she saw it—a presence.

The air was thick, pressing against her skin like unseen hands, humming with something unnatural. But it wasn’t the sickness of the dead. Not the rotting, broken magic that clung to the outside world like decay.

This was different.

This was alive.

A flicker of light. Slow. Deliberate. A lantern’s glow, pushing back the dark just enough to reveal the shape of the room.

And the figures standing within it.

Women.

All of them cloaked, unmoving, their presence as much a part of the chamber as the air she breathed.

And at the center of them—her.

A woman draped in black silks, effortless in her command, a stillness in her that made the others seem like shadows cast in her wake.

She was beautiful in a way that made the room feel colder.

Her hair, silver as dying embers.

Her eyes, ashen as burned-out stars.

And when she looked at Lahiba—

Everything else ceased to exist.

—

She already knew.

Lahiba felt it in the silence. In the weight of the woman's gaze. In the way the others stood motionless, waiting—not for answers, but for what came next.

Then—

"You knew him, didn’t you?"

Lahiba’s breath caught. A fraction of a second. Just long enough.

The woman’s lips curved—just slightly. Not a smile. Something sharper.

"Gufran."

The name struck like a blade.

She knows.

She knows.

She knows.

Lahiba’s fingers dug into the stone beneath her, grounding herself in something real. Something solid.

"Who are you?" Her voice was hoarse, but steady.

The woman tilted her head, as if the question amused her.

"A survivor."

Lahiba swallowed. "You’re a witch."

A slow, deliberate nod.

"And so are you."

The others still didn’t move. Didn’t whisper. They simply watched.

Waiting.

Lahiba forced herself to breathe. "What do you want from me?"

The woman’s smile widened—just a little.

"Nothing."

A pause.

"Yet."

She leaned in, studying Lahiba with the careful patience of someone weighing a blade, testing its edge.

"You ran from him."

Lahiba flinched.

"You left him behind."

Her fists clenched.

"And now, you are here. And he is out there."

Lahiba said nothing.

Because what could she say?

She had left him to die.

But he hadn’t.

And now—he was something else.

The woman’s voice was smooth. Too smooth. "So tell me, Lahiba."

A pause. A silence so heavy it felt like the walls themselves were holding their breath.

"What will you do when he comes for this city?"

Lahiba didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Because she knew the answer before the woman even spoke it.

"Because make no mistake—he will."

And deep inside, beneath the fear, beneath the doubt, beneath everything she had told herself to survive—

Lahiba knew she was right.

Gufran was coming.

And she had to decide which side she was on.