Ishtar leaned down again, brushing her lips against his tender this time, almost reverent. But Zander felt the shift immediately.
Her kiss deepened, and with it, something stirred. A current of energy surged through his chest, coiling through his spine like smoke laced with cold fire.
His vision blurred.
His limbs, heavy a moment before, now felt weightless.
Then the world shattered.
Colors dissolved into shadow. The ceiling above him melted into black fog. Zander tried to speak, to move, but his voice was swallowed, his body numb.
Ishtar's voice echoed not aloud, but inside.
" Zander… let see who you truly are deep down."
She had activated her boon.
She was inside his mind.
Ishtar now stood in a room of endless white, silent, weightless, void of time. In the center floated a dark orb, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat . Shadows twisted within it, fragments of memories sealed and tangled like threads of smoke.
She approached it with practiced calm.
Her fingers brushed the surface, and a single thread, thin, brittle, black as ash unraveled from the orb's core. She began pulling it, slowly, methodically, watching as images flickered in the air like broken film: half-formed voices, splashes of color, flashes of pain. The story of Zander, thread by thread.
Elsewhere, Zander found himself alone.
Back in the room, but not the same.
The walls stretched, the corners twisted unnaturally. The air carried a metallic scent. He turned, instinct pulling him toward the darkened corner. where a figure stood. Familiar. Too familiar.
It stepped forward. Same height. Same voice. Same face. But the expression it wore was twisted, disgust curling its lip, crimson eyes cold with contempt.
"There's nothing more disgraceful," the reflection growled, "than a man losing himself to lust."
Zander's chest tightened.
The figure walked toward him, slow, deliberate, like a verdict being read aloud.
"You've wasted enough time running. It's over, now face what you have buried."
Zander stepped back, but the room pulsed, alive now, breathing, shifting around him.
At that precise moment
Ishtar's hand tugged a thread buried deep within the orb, one that resisted with almost sentient force.
but It gave way.
And the white room collapsed.
Darkness fell like a curtain absolute and suffocating. The orb shattered into smoke. Ishtar's breath caught as the temperature dropped, and for the first time, she felt the presence of something watching her from within the void.
Something horrifying. Something Zander had forget.
Darkness gave way to flickering light, a single source .
Ishtar stood alone in a vast, endless void. Before her, a screen flickered to life playing what she thought was a memory
it was her and Zander, entwined in passion. But the scene twisted. Zander's hands moved to her throat, tightening slowly. On the screen, her eyes dulled, her body trembled, and after a silent struggle, she was lifeless.
Then the darkness pulsed again, it was Heavy.
A voice echoed through the void, low and venomous
"I am back."
Ishtar gasped and the screen shattered like glass under a hammer.
She jolted upright, drenched in sweat, lungs straining for air. The familiar weight of reality returned, but the terror clung to her ribs like frost.
She lay on the bed, breath unsteady, and raised a trembling hand to her throat. No marks. No hands. Just the echo of his grip. She was alone. The lantern's flame flickered weakly, casting long, quivering shadows across the room. Ishtar turned, heart pounding. The mirror was shattered, its fractured surface streaked with thin lines of blood trailing down to the floor… leading to Zander. He stood shirtless by the window, his back to her, moonlight pooling over his skin. Blood dripped slowly from his right hand. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He only stared into the night.
spoke without turning.
"Ishtar, I owe you one. Betting on you wasn't a mistake after all."
Panic twisted in her chest. The words made no sense, but the tone was calm and final, it set her nerves on fire. Her body screamed to flinch, to run, to vanish.
"Z-Zander," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. She forced a smile, brittle and hollow. "I'm tired. I'd like to rest. May I return to my room?"
He turned slowly, a gentle smile curving his lips, they were too soft to be safe.
"What's the hurry, Ishtar?" he said, his voice smooth as a priest's prayer. "Your work's not done. Selena would be... disappointed if you came back empty-handed."
Her blood turned to ice.
The color drained from her face, her breath catching in her throat.
He knew.
Terror overtook her. Ishtar bolted toward the door, bare and trembling, desperation driving her legs.
Zander didn't move. He simply reached for the dagger.
With a flick of his wrist, the blade flew—silent, precise.
It struck.
Steel pierced her leg, and she crumpled mid-step, crashing to the floor with a scream. Blood spilled, dark and fast, pooling beneath her.
The door was only inches away.
But freedom was still out of reach.
Zander crossed the room in slow, deliberate steps.
Ishtar clawed at the floor, but the pain in her leg stole her strength. He seized her by the arms, dragging her back to the bed with ease.
She kicked weakly, a sob catching in her throat, but he laid her down as if tucking in a child. Then he leaned in close, his breath warm against her ear.
"You wanted to see who I really am… didn't you?" he whispered, voice low and intimate. "Then let me show you."
***
High above the opulent Ravenhart estate, beneath a sky cloaked in stars and silence, a figure floated serene, radiant, and utterly inhuman.
Uriel.
Wings of pure celestial light stretched wide behind him, each feather gleaming with divine luminescence. The moonlight didn't touch him it bowed to his glow. His presence turned the night silver and still, like the breath before judgment.
He hovered in stillness, surveying the estate with eyes that glowed faintly gold, unblinking. Below, the estate slumbered in decadent peace, unaware that something holy and merciless had come.
Uriel's voice broke the silence, calm and melodic, yet cold as mountain frost.
"All my research… All my investigations into the Divine Bane… and every thread leads me here."
His gaze narrowed.
"Yet he is not here."
His wings gave a single slow beat, scattering faint motes of light into the dark.
"No matter."
He extended a hand, palm open, as if to cradle the entire estate between his fingers.
"He took too much from me. So I shall return the favor. He will come. Eventually. They always do."
His voice shifted just slightly into something more human. Not with empathy, but with long-nursed bitterness.
"They are mortal. Beautiful. Fragile. Easily broken. There is no sin in ending them… not if it is for the greater good."
As his words faded into the night, the stars seemed to dim around him.
And below, unaware of the divine eye fixed upon them, Ravenhart slept.
For now.