🜏 Narrator: Varek"Not every soul that meets is meant to love… some meet only to break first, then drift apart."
Opening Scene – The Hanging Garden and the Rose Labyrinth—The air smelled of iron and pollen, Varek recalls, a metallic, sweet-sick mix that was the signature of that cursed, beautiful place.The blue roses bloomed like half-healed wounds along the ancient stone walls.In the distance, the girl in the red dress —she looked like a porcelain doll abandoned in a garden of shadows— appeared, always curious, stepping down the stairs one by one. The afternoon sun turned her descent into a performance: each step caught the light and made her long auburn hair glow, a halo against the dark hedges. Her mischievous smile was its own kind of light, brightening her pale green eyes. She didn't know it yet, but her very presence was unsettling —like a wrong chord in a perfect melody.
A misstep, a stumble —the basket rolled across the grass, scattering a pair of pruning shears and a handful of already cut roses.I turned just enough not to seem indifferent, but didn't move a finger. It was already too much, keeping her company, being polite as I had promised Luciano Kerens. My patience was a finite resource, and she was burning through it.
As always, the pretty boy seized the moment."Do it yourself, Sanathiel. I hate roses," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear —her included.
Skiller, watching from the stone archway, snorted."You're a real bastard, Varek.""And that girl looks like a tomato. Always dressed in red," I muttered, adjusting my headphones until the music drowned the faint sting of guilt. "He won't go. Sanathiel is indifferent to everyone, Skiller."
Sanathiel ignored me completely, as if I had evaporated. He walked toward her with that feline ease that always set my teeth on edge. He bent down, picked up the first blue rose, and handed it to her with a gesture that was half courtesy, half mockery.She looked up, her cheeks almost as red as her dress —bright with embarrassment, and maybe something more.
"Your name, little one?" asked Sanathiel, his voice smooth as silk."I'm not little!" she snapped, clutching the basket to her chest like a shield.
Sanathiel smiled —a smile not meant for me, and that's why it hurt worse. He circled the roses without breaking eye contact."Then… young lady?"
She crossed her arms, but a smile still tugged at her lips."Aisha."
"That's a pretty name, Aisha," said Sanathiel, with that calm that always made him seem older than his age —and made me seem like a spoiled child.
From a distance, I pretended to listen to music. Pressed the headphones tight against my temples —but it wasn't enough. The laughter they shared —her crystal-bright, his low and steady— hit me like a punch to the gut.That kind of complicity wasn't born in a single afternoon… it was the kind that carried over from another life, another cursed cycle.
Frustration gnawed at me as the sun dipped lower, their long shadows merging on the grass into one dark stain. He offered her a slice of tangerine; she took it with a trust she hadn't shown anyone, not in years. And suddenly, I saw it: she wasn't just a girl in red.She was the only red in a world of iron blue. The only warm, living thing in that garden of half-healed wounds.And Sanathiel didn't just see her —he chose her.
Possessiveness stabbed through me like a lightning strike.If she can't be mine, she'll belong to no one, I thought —and the root of that feeling frightened me as much as it enraged me.
Blinded by the green of her laughing eyes, I shifted my foot to trip him —but Sanathiel sidestepped with practiced ease, shooting me a look that said I know everything.He didn't just carry each basket where she wanted; before long, they were sitting on the grass, sharing tangerines whose sweet-citrus scent reached me, sour as venom.
"Are you going to stand there all afternoon?" Skiller's voice cut through, yanking my headphones down. "Just going to stare, Varek?"
He was right. I couldn't take my eyes off them even as the afternoon sun burned my vision.
I approached, the grass swallowing my steps, but the fury in my gaze must have been blazing. I grabbed his arm hard, my fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt."Sanathiel… you've been coming to this garden at the same hour every day," I hissed. "Helping that girl as if she were your responsibility. Do you even know whose daughter she is?"
Sanathiel —already taller than me— didn't even look my way; his golden eyes followed Aisha among the roses."Varek… Aisha is a sweet child," he replied, calm as a blade drawn slow. "And when she reaches our age, she will follow her will —and neither you nor anyone else will stop her."
"Her will?" I scoffed, tightening my grip until I felt bone.
He brushed my hand away —not violently, but with a quiet strength that stunned me."And that girl… she likes me. Not you."
The words cut deeper than they should have —cold and sharp as a knife of ice.
Aisha turned then, unaware of the tension hanging between us. Her laughter still floated, light as windchimes —as if she had no idea she had just opened a crack in the world we knew."Sanathiel has been kind. Unlike you, stone boy," she said, and her innocent words sealed something inside me.
I saw their eyes meet again, their shared laughter, and felt a chill crawl down my spine: my younger brother was walking straight into the temptation of something impossible.And she, without knowing it, was already walking toward the abyss.
A single blue rose detached from its stem and fell between them, staining the grass like an open wound. I saw it fall. And I felt something in me tear as well.
That day, without knowing it, something began —something neither Sanathiel nor I would be able to stop:he would protect her.I would desire her.And the cycle… at last, would choose her.