The Silent ticking of time in the Castle drifted like the heavy relentless snow piled against the walls.
For the twins, the months were not marked by the sun-which rarely pierced the violet gloom of the Northwest Territory but by the slow, agonizing transformation of the half-dead body lying in the North Tower.
In the first month, the deep, angry purples and blacks that had mottled Zaliyah's skin faded into a sickly, bruised yellow. Every time Iruna wiped his skin with warm water, she felt the ridges of the internal fractures beginning to knit back together.
His breathing remained shallow , a pitiful sound that was the only thing keeping the twins from falling into total despair.
The Second Month brought the closing of the meat. The open gashes on his torso and thighs finally sealed, leaving behind angry, pink welts that looked like lightning bolts across his pale skin. The new younger physician was more clinical than the one who had vomited, he spent hours applying salves that smelled of yellow stone and crushed winter-roses.
Zaliyah was no longer a "mummy," but he was still a statue.
The Third Month was the month of the unveiling. Xulthas stood by as the last of the medicinal bandages were stripped away. For the first time, Zaliyah's face was fully visible.
It was a face that belonged in a museum-icy cold, unconscious , perfect, and hauntingly still.
The Fourth Month saw the return of his hair. The bald patch where Malachi had torn the scalp away began to fill with fine, silvery-white strands. But as his beauty returned, so did the evidence of his trauma. On his neck, the deep, claw-like marks where Malachi had gripped him refused to fade. They remained dark and scary , like a permanent necklace of violence that no Celestial healing could erase.
While Zaliyah lay in his frozen tomb, the sun was shining brightly in the Human Realm even though it felt like a mockery to Karas.
The marketplace was bustling. The smell of fresh bread and roasted meats was in the air, and the sound of merchants hawking their wares created a symphony of normalcy.
Karas walked through the crowd,Riru was walking behind him tightly gripping tightly gripping his hand.
He had promised his mother he would "try to live," and this was the result a hollow man back to playing the role of a brother.
He stopped at a stall draped in expensive, pastel fabrics. His eyes fell on a row of tiny, hand-knitted booties and an intricately carved wooden cradle.
The world around him seem to blur as his mind drifted back to the moonlight, to the scent of flowers that always clinged on Zaliyah and to the feeling of Zaliyah's skin against his. He thought of the life he had been robbed of in that moment of desperate love.
Is the child even alive? he wondered, his heart clenching so hard he could barely breathe. Is Zaliyah lying in a cold grave, or is he being tortured in a place I can never reach?.
He reached out, his fingers almost touching a small, blue robe, when a hard tug on his sleeve finally snapped him back to reality.
"Elder Brother ? Why are you staring at the baby things?" Riru asked, with wide, curious eyes "Who is with child? Are we buying a gift for someone?"
Karas pulled his hand back as if the fabric had burned him. He looked down at his sister, seeing the innocence he was trying so hard to protect. "No, RiRu. I was just... lost in thought. Come on, Mother is waiting for the fruit."
He turned away, but the image of the tiny blue robe remained in his mind. He was a father who did not know the whereabouts of his own child, a lover who could not find his heart. He walked faster, trying to outrun the shadow that followed him even in the midday sun.
Back in the Northwest, the Fifth Month arrived with a terrifying development.
Zaliyah was no longer a flat silhouette beneath the furs. A visible, rounded swell had emerged from his midsection-the first true swell of the bump. It was quiet ticking clock. While Zaliyah's face grew gaunt and his ribs began to protrude from the lack of nourishment, the child grew. It was a parasite of light, draining Zaliyah's very core to sustain itself.
The twins were no longer the silent sentinels they once were. Xulthas had put them to work. Under the brutal tutelage of Thalassa, they spent their days training until their muscles screamed. Harun and Iruna learned to fight without their telepathic connection, relying on instinct and the unexplainable rage that lived in his chest.
Iruna studied under Xulthas, her grey eyes reflecting the complex runes he forced her to weave.
But every night, without fail, they returned to the North Tower.
Iruna had taken it as her sole sacred duty to care for Zaliyah's physical form. Harun stood by the door, his arms crossed as he watched his sister meticulously washed Zaliyah's gaunt limbs.
"He's disappearing, brother," Iruna whispered into the night, "He's a meal away from evaporating.
"The child is eating him from the inside." Harun replied.
"Brother, what are you saying? " Iruna asked with worried eyes
The young physician entered, his expression unusually grim. "He is correct " the physician said, checking Zaliyah's pulse. "If he does not wake in thirty days, the child will consume the last of his core. He is starving, and the child is greedy. If he doesn't wake soon, You'll be burying a husk in this snow wastelands"
Xulthas appeared in the doorway, his silhouette framed by the torchlight. "Then let us hope the boy has a reason to live," he said coldly. "The human chef has been preparing broths for weeks, waiting for a mouth that refuses to open. It would be a waste of good meat if he dies now."
Xulthas walked to the bedside, looking down at the bump. "The child is strong. I can feel its pulse from here. It doesn't care if its father is a corpse. It just wants to be born."
The night was the coldest it had been since their arrival. A blizzard howled outside, shaking the very foundations of the Castle . Inside the circular room, the fire had burned down to embers.
Harun and Iruna were slumped in chairs by the bed, exhausted from a day of Thalassa's drills. The room was deathly silent.
Then, a sound.
It was a soft, dry rasp, like paper being torn.
Iruna's eyes snapped open. She scrambled to the bedside. Zaliyah's long, pale eyelashes flickered , His chest gave a sudden, violent heave.
Zaliyah opened his eyes.
He didn't see the twins at first. He saw the vaulted stone ceiling and the unfamiliar shadows cast by the dying fire. The air felt like needles in his lungs , it just felt sharp, and wrong. This wasn't the RuoHan residence or The rocky stonewall in his bedchamber back at the palace.
He opened his mouth, trying to speak. He wanted to call for Karas. He wanted to ask if he had made it through the portal. He wanted to know if the blood he remembered on the floor was his own or Malachi's.
"Ka... Kar..."
His throat was scarred and constricted by the internal damage Malachi had left, whenever he tried to talk , it refused to cooperate. Instead of the name he had been trying to call out , a terrifying, silent rasp tore from his lips. It felt like he was swallowing glass. his hands instinctively flew to his throat, his eyes wide with panic.
He tried to sit up, but his body felt too heavy, it felt like they were fifty sacks of grains on his back. His muscles had withered from five months of starvation.
As he shifted on the bed he felt a heavy, unfamiliar weight settled in his lap the his eyes traveled down.
The furs had fallen away, revealing his thin frame and the prominent, unmistakable swell of his stomach. He saw the way the skin was stretched tight, and as he watched, a small, distinct ripple moved across the surface. A kick.
The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow. He wasn't in the place anymore and his voice was weirdly gone. And in their place was a five-month-old life that pulsed with a heartbeat that wasn't his.
Zaliyah looked at Harun and Iruna, his eyes filled with a raw, primal terror. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how much time had passed. All he knew was that the he wasn't in the capital city anymore and this place was very cold.
"Your highness..." Iruna whispered, her grey eyes filling with tears. "Y-you...You're back."
Zaliyah could only stare at her, his hand trembling as he rested it over his swollen stomach. He wasn't back. He was somewhere entirely new, and for the first time in his life, he was truly afraid.