The pharmacy slled of dust.
Behind the glass shelves stood yellowed bandages, old dicines, faded-label vials. Zaber pressed the rag against his wound with his hand, and in that mont he understood one thing:
He could die.
It was not just a passing thought.
It was cold, hard fact.
The cut on his shoulder was deep. The wound along his side was long, but not imdiately life-threatening. He had lost a lot of blood, yet he still had strength to stand.
The problem was not the injury.
The problem was the command.
"Enough."
That single word kept circling in his mind.
Who had stopped them?
Why had they stopped?
Why not straight to the heart?
Zaber bit down on the bandage and pulled it tight. Pain darkened his vision. He made no sound.
"So the intention was never to kill ," he said to himself.
Not yet, at least.
---
Outside the door, people passed. Footsteps. Whispers.
A woman’s voice drifted in:
"They say the boy fell from the roof..."
"Soone’s saying he was cut with a sword."
"Are the factions fighting again?"
Zaber closed his eyes.
The city kept living.
No one stopped.
One person dies, another sells bread. Soone falls in love. Soone sells. Soone gives orders.
He was not the center.
Not yet.
---
He rose slowly to his feet.
Through the window he looked out at the street. Ordinary people.
A baker’s boy laughing. An old man hobbling along with a crutch. Two young n arguing over sothing.
None of them knew that just a few ters away soone had tried to kill him.
That ordinariness disturbed him.
The city was indifferent.
That was good.
It ant he could still play hidden.
---
Zaber pushed the door open and stepped outside.
The air was not heavy. But the heaviness inside him did not lessen.
He walked slowly.
With every step his body sent pain signals.
He forced himself to move deliberately.
A hurried man looks weak.
A weak-looking man gets tested again.
---
Across the street, the woman selling bread stared at him.
"Boy, are you all right?" she asked.
Zaber did not answer for a second.
Then, in an ordinary tone:
"I fell."
She did not believe him.
Her eyes fell on the cut at his shoulder.
"That’s not from a fall."
Zaber shrugged.
"In this city everything is a fall."
The woman opened her mouth to say sothing, then stayed silent.
She was afraid.
Ordinary people do not get involved with the factions.
It was a natural instinct.
Inside, Zaber thought:
They’re afraid?
---
He turned into the lower district.
Here the streets were narrower, the houses older, the people more suspicious.
Information spread quickly here.
He had co here on purpose.
If soone was watching — they would see his movent.
And they would react.
---
On the rooftop.
Larden stood motionless.
His eyes were cold.
He watched Zaber.
"The practical lesson has begun," he murmured under his breath.
"Think more carefully now. Every decision you make from this mont determines whether you live or die."
"That’s a good sign."
A frightened boy runs.
A thinking boy walks.
Larden pulled his cloak a little tighter.
---
Zaber reached the old water tower.
The wall was cold. Peeling whitewash flaked away in places.
He took out the small piece of tal in his hand and drew a line along the wall.
To an ordinary eye — a random scratch.
As though he were trying to organize the thoughts inside his head the sa way.
He did not look back.
Aurora... Aurora... Do you have a weakness? How can I possess you? How can I escape your control? he whispered inwardly.
---
As he turned to leave, two boys ran past in the narrow alley.
One of them stopped.
"Brother, you’re bleeding!"
Zaber looked down.
A little more blood was seeping through the bandage.
"It’s nothing," he said.
The boy stepped closer.
"My father used to say the sa thing. Then he died."
Zaber went still.
That was unexpected.
"Father?"
Zaber paused for a mont, then asked quietly, "Faction?"
The boy nodded.
"My mother says: ’When grown-ups fight, the little ones die.’"
Zaber looked into the boy’s eyes.
It was not fear.
It was exhaustion.
Children in this city grew up fast.
"What’s your na?" Zaber asked.
"Taren."
"Taren, listen — your mother is still alive. Treasure her. And beco strong enough to protect her."
The boy narrowed his eyes.
"Do you have a mother too?"
Zaber smiled faintly.
"I did..." Zaber’s voice ca out low and choked.
He continued walking.
Sothing stirred inside him.
Mother... Father...!!
Zaber walked a few more steps, then stopped. His eyes widened. He stared at his own hands.
There was no wind.
The narrow alley of the district was dead silent. Dust clung to the ground. Zaber stood in the middle. He seed to be looking sowhere, but in reality he was looking inward.
He tried to recall his mother’s face.
An ordinary thing. Anyone can do it. Eyes, lips, cheeks, smile.
"Mother’s eyes..."
No image ca.
He tried again. Harder this ti.
"Were they dark?... Or blue?... "
Nothing.
Only white emptiness.
Sothing moved inside him.
His breathing grew heavier.
"Rember her face."
A vein throbbed on his forehead. He began to dig through his mory. Childhood. The inner courtyard of the palace. Winter. The sll of warm bread.
The sll was there.
The sound was there.
But no face.
As though soone had deliberately cut it out.
Suddenly an image seed to appear — the silhouette of a woman, hair falling over her shoulders...
But where the face should be — darkness.
Shadow.
Zaber took a step back.
No.
This was impossible.
He gritted his teeth.
"Rember!"
The image ca again. Closer this ti. The lips seed to move. He almost saw it...
At that instant a cold pain lanced through his skull. As though an invisible chain had been pulled taut.
A ntal chain.
The image shattered.
White void.
His heart began to pound.
"Did I... forget...?"
The question was not frightening.
What was frightening was that there was no panic inside him.
Normally a person would panic. Fear. Scream.
Zaber was cold.
That coldness did not co from him.
He pressed both hands to his head. Closed his eyes tightly.
"Mother’s face..."
Nothing.
At that mont a whispering sensation passed through him from within:
Unnecessary.
Pain.
Obstacle.
He opened his eyes. His breathing steadied.
No.
This is not .
His hand rose. He did not even notice it himself.
Slap—
He struck his own face.
The sound rang through the narrow alley.
He took another breath.
"Right now... I cannot think about this."
The words ca out cold.
He looked down.
And suddenly another image appeared before his eyes.
He was kneeling.
The ground was cold. His knees sank into the dust. His arms hung limp.
When had he knelt?
How?
He could rember the state itself.
But he could not rember how he had arrived at that mont.
The mory was severed.
A brief dizziness.
His field of vision narrowed.
Then widened again.
Wind struck his face.
He was standing.
The district alley lay behind him.
He had been walking.
Ordinary steps. Steady. Cold.
Zaber stopped.
He looked back.
The place where he had stood was far away now.
"I..."
Since when had he been walking?
How many minutes?
How many hours?
That sa coldness moved inside him again.
Order.
Stability.
Control.
The negative effects of the ntal chain were still unknown to Zaber,
yet it was the very thing keeping him in motion.
Zaber slowly closed his eyes.
He sensed that sothing inside him had changed.
Not being able to rember his mother’s face was not a loss.
It was a warning.
And the most terrifying part —
he could not even grieve about it right now.
He started walking again.
Behind him, no dust rose.
Only silence remained.
---
The sun was almost setting. Red rays struck the clouds in the sky, lending them an unusual beauty — as though the sky itself had been painted in blood.
The shadow of the jujube tree stretched even longer.
Zaber stopped.
The air changed.
He felt it.
Surveillance.
A spiritual ripple.
This ti clearer.
He did not turn around.
"Why are you watching ?" he said in a low voice.
Silence.
Then silver eyes glinted in the shadow.
The silhouette was not clear.
The voice was quiet.
"Whose side are you on?"
Zaber’s heart beat faster.
So this was not Larden.
The tone was different.
"I’m on my own side," he answered.
"Liar."
"Then what do you think?"
The silhouette took one step forward.
No answer ca.
Zaber stayed silent.
This person had been watching.
"Maybe," he said.
"An assassin?"
"Everyone is an assassin."
Zaber grew tense, but kept the cold composure on his face.
"Was there an order?" Zaber asked.
The silhouette gave no reply.
For Zaber that was confirmation.
"Who said I would lose?"
The silver eyes narrowed.
"You still don’t know which side you’re really standing on."
The wind rose.
Leaves rustled.
The eyes vanished.
The silhouette lted away as though it had never been.
---
On the rooftop.
Larden stood motionless.
He had heard the conversation.
No expression on his face.
But inside, calculations ran.
The boy himself — and others — still did not know whose side he was truly on.
That was not good.
But it was useful.
"Co on, boy..." he murmured under his breath. "Let’s see just how clever you really are."
---
Zaber remained alone in the shadow of the tree.
This ti his heart beat faster.
This had not been Larden.
So the surveillance ca from multiple sources.
The ga was bigger.
He took a slow breath.
There was no fear, but there was unease — from the possibility of losing, from the tangle of it all.
Yes.
But there was sothing even larger:
Curiosity.
If soone had sent an assassin not to kill him, but to talk to him — if they had gone that far — then Zaber had value. He felt a slight relief that he was not rely a pawn, yet with powerful players the danger was far greater — even for those who appeared strong.
In a low voice he said to himself:
"Now it remains to figure out who is the enemy and who is the ally."
But that did not an rushing.
It ant calculating.
He knew:
Within the next twenty-four hours sothing would happen.
Soone would co.
Or the surveillance would intensify.
In either case — there would be an answer.
---
That night he returned to the old hut — Larden’s hut. Zaber still believed — or wanted to believe — that Larden was here.
He did not lie down.
He sat at the table.
He took out paper.
He did not write nas.
He drew symbols.
Gray wings.
Neon clan.
Patrol.
Master.
Gray eyes.
In the center — himself.
He stared at it for a long ti.
Then he moved his own symbol slightly away from the center.
"I will not stand in the center," he said quietly. "I cannot control everything. In three seconds the center would be buried. I will create the center."
The wind rattled the window.
For a mont he smiled.
This ga was no longer about survival.
This ga was about who would use whom.
---
Far away.
On the rooftop.
Larden looked one last ti.
"Demon dragon," he said.
And lted into the shadow.
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