After the encounter with Steven, I realized his half-truths were nothing but scattered fragments. Lionel held the missing pieces.
Aisha wandered through Lionel's study with trembling hands. On the desk lay photographs marked "S. & L." They weren't brothers. They were Sanathiel and Lionel: the original… and his clone.
The medical reports revealed the truth of Project Moira:To recreate the Nevri Warrior, stripped of his beastly side.
But the result had been a curse.In altering his DNA to clone him, they hadn't foreseen that the child would inherit a degenerative blood disease. His skin blistered at the slightest touch of light, his organs weakened, and only blood could sustain him. Not human blood. Not entirely. But enough to chain him to life… tethered to transfusions and shadows.
Lionel's existence was bound to needles, bags, and need. In the basement, freezers labeled Special Blood carried two names: Sanathiel… and Aisha.
She was no protector. She was a replacement.
The ampoules, the extraction schedules… it all fit together. Nausea surged as her eyes caught a note:
"Aisha's DNA: 98% compatible with Zaira. Sole heir of the legacy. Nevri variation."
The floor seemed to collapse beneath her feet. She couldn't remain near a bloodthirsty monster like Lionel. She was in danger. She left him.
She packed a suitcase. Took different taxis from separate stations to lose her trail. Walked aimlessly until she found herself inside an antique shop.
A dark thought pierced her mind: sell the lunar medallion.It weighed on her like a slab of stone. The shopkeeper offered her a fortune. But when he held it, visions slashed into her like knives:
Zaira fighting with the medallion in her grasp.
Sanathiel burying it beneath a snowy grave.
Lionel injecting himself with her blood.
Aisha snatched it back instantly. The medallion was her only clue to who she really was.
She forced herself to breathe, wandering among rusted relics and dusty jars. And then she saw it: fragments of a map, scattered like the remains of a forgotten puzzle.
The moment her fingers brushed it, time fractured.Memories that weren't hers stormed her mind:
Zaira whispering her name in a snowy forest.
Lionel burning alive, screaming in the Nevri village.
Fallían clutching the medallion, dripping with blood.
A whisper cut through the chaos:
—Do you think it's a coincidence you survived?
Sanathiel emerged from the shadows, tearing the medallion from her neck.
—You freed me from my slumber, he murmured. And I… will free you from Lionel.
The air thickened.
—We… know each other —she whispered, paralyzed.
She tried to strike him, but her body yielded to his touch. A part of her recognized him… and feared that he was right.
—Do you think you're escaping Lionel? He's only a broken mirror… and you, the reflection that refuses to look back.
He leaned close to her cheek.
—Aisha…
Her name on his lips sent her heart racing.
—Who the hell are you to touch me like this?
Sanathiel held her with chilling calm.
—Believe me or don't. But our memories have been tampered with, huntress.
—Sanathiel… —the name escaped her lips like a forbidden secret.
Impossible. He was supposed to be dead. Yet here he stood, unraveling her truth.
—For a moment, I thought you were Zaira, he said, almost wistful. But I cannot mistake you. She kept me asleep. You woke me.
Her heart thundered between fear, attraction, and disbelief.
—Let me go! —she demanded, though her voice trembled.
He didn't. Instead, he lifted the lunar medallion before her eyes.
—For now, I will only take what already belongs to me.
The certainty in his voice froze her. His conviction, his gaze… he spoke of destiny not as a possibility, but as something already written.
When he vanished into the crowd, Aisha stood frozen, with two truths searing her mind:
Lionel would hunt her.And Sanathiel was no savior. He was the trap she would eventually fall into.
Yet in her pocket, something remained stolen from the basement:A document with coordinates.
"Location of Zaira: Nevri Tomb, Sector 9."
A forbidden sanctuary of the Community of Thirteen.Her fate wasn't sealed. It was a map.
"Our Moira, our destiny, is simple," she thought. "But we twist it to give it meaning. In the end, it all comes down to the choices we make… and the paths we dare to follow."
Aisha knew hers was already drawn. But she didn't yet know if she was ready to face it.