The boardroom was full of suits and silence. Charts glowed on the screen, half a dozen men and women waiting for Yilan's verdict.
She wasn't listening.
Not really.
Her eyes were fixed on the numbers, but her mind—was somewhere else.
"Ms. Yilan?" her secretary, Lia, prompted softly. "They're waiting."
Yilan blinked. Then, without even looking at the attendees:
"You're all dismissed."
A few murmurs. Confused shifting of chairs.
"But the quarterly projections—"
"I said leave."
That cold steel in her voice—only ever used once or twice before—cut the air like a blade.
They filed out.
Only Lia remained, standing carefully near the door.
Yilan rubbed her temple. Her voice, when it came, was quieter.
"Do you know how I got here, Lia?"
Lia tilted her head, cautious. "Ma'am?"
"To this tower. This family. This company."
Yilan turned, looking out the window. Below, the city churned like it always did.
Yilan didn't move for a long moment. Then, softly:
"You ever feel like you're just someone else's shadow?"
Lia straightened slightly, unsure.
Yilan didn't look at her. Just stared at the skyline—city lights smeared by rain.
"I used to think I was grateful. Taken in. Protected. Given a future."
Her voice drifted, like wind slipping through a half-open window.
"But sometimes I wonder…"
She almost smiled. Almost.
"Was I chosen… or was I just convenient?"
And memory, when it returned, it arrived like floodwater—breaking doors, swallowing breath.
"Do you know how silence feels when it's been fed grief?"
Her voice was barely audible. Lia, standing quietly near the doorway, wasn't sure if the question was for her.
But Yilan spoke on.
"I was twelve. The world ended, and nobody noticed."
"They buried my parents in a city I didn't recognize. I don't remember the words at the funeral. Just the smell of wet roses. The cold of the car seat. The way I didn't cry."
"Everyone thought I was brave."
"No one cried. I didn't either. It felt... impolite."
She shook her head, almost laughing, almost choking.
"He—Sanlang's father—took me in. Said I was family now.The newspapers loved it. A war hero adopts a dead friend's daughter. It looked clean. Noble. Like a fable."
Her hands clenched.
She turned toward the window, her reflection ghostlike in the rain-smeared glass.
"Bravery is just grief that didn't get a voice."
Lia's mouth parted, but no answer came.
Yilan continued.
"Sanlang's father adopted me. Out of guilt. Or pity. Or something colder."
"And then there was Sanlang."
A pause.
Something inside her softened—briefly.
"He was thirteen. Fire in his blood. A boy who ran faster than his fears and smiled like the world could never catch him."
"Golden hair. Like the sun got stuck in it."Yilan murmured, her voice almost reverent."Eyes the color of wet emeralds — not green, no. Deeper. Like something alive was watching from inside them."
A silence.
"And his smile…"
She didn't finish that sentence right away. Her fingers drifted across her wrist, almost like tracing the edge of memory.
"It was the kind of smile that didn't need words.It didn't just brighten a room.It broke open the dark."
"The kind of face you'd mistake for mercy… until it turned away."
She looked out the window, as if afraid the memory might see her watching it.
"There were people who hated him for it. Hated that light in him. Or maybe just wanted to own it."
"But I.... I just wanted to be close enough to feel it.""Even if it wasn't meant for me."
She stepped closer to the window. The city shimmered below.
"He gave me a paper star the day I moved in. Said if I kept it, I'd never be alone."
She almost laughed.
"Funny thing. I kept it."
Lia tilted her head, carefully. "You talk like you lost him."
Yilan's voice dropped to a whisper.
"I never had him."
Yilan sat in the chair like a queen who hadn't slept in days.
Outside, the rain began again — slow, constant. A rhythm too steady for peace.
"Have you ever remembered something," Yilan said suddenly, "so clearly that it feels closer than the present?"
Lia glanced up. "Sometimes. I suppose that's what nostalgia is."
Yilan smiled. But it was a smile with too many teeth, and no warmth.
"Not nostalgia," she corrected. "Not sweetness. I mean something closer to… fever."
She didn't wait for Lia's answer.
"I was twelve. It was summer. They'd sent us to the northern estate—quiet, remote, full of things children were supposed to find magical."
Lia said nothing. She could feel the weight beneath the words. The tremor under the silk.
"He never noticed how quiet I was. Or maybe he did — and just refused to accept it."
"He said once, 'If you don't laugh at least once today, I'll throw you in the lake myself.'"
Yilan's hands folded in her lap. Her voice gentled further, dangerously so.
"I didn't laugh."
"But I did end up in the lake."
A pause. Not dramatic. Just long enough to reveal the fracture behind the calm.
"She pushed me. I don't know her name. I just remember her perfume. Something sweet. Fake."
"I remember the cold more than the fall. The quiet under the water. It was the first time I felt peace."
"I thought—this is it. This is the ending I deserve."
Her lips twitched. Almost a smirk. Almost grief.
"And then he was there."
"He dove in without thinking. Not like a boy being heroic. More like—like breathing. Like saving me was instinct."
"His hands were everywhere. Holding me, dragging me, choking on lakewater alongside me. We were both shaking by the time we hit shore."
"He dragged me out—but nearly died doing it. His lungs collapsed. He spent two days in a hospital bed—silent, shivering, breathing like the world owed him nothing."
"And after that… I never left him."
A long, shuddering breath.
"Not because I wanted to repay him. Not even because I was grateful."
"But because part of me... never left the lake."
Lia finally looked up — but before she could say anything, Yilan added, almost to herself:
"Some people bring light into your life like it's a gift."
" I didn't want to be rescued.'"
Another silence.
And then:
"But I was."
She blinked slowly. Her voice breaking in the quietest way:
"I just… never stopped drowning after it."
_________________
The engine roared like it had a pulse.
Yilan didn't remember opening the door.
Didn't remember starting the car.
All she remembered was the look in Li's eyes.
The door flew open.
Li stood there, rain-soaked, hair sticking to her cheeks, breath shallow.
"You need to come with me."
Yilan didn't move.
"Why."
Li swallowed, voice barely steady.
"It's him. He's gone."
A pause.
"Sanlang?"Yilan's voice was sharp now."What about him?"
"He left. Stormed out. Alone. He was muttering—something about blood, about Noor, about seeing her—bleeding—I don't know, I couldn't stop him."
Yilan's body stiffened.
"Did he say a name."
Li hesitated.
"Zeyla. Maybe. Or maybe I imagined it. I don't know. But—"She took a shaky breath."I've made fifteen requests to see Noor on his behalf this week. All rejected."
"After the thirteenth, they stopped answering."
"So I called Zeyla."
She looked up.Eyes hollow.
"She answered. Didn't say a word. Just… silence."
Yilan stood. Fast. Her chair scraped loud across the floor.
"No. No, no—what did he do."
Li shook her head.
"I don't know. But something's off."
Lia, hovering by the doorway, frowned,"Wait—who is Zeyla? What's happening?"
But Yilan didn't answer
The road was a blur of stormlight and sorrow.
Yilan's hands were clenched around the steering wheel —white-knuckled, knuckles bone-pale —as if letting go meant the whole world might finally collapse inward.
Last night.
After the storm, after she left his room, after all those broken words and quiet confessions he would never hear — she had stopped just outside. Sanlang hadn't heard her, but she had stood there for minutes that felt like centuries. Her hand, trembling, had hovered inches above the handle.
She almost went back in.
Yilan's grip on the wheel made her recall last night's tension.
The storm outside had worn itself into a hush, as if nature itself held its breath.
Sanlang lay slumped against the wall, still caught in the half-dream.
And Yilan…
She watched him with the stillness .She took a breath. Her voice was a soft murmur.
"You always looked at her like she was a prayer you didn't know how to say."
She laughed once, quietly, bitterly.
"And me? I was the silence that followed."
Her hands folded in front of her, almost to keep them from betraying the storm inside her chest.
"You never saw me — not really. Not the way I wanted you to.
And I… I knew. I always knew what I was to you."
She turned slightly, looking over her shoulder at him. His face was pale in the moonlight. Beautiful. Untouched.
"You would be disgusted if you knew," she whispered. "If you knew what I thought… what I still think."
The truth was a weight she carried like a second spine.
"I watched you die for her a thousand ways.
I watched you walk through fire and come back cinder and ash.
And all I ever did was stay close —
Because that was all I was allowed."
Her voice trembled, but she did not cry.
"You thought I was strong. Loyal.
But if you ever knew what I carry —
You would never look at me again."
She walked to the window, where rain had begun to mist across the skyline, streaking down glass like tears that never reached the floor.
And in a voice so quiet it barely reached the shadows, she said:
"She told me once…
'If someone had to bear it, I would.
If someone had to be hated, I'd choose it.
If someone had to be erased, let it be me.
As long as he lives. As long as he breathes…'"
Yilan closed her eyes.
"And I hated her for it.
Because even her absence outshone everything I was."
"…And still, it was her name you whispered."
A pause.
Then, with a bitterness so sharp it cut her throat on the way out:
"Damn you, Noor.
Where the hell are you."