Haqi looked at Yami for a long moment.
Then something shifted behind his own eyes. Something older than the road, older than tonight, and quieter than he usually let anything be.
—
Rain. The smell of it, wet and cold, coming through broken windows.
Inside the house, a lamp burned low in the corner. One wall was scorched black from something that had happened before the rain.
The light was dim enough that the room felt like it was already giving up.
Haqi knelt beside the bed, not on it but beside it, his knees on the cold stone floor. His head was down.
He held a pair of hands between both of his own and his shoulders were shaking, just barely, the way they shake when a man is trying very hard not to let the rest of him follow.
His teeth were pressed together.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. To the floor. To the silent room. To no one. To her.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Afia."
The hands he held belonged to a woman lying motionless on the bed. Her skin had taken on a quality he could not name, not pale, not colourless, but something beyond both, an unnatural white that felt almost unreal.
And yet she still breathed.
Her stillness carried the heavy weight of someone clinging to the world through an effort he could neither see nor understand, one she refused to let him witness.
She coughed.
When it passed, she turned her head toward him. Her voice came out small, yet steady, like a candle flame holding itself still for one final moment before the wax finally runs dry.
"You don't have to be sorry." She coughed again and raised a cloth to her mouth. When she lowered it, she quietly turned her face away so he wouldn't see what stained it.
"I'm the one who should be sorry. I couldn't make your only wish come true." Her voice softened even further. "Please forgive me, Haqi."
Tears came without his permission.
"Don't say that." His voice cracked on the second word, and this time he could not force it back together.
"I can't live without you. You're my reason." His breath trembled. "You are the whole reason for my life."
Her coughing worsened.
He was on his feet before he even realized he had moved, reaching for the cloth. She resisted for a moment, her fingers tightening around it as if she could still keep him from seeing.
But he gently took it from her anyway.
And when he looked down, the colour had soaked all the way through.
He stood there holding the cloth in both hands, his eyes shining with something that had no name beyond loss.
What kind of man watches the woman he loves fade away in front of him and still cannot do a single thing to save her, he thought.
Then her hand found his. Small, dry, and real.
She slowly guided him back down to the edge of the bed, her fragile fingers still wrapped around his hand, and waited until his shaking eased enough for him to steady himself.
"Promise me something," she whispered.
"Afia..."
"Please. Just listen to me."
A harsh cough cut through her words. He immediately moved closer, one arm supporting her.
This time, she didn't try to hide her weakness from him. She simply leaned into him for a moment, exhausted by the effort of breathing.
Then she looked up at him again.
"As long as you live..." Her voice trembled faintly. "Anyone you meet who needs help, help them." She swallowed slowly, each word seeming to cost her something.
"No matter how little you have. No matter how hard life becomes for you." Her fingers tightened weakly around his hand. "If you can save someone from pain, even a little... then do it."
Her eyes locked onto his, tired and fading, yet unbearably gentle.
"Promise me that, Haqi."
He closed his eyes.
The tears slipped down silently, one after another, and he did nothing to stop them.
"I promise," he whispered.
For a moment, the room became still.
Then he opened his eyes again. Hers were closed.
Her hand slowly loosened in his, not all at once, but little by little, like someone finally letting go after holding on for far too long, like a question releasing its need for an answer after finally hearing it.
—
Back on the path.
The jungle still surrounded them, endless and dark. The cart creaked softly over the uneven ground while the orb light swayed gently in Yami's hand, casting moving shadows across the trees.
"I helped people whenever I could," Haqi said quietly. He didn't look at any of them. His eyes remained fixed somewhere far beyond the path ahead, as though part of him was still trapped in another time.
"Within what I had. Within what I could manage." A faint breath left him, almost a laugh, though there was nothing joyful in it. "It was never much. But I did it."
He fell silent for a moment.
"But you feel different." A faint frown touched his face, the kind born from trying to understand something that refused to stay still long enough to be named.
"It's not just that I want to help you." His gaze lowered slightly. "It feels like I have to."
The words settled over the group, and afterward came the kind of silence that only follows something painfully real.
Mina looked at him quietly, with an expression that asked for nothing yet offered understanding all the same.
"You're a kind man, Haqi," she said softly.
He gave no answer.
He simply kept walking.
They had gone a fair distance deeper into the trees when Aryan suddenly slowed.
Near the base of a massive root, rainwater had gathered in a shallow hollow where the wood curved upward. The small pool lay perfectly still, dark around the edges, with only a thin sliver of orb light trembling at its center.
Aryan raised both hands, the backs facing outward, and pushed gently.
The water rose cleanly from the hollow, lifting into the air as a single trembling mass. He held it there for a moment, feeling the link settle into place beneath his skin.
Then his eyes shifted toward Ozair. For one brief second, the thought crossed his mind to throw the entire thing at him.
He turned his hands toward Ozair.
The water went the other way.
Aryan stared at it in confusion.
Frowning, he corrected himself and pushed again, this time deliberately directing it toward Ozair.
The water veered left.
He lowered his hands at once, and the floating mass collapsed back into the hollow with a splash. "Why can't I control it?"
Toviro caught the last of the motion from the corner of his eye and looked over. "Control what?"
Aryan raised his hand again.
The water lifted obediently at first, then drifted sideways on its own, ignoring him completely.
He stared at it.
Ozair had been watching the whole time with the expression of someone who had been carrying the same question since morning.
"That happened to me too during the fight," he said. "I could reach the earth and use it, but trying to direct it felt like arguing with someone who had already decided not to listen." He frowned slightly at the memory.
"Everything kept going the opposite way from what I wanted."
Elina nodded slowly. "Same with me."
Toviro raised his staff and reached for the barrier technique he had studied earlier that day from Mina's shield.
He found the edge of it. Felt the structure beginning to form.
Then it flickered apart and vanished.
He tried again.
This time the barrier appeared for less than a breath before collapsing into nothing.
A third attempt.
For half a second, something real stood in front of him, stable and complete.
Then it shattered away.
Toviro slowly lowered the staff. "It's the same for me too."
"But why?" Ozair asked. "Yesterday I could control it perfectly, like it was part of my own body. What changed?"
Toviro was quiet for a moment.
He considered the answer he had given earlier that morning, then slowly shook his head.
"I take back what I said before," he said. "About overuse. I was wrong."
Ozair frowned. "Then what is it?"
Toviro looked down at the staff in his hand, then out toward the dark jungle surrounding them. Beyond the orb light, the trees were little more than shifting shapes, while the sounds of the night pressed softly against the path.
"At first, the simplest explanation is that we're inexperienced," he said. "We only received these powers a few days ago. So, it would make sense if we can't control them properly without practice."
"But that doesn't explain this," Elina said immediately. "Yesterday I could control mine however I wanted."
Ozair nodded. "She's right. It felt natural. Like moving my own arm."
"Same for me," Mina said quietly.
Toviro's expression hardened slightly. "Then that answer doesn't fit."
Aryan looked between them. "So what's left?"
Toviro lifted his eyes toward him. "The Recast."
A small silence followed.
Aryan frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Do you remember when we entered Mayo's room?" Toviro asked. "He was unconscious. I poured Atsal's medicine into his mouth, and then that light appeared from nowhere and swallowed everything."
His grip tightened slightly around the staff. "We couldn't see, nor could we hear. And that was... the second phase of the Recast."
Aryan stared at him. "It happened in phases?"
"Yes. When Kalin began traveling between universes, that was when the imbalance started. Everything began pulling toward everything else, trying to merge into one."
His eyes drifted into the darkness beyond the orb light.
"What happened in Mayo's room was the moment those cosmic structures finally collided and reality began recreating itself, rewriting the new laws of the universe." He paused briefly. "That was the second phase."
The jungle remained silent around them.
"Then, when we jumped from the ramp Ozair created, the light returned again, complete and absolute." His grip tightened faintly around the staff. "The third phase." Another pause. "And I believe... the final one."
Mina let out a slow breath. "I had no idea something like that was happening behind everything we could see."
"Now it makes sense," Ozair murmured, his expression tightening as pieces finally began falling into place.
Aryan looked between them, still trying to catch up. "But what does any of that have to do with our powers?"
"Unbalancing means disequilibrium," Toviro said. "The entire cosmic structure had fallen out of balance, and because we are part of that structure, we were affected too."
He glanced at the faint traces of disturbed water still rippling in the hollow beside them.
"That imbalance is what allowed us to reach our powers so easily and control them so precisely. We were operating inside a broken system, and for a while, that broken system worked in our favor."
He let the thought settle before continuing.
"But when the Recast completed, balance was restored. A new equilibrium." His voice grew quieter. "And we returned to what we truly are: people who have only possessed these abilities for a few days."
Understanding moved through the group slowly, one face at a time, as the pieces finally settled into place.
"So now we start from scratch?" Aryan asked.
Toviro gave a faint nod. "We don't really have another choice."
Ozair straightened slightly. "Then we do it."
Mina nodded after him, calm and certain. "We still have a duty. That part hasn't changed."
Elina looked ahead into the darkness of the path stretching before them. "Nothing stops us now."
Haqi and Yami had been watching the whole exchange from a step behind, following it like a ball being thrown back and forth between people, never quite catching it.
Then they looked at each other.
Haqi turned back toward the group and, with complete calm, said, "So... you're Zaym users."
Silence fell immediately.
Every head turned toward him at once.
Haqi blinked. "Why are all of you looking at me like that?"
Toviro spoke slowly, carefully. "Zaym users?"
Haqi pointed at him immediately. "No. No, no, no. You're joking." He looked between all of them in disbelief. "You have to be joking. I know when someone's joking."
"We have no idea what that is," Aryan said.
Haqi turned toward Yami with the expression of a man suddenly exhausted by reality itself. "Water. Give me the costrel, Yami."
Without a word, Yami handed it over.
Haqi took a long drink, then tipped a small amount over his own head. He stood there for a moment with the water running down his face, staring into nothing.
Then, without saying another word, he simply started walking again.
"Haqi," Ozair called after him. "Are you going to tell us?"
"Later," Haqi replied without turning around.
The others exchanged uncertain glances before falling back into step behind him.
Ozair drifted closer to Mina and lowered his voice. "Could it be some kind of food from this world?"
Mina considered the possibility with complete seriousness. "Maybe."
Ahead of them, the orb light swayed gently in Yami's hand while the jungle path continued winding deeper into the dark.