Page 96 of A Fate in Flames

“In the mortal realm,” I began, “we didn’t really learn much about this world.All we were ever taught was the story of the war.”

A subtle change passed through him.His shoulders squared, his hands folding gently atop one another.

“Even then, they never told us much.Just fragments.Just enough to fear you.I’m not trying to be offensive—I’m actually more interested in what life was like before.What was it like to live together?To share the world?”

He was silent for a beat too long.His gaze unfocused, staring through me rather than at me.His lips dipped into a frown.

“It was so long ago,” he said at last.

I leaned forward, like his voice might collapse into dust if I didn’t catch every word.As he spoke, I could feel the present slipping, unravelling around us.I was no longer in the library—I was there, walking through the past with him.

“Aradhi was not merely a place, but the very heartbeat of existence itself.It stood between endless seas that glittered like shattered diamonds and deserts whose sands whispered ancient secrets.”His hands rose from the table, fingers splaying wide as though trying to convey the vastness of the lost world.“There was no Veil.No boundaries to confine us.The grounds that stretched beneath our feet belonged to all, infinite and unmarred by division.”

His eyes blazed with an otherworldly light.“You cannot imagine what it was like to walk those lands.To feel the connection between all living things pulsing through the earth.The mortals did not cower before us—they stood alongside us as equals.Their fleeting lives burning all the brighter for their brevity.”His voice swelled with passion.“Our traditions flowed into their blood.Our knowledge became the foundation of their understanding.We were separate beings, yet one civilization.”

My chest pressed against the edge of the table, the wood digging into my ribs.The way he spoke held me captivated.

“Not all Jinn embraced this unity,” he continued.“Many among us guarded our secrets.Hoarded knowledge and power like dragons of your mortal tales.But most of us, including the king—” his voice trailed off for a moment, “recognised that mortals posed no threat.How could they?We had watched generations bloom and wither like flowers—their souls bound by an hourglass that emptied far too quickly.”

His voice softened.“While they gazed upon us with wonder in their eyes, some of us found ourselves equally entranced by them.Their passion, their urgency, their desperate hunger to experience everything in their brief existence…”

His gaze drifted beyond the room surrounding us.

“And I—I who had witnessed the birth of stars and death of mountains—found myself utterly captivated by one such fleeting flame.”

A sad smile tugged at his lips, the corners trembling with the effort of holding back centuries of emotion.The brightness faded from his face.His shoulders curved inward, protecting an old wound.

It tugged at my heart, my own sadness festering beneath the surface.

“Who?”I whispered.

“Her name,” Belshin’s voice cracked, “was Ashrenah.”

He said it like a prayer.Reverent.

“She was not merely beautiful.She was beauty’s very definition.Its purest essence.She waslight, brighter than the sun itself.Her hair was like liquid fire, redder than the blood that moved through her veins.Redder than the most perfect sunset that has ever blessed either of our realms.When she laughed—” He paused, struggling to continue.“It used to fill every corner of me.”

He closed his eyes, and I saw eternity in his face.

“I still see her when I sleep.When I close my eyes, she’s there, waiting.Unchanged by time.”

“You loved her,” I whispered, my own heart cracking.I slumped forward, dropping my chin into my palms.The heat of impending tears building up.

“Love—” The word seemed inadequate in his mouth “is a pale shadow—a human approximation of what I felt for her.Within the Jinn there exists a bond so profound, so absolute, that your languages have no words to capture its true nature.We call itAksana.Soul-bound is your closest translation, but even that fails to convey its meaning.”He laced his fingers together.“It is a merging of souls.A connection so powerful that not even time, death, or the end of all things can undo it.”

“Aksana,” I repeated, the foreign word strange yet somehow perfect on my tongue.“Is that what you had with Ashrenah?Were you two soul-bound?”

“No.”The answer was quiet, but it landed like a stone.

“A Jinn cannot bond with a mortal.Aksana does not recognise what cannot endure.It would be like trying to merge fire with water.In all my countless years, I’ve encountered perhaps a handful who had found theirs.Many Jinn will live their eternities without ever finding one, nor will everyone have one destined for them.”

The grip of his intertwined fingers gradually loosened a deliberate release of tension that seemed to cost him dearly.

“But I,” he said, his voice suddenly fierce with conviction, “I didn’t need the bond.My soul was hers regardless.Bound not by magic or ancient rite, but by choice.I gave her all of me, willingly.Completely.”

He tapped his chest once, softly.“I was hers.In here.”

I wanted to cry, the lump in my throat growing.It was clear how his story was about to end.I sank my teeth into my lower lip to keep it from quivering.