The smoke came first.
Then the silence.
Then the scream.

It wasn’t the kind of scream that begged for help. It was the kind that reminded you no help was coming.

Julin’s legs moved before his mind did.
The bakery across the square was on fire.

He saw it in pieces:
A basket rolling across the cobblestones.
A child’s doll burning beside a cartwheel.
An old man coughing blood into his sleeve.

He ran into the heat anyway.

“Leave it!” someone shouted. “They have swords!”

But he had stopped listening to people who had things.

That’s when he saw her.
Through the flames.
Through the curling smoke.

A woman.

She moved like ink dropped in water — smooth, certain, silent. A long black cloak. Pale hands. Eyes that didn’t blink.

Ziya.

She bent down and lifted a child from under the debris. One hand over the child’s mouth. The other pulling a smoking beam aside. Not with strength, but with timing.

For a moment, Julin forgot what fear was.

She turned her face toward him. Just once.

And in that single glance,
Julin saw a lifetime of war waiting in her eyes.