The wind howled through the broken frame of the barn window. Kabri stood in front of the cracked mirror mounted on an old support beam, a relic from when the barn might’ve doubled as a resting place for travelers or shepherds. Dust clung to it like dead memories, and spiderwebs threaded its corners.He hadn't looked at himself in days.Weeks, maybe.But something pulled him to it now—an impulse, raw and unspoken, as if the answer to everything he feared was hidden in his own reflection.His hands trembled as he wiped a clean path through the grime with the cuff of his sleeve. The glass protested with a screech. When the dirt cleared, the man staring back at him wasn’t the Kabri he remembered.He leaned in.Dark eyes, sunken and hollow.Hair curled at the edges like flames licking at dry paper.Scar beneath the chin—Jamil’s scar.He touched it instinctively, though he knew it wasn’t his.He blinked.But the scar remained.Kabri staggered back.“No…”His breath fogged the mirror, and wh

The wind had changed.From the biting chill of snow-kissed cliffs to the dry, punishing breath of desert heat, it carried a different story now. Kabri stepped off the rusting bus, his boots crunching the cracked sand like old bones. The horizon shimmered like a hallucination, but he wasn’t dreaming.He was home.If this cursed land could still be called that.The border town where it had all begun—where he first bled, where he first obeyed, where he first killed—lay ahead like a ghost refusing to die.Amir had stayed behind. The boy had grown older in silence, wiser through trauma, and Kabri no longer forced him into journeys meant only for the damned. Their last embrace had been wordless. Kabri had simply whispered, “If I don’t return…” and Amir had interrupted:"Then stay gone."He’d meant it with love.So Kabri returned to the desert alone.The sun was a tyrant in the sky, cracking skin and memory alike.Kabri passed the skeletal remains of the militia camp—Fred’s original base of

The sky was a harsh blue when Kabri first saw him again.No guards. No shadows. No taunts whispered through others.Just Jamil. Alone. Walking across the sand with the wind at his back and the sun burning through the remnants of the past.Kabri stood on the edge of the ghost town camp, hands empty, the sand still warm under his boots. He’d been expecting soldiers, snipers, another trick or trap laced with guilt and betrayal. But the man approaching wore no armor. He had no weapon drawn.Only a small canvas bag slung over one shoulder and a face older, harder than before.Jamil looked tired.Kabri couldn’t help but think: So do I.They stopped ten feet apart.Neither moved. Neither spoke.The wind whispered between them like a child afraid of its parents’ fight.Jamil spoke first."I thought you’d be gone."Kabri’s voice came steady. “I never leave things unfinished.”A small smile pulled at Jamil’s lips. “Still pretending you’re the noble one.”“No.” Kabri shook his head. “I buried

Kabri sat on the edge of the ruined well.The wind tugged gently at his coat, brushing dried blood from his sleeves. Sand still carried the scent of gunpowder and sweat. Behind him, the outline of Jamil’s lifeless body had already begun to fade into the dunes.And yet…Jamil wasn’t gone.Not really.Because in Kabri’s hand was a letter—creased, bloodstained, addressed in Jamil’s own handwriting.He had found it folded inside Jamil’s coat pocket.Unopened.Unsent.Untouched.Its weight felt heavier than the pistol ever had.Kabri opened it.The first line stopped him cold.“For when I lose. Because I always knew I would.”His throat clenched.He kept reading.“Kabri,If you're reading this, then I’m gone. Either by your hand, or someone else’s. Either way, you survived. Again.That was always your curse, wasn’t it? You survived things that should’ve destroyed you.Me, I never had that gift. I cracked.And you…You became the man I could never be.”Kabri looked up. The desert swirled so

The cabin door slammed in the wind, hinges screaming like they too had grown tired of violence.Kabri stood inside, rain soaking his shoulders from the storm he hadn’t bothered escaping. The room was dimly lit, a single oil lamp flickering on the table, its flame sputtering like a warning. Jamil sat across from him—unchained, unarmed, but still carrying that coiled serpent beneath his calm.For the first time since Lisbon, Kabri hadn’t brought a weapon.But that didn’t make this peaceful.Not even close.Amir was in the center, his hands raised like a referee in a match that had no rules and no victor—only blood waiting to spill again.Kabri’s chest rose and fell with barely restrained fury. He had walked through fire. He had buried his love. He had chosen to spare this man. And yet, Jamil returned, again and again, like the shadow of his worst regrets.And now, here they were.Again.“You think I’ll let you do it again?” Kabri’s voice cracked like thunder.“I didn’t come here to figh