When my skin is not my own and the heart is tainted, there is still one thing that will always belong to me. My soul! No more shall it weep in the darkest of nights but it shall become a beacon of light for all those who cannot see. I am a warrior...
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Malaa's voice carried through the air like a distant thunderclap, reverberating softly but lingering long after she spoke. It was deep yet weightless, a haunting resonance that seemed to hang in the air between each syllable. Her accent had a melodic cadence, like the steady ebb of gentle tides amid the chaos of a storm, foreign and hypnotic. It was a sound unlike anything Lalzari had ever encountered, making it impossible to discern where this enigmatic woman came from.
Even in silence, Malaa's presence was undeniable, her very stillness spoke volumes. She stood tall, wrapped in a flowing black-and-gold kimono dress, the fabric billowing like shadowy smoke around her. A black veil covered her hair and most of her face, leaving only her intense gaze to cut through the distance between them. Every inch of her, down to her hands concealed by black gloves, seemed carefully hidden, as though she carried secrets too dangerous for the world to see.
“You look like someone who’s run out of tears,” Malaa purred, her words curling through the cold air like smoke. Her voice was strange, each sentence delivered with the rhythm of a song, a tune stitched together from stories and scars only she could sing.
“Hah... I think I’ve cried enough for one night. And it’s all because of the king,” Lalzari muttered, her voice heavy with exhaustion. She slumped against the tree, letting her head thud against the rough bark as if seeking some kind of anchor.
With a fluid grace, Malaa sank to the ground, moving so smoothly that for a moment she appeared to hover above the snow-dusted earth. Her movements were so seamless it was as if the ground itself bowed to her presence, refusing to resist her.
“Which king?” Malaa asked, her dark eyes glinting with curiosity.
Lalzari blinked up at her, confused by the question. Malaa gestured vaguely toward the distant horizons, one hand pointing east, the other west, toward the two rival kingdoms that loomed on the edges of the world. A sly grin crept across Malaa’s veiled lips.
“What’s your king’s name?” she asked, a question that felt more like a riddle.
Lalzari stared blankly. She had never considered her king as anything more than a figure, a shadow on a distant throne, something inhuman and nameless. Shrugging, too weary to care, she let the question dissolve in the cold wind.
“Your king is Laham,” Malaa said, matter-of-fact, as she let her flail slip from her shoulder and rest upon the frozen earth. It was the first time Lalzari had seen her let down her guard, her posture finally relaxing as though the weight of the world had been momentarily set aside.
“Then why ask if you already knew?” Lalzari snapped, irritation threading through her voice, though Malaa seemed unbothered by her sharpness. The wind whistled through the trees, and the cold seeped deeper into Lalzari's bones, making the hairs on her arms rise beneath her thin dress. Suddenly, soft white flakes began to fall from the sky, covering the earth in a shimmering blanket of snow.
