Kiyan surged forward, grabbing his coat from the back of the sleek ergonomic chair, the fabric a dark blur against the muted tones of the room. He didn’t spare a glance for Lusine, who now sniffled performatively, or Roksana, whose gaze was fixed on him with an unreadable intensity. The urgency in the nurse’s voice had clawed at something deep within him, something he’d kept locked away for years. The memory of Seda, vibrant and full of life, battled with the sterile image of a hospice bed. He had to go. Now.
“Wait,” Roksana called out, her voice a low, steady current in the sudden chaos. Kiyan paused at the adjoining door, his hand on the polished chrome, a phantom tremor still running through him. He turned, his eyes, usually so calculating, now clouded with a raw, almost desperate vulnerability. “Kiyan, what about… the pensions? And Lusine’s confession?”
Lusine’s head snapped up, her feigned distress momentarily forgotten as panic flashed across her features. Kiyan, however, barely registered her. His mind was a whirlwind of the past and the present, a cruel collision of his vengeful quest and the fragile woman now fading away. He looked at Roksana, truly looked at her, and saw the deep concern etched on her face, not for herself, but for others. It was a stark contrast to the self-serving theatrics of the woman beside her.
“Later,” he bit out, the solitary word sharp with dismissal. “All of it. Later.” He couldn’t think about anything else, not when Seda, the woman whose betrayal had shaped his entire adult life, was on the brink. He flung the door open and was gone, the heavy thud echoing in the sudden quiet of the room, leaving Roksana and Lusine to their stunned, diverging thoughts.
The ride to Serenity Hospice was a blur of Yeraz’s gleaming towers and the blurrier memories of a life that felt impossibly distant. He recalled Seda’s infectious laugh, the way her hand felt in his, the scent of the rare white sambac blossoms she favored. Memories returned of those devastating letters, the elegant script that had torn his world apart. He’d never let himself question them, not truly. Not until Roksana’s quiet deductions, and then Anahit’s ominous pronouncements.
The hospice, a deceptively serene structure of brushed concrete and large, somber windows, felt less like a place of comfort and more like a final holding cell. A kind-faced nurse, her hair pulled back in a severe bun, led him down a hushed corridor that smelled faintly of antiseptic and wilting flowers. Room 307. The air grew heavier with each step.
Seda lay on the bed, a wisp of her former self. Her skin, once luminous, was now translucent, stretched taut over sharp angles. Her eyes, though, still held a faint spark, a recognition that made Kiyan’s throat tighten. A lone, delicate white jasmine, its petals already beginning to brown at the edges, lay on her bedside table. The cruel irony was not lost on him. He approached the bed, the familiar scent a bitter taste on his tongue.
“Kiyan,” she rasped, her voice a reedy whisper, barely audible above the rhythmic beep of a nearby monitor. A fragile smile touched her lips, a ghost of the beauty he recalled. “You came.”
He knelt by her bedside, taking her skeletal hand in his. It felt impossibly small, delicate as spun glass. “Of course, Seda. Always.” The words felt hollow, laden with years of buried resentment and a nascent, terrifying guilt.
She struggled, a shallow cough racking her frail frame. The nurse gently raised her head, offering a sip of water. Seda waved it away, her gaze fixed on Kiyan. “I… I have something for you.” Her eyes flickered to a small, ornate wooden box on the nightstand. It was intricately carved with blooming star-petals, a memento from a trip they had taken years ago to the southern coast.
Kiyan retrieved the box, its familiar heft startling against his fingers. He had bought it for her as a token of affection, filled with tiny, fragrant soaps. He wondered what it held now. He tried to open it, but the clasp was locked. Seda, with surprising strength, pressed a small, silver key into his palm. “Only for you,” she breathed, a faint smile playing on her lips.
“Seda, what is this?” he asked, his voice thick with a mixture of fear and anticipation. He looked at her, truly seeing the exhaustion, the pain, the fathomless sorrow in her eyes. It wasn't the look of a malicious manipulator. It was the look of a victim.
She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering what little strength she had left. When she opened them again, they held a desperate plea. “Lusine… she was always so angry. So jealous. She twisted everything. I told her… I told her I was afraid. Afraid of not being enough. Of you… seeing me for what I was. A shadow. Not a light. Not like… not like Roksana.” Her voice hitched, a tear tracing a path down her temple. “I confided in her, Kiyan. My fears. My heart. She took my words. She… she wrote them. The letters. Not me. Not truly. She said it was the only way to make you stay. To make you fight for me. But then… then she just kept writing. Making it worse. Making me sound… cruel. I tried to stop her. But she threatened…” Seda shuddered again, her chest barely rising. “She threatened to expose… my illness. My dependency. My family’s shame. She knew… she knew I couldn’t bear it.”
Kiyan felt a cold dread spread through his veins, turning his blood to ice. Lusine. Lusine. The name echoed in his mind, stripping away years of carefully constructed certainty. The arrogant self-assurance that had been his shield shattered into a million pieces. The woman he had vowed to ruin was innocent. The woman he had trusted implicitly, his inner circle, had been the viper all along. Seda’s words were a brutal, unforgiving hammerblow, each syllable tearing down the edifice of his revenge. He looked at the small box in his hand, the key still clutched in his fist. He had spent years seeking vengeance for a crime committed by a ghost, against the wrong woman. The enormity of his error, the grievous injustice he had inflicted upon Roksana, crashed over him with tidal force.
He plunged the key into the lock, his hands fumbling, his mind reeling. The click of the mechanism was startlingly loud in the quiet room. He lifted the lid, revealing not dried flowers or forgotten trinkets, but a folded sheet of parchment, thin and aged, bearing Seda’s elegant script. His own name, ‘My Dearest Kiyan,’ was penned at the top.
He unfolded the letter, his eyes blurring, his heart pounding a frantic, desperate rhythm against his ribs. He read, his breath catching in his throat with each word, each line. It was a gentle farewell, a tender confession of enduring love, but also a profound understanding that they were not meant to be. She spoke of their differing paths, his ambition, her quiet dreams. She wished him happiness, a true, lasting joy. And then, at the very end, in script as graceful as the petals on the table, a solitary, devastating sentence made his world tilt on its axis, rendering everything he had done, everything he had believed, a monstrous, unforgivable lie.
*“Find someone of substance, my Kiyan. Someone whose spirit challenges yours, whose artistry ignites your world. Someone… like Roksana Gevorkian.”*
Kiyan stared at the words, the elegant loops and flourishes mocking his blindness, his cruelty. His hand trembled so violently the parchment rustled, a whisper of truth in the suffocating silence. His breath caught, a raw, painful gasp tearing from his chest. He had destroyed her. He had loved her. And he had destroyed her, all for a lie. The sheer force of his catastrophic error descended, suffocating him, burning him from the inside out. He had fallen for the woman he had tried to obliterate, and now, the truth, laid bare in the dying hand of his former love, revealed the true extent of his monstrous folly. He had become the villain of his own twisted tale, an executioner of innocence, driven by a manufactured hatred. The woman he loved… he had reduced her life to ashes. And he had no idea how to ever atone. He looked at Seda, her eyes now closed, a peaceful serenity finally gracing her features. He looked at the letter again, his gaze fixed on Roksana’s name, scrawled by Seda’s hand, a dying wish, a final, poisoned truth. The scent of wilting jasmine filled his lungs, choking him with the bitter perfume of regret.