The sky over ancient Thebes glowed fiery orange, dust swirling under horse hooves. The city, all quiet and grand with its marble and sandstone domes, felt like a blend of Roman strength and Eastern mystery. Like many days, I walked through its archways, my brown robe hiding more than just my face.
Inside the huge, gold-laced judgment hall, guarded by stone lions, they were all there.
My mother, my brother, and the silent judges of our past, whose presence was more about pride than comfort. Their smiles were empty, carved by their own importance.
My mother didn’t reach for me. My brother stood close, but not close enough to truly connect. By then, I’d learned to hold my peace, to be the river that flows around obstacles, not the storm that shatters them. But peace, I learned, always comes with a price.
Then, everything changed. The light faded, and suddenly, I wasn’t in the city anymore. The air turned thick, like sweet honey, smelling of roses and old rust. I was pulled into a sacred, ancient place, touched by something cursed.
He emerged from the shadows like a broken whisper. His eyes burned, not red, but empty, a screaming void. His body, wrapped in red and black parchment, was layered like those ancient Eastern burial cloths. Small, blood-stained gems, sapphire, obsidian, jade, clung to the folds, each one shimmering with pain.
He wasn’t truly dead, but he wasn’t alive either.
He spoke like someone who once knew love but had forgotten what it felt like.
“Is this right?” he asked, trembling, almost mocking. He knew I couldn’t run. And a part of me, curious and a little destructive, reached for his hand. I convinced myself I could change him, that my love was a weapon sharper than his darkness. But you can’t tame the devil by dancing with him.
He was eventually bound, but not by me. By fate, by brutal force, by old rituals. Wrapped in a blood-soaked mesh, he was dragged to the city gates, his hand still twitching like the final, cursed words of a book. They said the curse would break when night ended, when the pain found its resting place.
And then, dawn arrived. And with it, the man whom I cherished.
He wasn’t a king, not when he rode in. Just a man in dusty clothes, with long, wild hair and eyes that had seen storms. But the moment I saw him, something on Earth shifted. The roses bloomed unnaturally large, pink and white, wide as shields. He stepped down from his chariot as if walking into battle, or walking home.
He didn’t ask questions. He saw the blood on my hands, the fear in my breath, and lifted me as if I were made of something sacred. He kissed me as if the night never happened, as if the devil had no name, as if I could be whole again.
And when it was time, he buried the entity, the demon, the curse, the lover, in the front garden of our palace. He did it with a ceremony, with stones and parchment, and without a hint of fear in his gaze.
I was trembling. He was not.
Years passed. The roses never stopped blooming.
He and I built a life on ruins and promises. He loved me as if I’d never been broken, and most days, I let him.
But some nights, just before sleep, I walk barefoot to the edge of that garden. And I still see it.
The hand still moves.
A whisper of darkness never truly dies. But I’m not afraid anymore. I am loved. I am known. I am watched over. And if he returns, the devil, the question, the unfinished thread, I will meet him again. Not as the girl who tried to save him, but as the woman who has already survived.
Time, as it always does, moved on like a tide, washing away old echoes and drawing us deeper into peace. My love, now comfortable with laughter, built us a home among the ancient stones. We carved fountains from old altars, danced under skies that once brought fear, and raised a daughter who never had to learn silence before she learned to speak.
One evening, as twilight painted the sky golden, my daughter ran barefoot into the garden, chasing the last light. She stopped suddenly, small and wide-eyed, pointing to the earth. “Mama,” she whispered, “the stones are warm.”
A chill went through me. I went to her, brushed back her curls, and placed my palm where she pointed. Warm, yes, but no longer restless. The curse had settled. The hand, it seemed, had finally stilled.
Maybe love had seeped deep enough into the roots. Maybe fear had nothing left to feed on. Maybe it was never about defeating darkness, but learning to grow beyond its reach.
I kissed my daughter’s forehead and led her back inside. Behind us, the roses stood taller than ever.
And beneath them, silence.
Written from the echoes of a dream, where ancient stones remember, and every buried fear grows flowers if loved right.
–yarhi
