Velghan remained frozen in a half-kneeling position, his breathing still uneven. His eyes followed Arash's back as he walked away, the assassin's long shadow stretching beneath the corridor's dim light.
But the look in Velghan's eyes had changed. There was no admiration left from the past—only a seething, uncontrollable hatred. His left hand slipped into a hidden pocket beneath his bloodstained coat.
He pulled out a small glass vial, old and oddly shaped—like a petrified drop of water, filled with a swirling liquid of shifting colors, as if it were alive.
The vial came from a mysterious source: the palace's physician. A frail old woman in faded purple robes, who had appeared out of nowhere with no known background, yet somehow earned Malik's full trust.
No one knew where she came from, or what her true intentions were. But one thing was certain—she was the one who planted ambition in Malik's heart… and supplied potions no known medicine could explain.
