***
{Outside The Projection}
The moment Malik’s final words rang out—
AWAKEN FROM THIS DARKNESS!
—The projection froze.
The hall trembled.
His voice had BOOMED like a sword splitting the heavens.
Not through the projection, not through mere echoes of sound, but as if it had been spoken directly into their very souls.
It was not a request, not a proclamation—it was a command, absolute and undeniable.
The darkness around their Sultan did not move. It did not yield. But the feeling—the sheer force of presence—it rattled even the most hardened Magi among them, those who had long since dulled their emotions with years of bloodshed.
A long silence followed. A breath held by many, waiting to be released.
Then, as if a dam had burst—
“…Did you fucking hear that shit?!”
Someone blurted out, their voice shaky.
“Hear it?”
Another scoffed.
“I damn near touched it!”
Most leaned forward, gripping their robes, their gazes fixed on his lingering afterimage.
“I-It was like he was speaking to us.”
“He can’t be.”
A nobleman in silk dismissed, though his fingers twitched repeatedly.
“It’s a memory. He’s trapped in it—he shouldn’t even be aware we’re watching.”
“Then why does it feel like he is?”
A woman, an elder of a southern faction, murmured.
“Why does it feel as though his voice is reaching here?”
“No—”
A younger Magi, barely past Jinn Al-Naqi, shook his head.
“Not like. H-He IS speaking to us.”
Murmurs rose. A few nodded. Others frowned, deep in thought.
They simply couldn’t understand what it was they had just heard.
Not the words themselves, those were simple enough, but their method of delivery.
It was something otherworldly… something none of them had ever experienced.
And yet, it wasn’t long before another topic of conversation had sprung up:
“I’ve heard of many a Magi transformations.”
An old man with a beard like silver threads shook his head.
“It is always different. The mindscape bends to one’s essence… but this—”
He gestured toward the frozen projection.
“This felt like he was demanding something not just of himself, but of us.”
“A Sultan’s Resonance.”
The scarred woman added, her amber eyes glinting.
“Like an echo that never truly fades.”
From the side, a quiet voice rang out:
“He remembered too fast.”
Heads turned, eyes landing on the words’ origin.
It was an old scholar, wrapped in a thick shawl.
“Every Magi struggles to recall their life when becoming a Jinn. They grasp at fragments. It takes time, effort.”
He gestured toward Malik’s frozen form.
“But he? He recalls as if he had done this a thousand times.”
A hush settled. Then—
“Could it be his…”
The words trailed off.
No one wanted to say it.
At least not for a few moments.
“His deaths.”
The thought crept over them like a cold wind.
Return By Death.
Malik had died. Again. And again. And again.
Had he done so here as well? That couldn’t be, right?
Had it really been more than one attempt? It sure didn’t seem like it.
Or perhaps this was just a normal consequence of his blinks.
A cycle of endless demise, of lives cut short, of memories piling upon memories until the weight of them compressed into something unnatural.
“It makes sense.”
Silver nodded his head.
“To him, this is not the first time he has walked the path of a Jinn. His soul remembers even if his mind does not. The echoes of his past attempts linger—stronger than any Holy Relic, stronger than any Scripture. He is not learning to become a Jinn. He is merely… recalling as he always did.”
A chill ran through the hall.
“Then what about the bird?”
Someone asked quickly, eager to shift the conversation.
“Ah, yes.”
A man with ink-stained fingers steepled his hands.
“The Bird of Change.”
He tilted his head.
“That is what he saw.”
“…I’ve seen a different thing.”
Another Magi murmured.
“A snake devouring its own tail. A Shams collapsing upon itself only to be reborn.”
“For me…”
The ink-stained man pointed to his second heart.
“It was a garden. Overgrown, tangled, dying in some places, thriving in others. And at the center—a single gate. Always locked. Always waiting to be opened.”
“The Last Ember…”
Another interrupted, nodding.
“I saw a dying flame. I feared it would never reignite.”
“I saw a Hollow Crown.”
A third added.
“A weightless thing, incomplete, its authority forsaken.”
A man beside the third nodded, his tone grave.
“For me, it was a river of fire, ever-burning, never ceasing. It whispered of constant struggle. That was my truth.”
The fifth spoke, his voice heavy with memory:
“I saw a mountain. A peak so high it touched the heavens, but no matter how much I climbed, I could never reach the top. Until I realized… I was never meant to climb it. I was meant to become it.”
A sixth shuddered.
“Mine was a mirror.”
They all turned.
He swallowed, his hands tightening into fists.
“At first, it reflected only my failures. Then my past. Then my future. But in the end, it showed me nothing. Because I had yet to define what I was.”
The woman with amber eyes nodded.
“It is never the same for any two Magi. Each mindscape takes the shape of the soul’s greatest struggle. Malik saw a bird. A creature in transition. Not quite one thing, not yet another.”
They all understood.
Malik had seen the bird due to the great transformation he underwent with his curse.
He was not just becoming a Jinn. He was breaking free from something even greater.
“It fits…”
Someone else murmured.
“The footsteps too.”
“Yes…”
The ink-stained man tapped his fingers against his elbow.
“At first, they were his own. A perfect reflection of where he had been. But as he moved forward… they twisted. Crumbled. Until they disappeared entirely.”
A Magi, eyes still alight with awe, whispered:
“Because he was walking where he had never walked before. He was stepping beyond himself.”
“Not just that…”
The scholar countered.
“He was stepping away from what he was.”
A long pause.
“…And the key?”
The younger one asked hesitantly.
“Most would think a key opens something.”
The woman with amber eyes mused.
“A door, a gate, a prison. But his—”
“—disappeared the moment he touched it right.”
The silver-bearded man finished.
“Because it was never meant to open anything. It was meant to open him.”
Another silence.
Then, a voice—gruff, skeptical:
“This is all well and good… and interesting, but, still, I can’t get over it… why do I feel like he is the one watching us, not the other way around?”
A few chuckles. Nervous. Uneasy.
“Because…”
The scholar murmured, staring at Malik’s frozen image.
“Perhaps he is.”
And just as those words settled—
Crack!
The projection shifted.
It had resumed.