Salililar

(From the series: Salyelilar)

At the edge of a forgotten village—so far removed from the maps of men and the whispers of pilgrims—lived a girl named Salyelilar. Her blood was purely rural, raised among wheat fields and goats, until one day she grew tired of the suffocating rhythm of ordinary life. She left her family’s home and built a small mud-and-reed hut near the old river, where twisted trees lined the shore like silent guards of ancient time.

At night, she was not alone.

He would come. Silent. Light-footed. He smelled of wet soil and distant rain. His name was Zetka.

He was not human.

His eyes were black as soot. His voice, if it ever came, was more felt than heard. He came from a realm unseen by mortals. And she... she fell. Not as one trips, but as one dives—willingly, irreversibly.

He came to her often, cloaked in mystery and midnight. And on one such night, something passed between them, not just in passion, but in fate. One dawn, she woke with a weight in her belly—a pulse not her own.

She said nothing. Her soul seemed to know long before her body did.

But the world of jinn has no mercy for traitors. Zetka had broken ancient laws. To marry a human… to give her his child… it was forbidden. He was sentenced to the deep prisons of the Shadow Realms, bound in chains forged of fire and forgetting.

And just like that, he vanished.

Left behind, Salyelilar faced the burden alone. The whispers of her pregnancy spread through the village like wildfire. But she did not speak of Zetka or the truth. Instead, she claimed her child was the result of sin. The villagers, enraged and self-righteous, cast her out. She became a stain on their pride, a story to warn their daughters.

She returned to her lonely hut by the river, belly swelling, nights colder, silence louder.

Then one day, a stranger wandered near the woods—lost, tired, and hungry. He stumbled upon her hut. His name was Dulvar, a merchant from a far-off city. With a beard kissed by sun and eyes full of dust, he was intrigued by the sadness in her gaze. She told him a half-truth: that she was outcast for bearing a child outside marriage.

He pitied her.

And in that pity, he saw something worth keeping. He offered her marriage. Safety. A new name.

She said yes. Quickly. Desperately. She would not lose another man to the truth. Never again.

But truth has its own timing.

When her labor began, she screamed the scream of a soul breaking open. And when the child was born, it was not entirely... human.

The skin was grayish. The fingers were long. The eyes—black and endless. It did not cry. It only watched.

Dulvar recoiled in horror. The warmth in his heart shriveled. This… thing… was no child of man. Salyelilar, torn between shame and survival, feared losing the only shelter left to her.

So they spoke. In broken, breathless sentences. In silence.

The decision came like a ghost.

They would abandon the child.

Together, they carried him deep into the woods, where roots twisted like serpents and the wind never spoke. They placed him near an ancient tree, half-buried in leaves. The child did not resist. It only stared. Then they left.

But the forest remembers.

Years passed.

Salyelilar bore another child—fully human this time. They built a life of quiet illusion. Dulvar provided, and Salyelilar played the role of a content wife.

But in the dungeons of the jinn, Zetka still heard.

He heard his son’s heartbeat. Felt the soil that covered him. Heard the silence his screams had become.

And when the chains broke… when the fire melted away… he returned.

The first place he went was that cursed tree.

The boy’s body was gone.

But the echo remained.

So did the rage.

So did the betrayal.

He saw the villagers’ hand in this. The scorn. The exile. The lies. They had destroyed his family.

He would destroy them in turn.

The revenge was not loud. It was not thunder or firestorms.

It was disappearance.

Then sickness.

Then crops that rotted in the field. Animals that died mid-birth. Wells that dried in days. And one night—the village judge vanished. Another night—the home of Salyelilar’s uncle went up in flames.

Those who had mocked her... led the charge against her... they were first.

The villagers didn’t know who or what was attacking them. But they felt it in their bones: the earth was angry. The forest had risen.

When the smoke settled and the air grew still, Zetka emerged from the shadows.

Not toward the village.

But away from it.

He had only one purpose now.

To find his wife.

To find his child—if he still lived.

[End of Chapter One]