Chapter 223

The name was a compass, and it always pointed toward her. The woman he loved, deeply and stubbornly, even when loving her felt like pressing on an open wound.

For her he had betrayed his promise he made with his dying Nur, the vow whispered in the dim light of a hospital room when she was too weak to speak back, that he would always love her, that no one else would ever take her place in his heart. The vow had been sacred, and he had shattered it with his own hands. He had carried that promise like a stone in his chest for years, letting it anchor him through the emptiness that followed her disappearance. Only for nature to play its game and Roshanay turned out to be Nur, the same girl who had once laughed under mango trees and trusted him with her smallest secrets. It was unbelievable for him that he could only scoff at the thought, a bitter, disbelieving sound that escaped his lips whenever the truth settled over him again.

He knew nature worked in mysterious ways, wea