In the highest room of the Pasargadae citadel, where its windows looked out upon the vast plain like open eyes, six-year-old Cassandane could not sleep.
The other noble children, who had been sent to the capital for safety, had been resting in their soft beds for hours.
But sleep would not come to the curious eyes of this little girl.
She was standing on a wooden stool.
She had placed her small hands on the cold stone ledge of the window and, with a precision beyond her years, was staring into the absolute darkness of the plain.
The silence of the night was heavy and full of secrets.
But for Cassandane, this silence was alive and held a hidden movement within it.
With her keen eyes, she saw shadows moving in the faint light of the moon.
Hundreds of shadows that crept across the ground in silence, like soundless phantoms.
They did not look like soldiers on parade, but like workers engaged in some mysterious task.
She saw how the earth was being dug up in specific places, and dark lines were being drawn on the face of the plain.
This was a strange and secret game being played in the heart of the night.
Her childish curiosity had reached its peak.
From the stories she had heard among the handmaidens, she knew that the Persian army was retreating.
And that a massive army was in pursuit of them.
So what were these shadows doing on the plain?
She could not bear it any longer.
With her small feet, she jumped down from the stool and silently exited the room.
She ran through the deserted, stone-paved corridors of the citadel, where only the sound of her own footsteps echoed in the silence.
She reached the main hall.
Where her father, Pharnaspes, along with a few other elders, stood with worried faces beside a large brazier.
They were looking at a map spread on the table.
Cassandane quietly approached her father and tugged at the corner of his long robe.
"Father?"
Pharnaspes, upon seeing his daughter, came out of his troubled thoughts.
With a kind smile, he took her in his arms.
"Cassandane? My little girl, why aren't you asleep?"
He lifted his daughter and sat her on one of the large chairs.
Cassandane, with the same childish curiosity that surged in her large eyes, asked:
"Father, what are those men doing on the plain?"
"They are digging the earth in the dark. Are they planting something?"
The other elders, upon hearing this question, looked at each other with a tired smile.
But Pharnaspes knew that his daughter's curiosity was not superficial. He had realized the high intelligence and understanding of this six-year-old child.
He could not reveal the details of Kourosh's deadly plan to her, but he did not want to dismiss her with a simple answer either.
He wanted to engrave this moment in his daughter's mind.
He took Cassandane in his arms and walked towards the same window from which the little girl had been looking out.
He pointed to the dark plain and the moving shadows.
"No, my daughter. They are not planting anything."
"They are preparing the painting canvas."
Cassandane asked in surprise, "A painting? At night?"
Pharnaspes, with a mysterious smile, caressed his daughter's soft hair.
"Yes. Your cousin, Kourosh, is preparing to paint a very large picture."
"He has spent this entire month preparing his colors and his brushes."
"And tonight, his assistants are preparing the canvas for him."
He looked into his daughter's curious eyes.
"Tomorrow morning, when the sun rises, he will begin his painting."
Cassandane asked with excitement, "What painting, Father?"
Pharnaspes held his daughter tighter in his arms.
His voice was calm and full of a strange feeling; a mixture of fear, pride, and excitement.
"You will see the most beautiful and terrifying painting you have ever seen in your entire life."
This answer turned Cassandane into an innocent witness to a great battle.
A battle that was destined to be painted not with colors, but with the annihilation of a kingdom.