When all paths close, only the door that opens itself remains for those whose passage was written.
After entering the cave, Aram and Solan moved deeper inside, away from the opening, to where echoes fade and breath cools, where only a faint tremor from the outer world reaches in like a distant memory losing its shape.
They lay there for a long while without a single word, letting exhaustion claim its authority. The accumulated days, the stretched nights, and the loss not yet buried weighed heavily on them both.
The silence there was different…
a silence that did not threaten, but held the body like a temporary refuge.
When the moon reached its fullness and climbed to the center of the sky, they stepped out of the cave and stood at its mouth.
From above, Saba appeared like a living being its houses clinging to rock, its roads climbing the mountains, its dim lights pulsing in a strange rhythm, like a heart that never sleeps.
Solan spoke in a low voice, as if afraid the stone itself might hear him.
"Why did we come?… And where are we going?"
Aram kept his gaze fixed on the city for a long moment, then answered in a voice that carried neither certainty nor doubt.
"I don't know… but there must be a sign. Saba does not give its secrets to those who ask directly."
They moved with extreme caution through the forbidden quarter.
They avoided the inhabitants.
They avoided questions.
Their words were kept between the two of them, as though speaking to anyone else might awaken unseen eyes.
The city was overwhelming in a way that unsettled the senses:
Buildings rising directly from rock,
paths passable only by rope like ladders,
stairs edged with danger,
and trees growing where life should have found no hold.
They wandered for a long time, watching, memorizing routes, measuring distances.
Then Aram stopped abruptly.
Before them stood a palace unlike anything around it.
High domes.
Towering spires.
Heavy guard presence.
A place outside the pattern of ordinary dwellings like the heart from which Saba pumped its authority.
Aram needed no explanation.
He knew or felt that here lay what he had come for.
Here, or behind these walls, the secret waited.
They began searching for the least dangerous routes, for passages the eyes would not easily notice.
But before they could continue, they sensed unfamiliar movement.
A group of soldiers was approaching.
They changed direction immediately, slipping into a side path.
One of the soldiers noticed the shift and signaled the others.
They did not shout.
They did not run.
They walked calmly yet in the same direction.
Aram and Solan quickened their pace slightly.
The soldiers' steps quickened as well, like a tightening shadow.
Passages twisted between houses.
Alleys narrowed.
Until they reached a sealed corner with no escape.
In a dark recess, Aram felt the circle close.
And before the soldiers could turn toward them
A door opened in the wall beside them.
A door that had not been there a moment earlier.
A hidden hand pulled them inside.
Thick darkness swallowed them.
The door closed swiftly, almost without sound.
They stood in the dark, their breaths uneven.
Not knowing
Had they entered a deeper trap?
Or had Saba chosen to protect them this time?
In the darkness, they began to feel their surroundings.
No clear walls.
No corners.
No features.
Only blackness that swallowed sound and air alike.
Aram slowly drew his sword.
Solan did the same.
Each prepared for any movement, any unfamiliar breath.
Then
The edges of the blades glimmered.
A reflection of faint light.
A candle approaching slowly,
carried by a hand whose owner's face had yet to appear.
Their bodies stiffened.
Then a voice came calm, steady.
"Rest. You are safe now. No harm will come to you here."
Aram asked immediately, his voice taut.
"Who are you?"
The candlebearer stepped closer, his features emerging beneath the trembling light.
He answered without hesitation.
"My name is Ronen… and I am the one you are looking for, Aram."
Aram froze.
"And how do you know my name?"
Ronen replied with heavy calm.
"Because I have been waiting for you for a long time… and because I am the one who will place the Seal of Light upon your son's shoulder."
The words fell like a thunderclap.
His son?
The Seal of Light?
Questions surged violently, while Solan remained silent, alert.
Ronen took a deep breath and said:
"Your wife, Aram, is not who you believe she is. Her origins trace back to Saba. Her grandfather was a king, who took a jinn as his wife and from that bloodline her lineage was born."
He continued, his voice darkening.
"When your son was born… a rare bond was born with him.
A child carrying the blood of humans and jinn.
If marked with the Seal of Light, the jinn would submit to him and the current king's throne would fall."
Aram's features hardened.
Now he understood.
Ronen said with lethal clarity:
"That is why fire was sent to your tribe… and why your son is being hunted."
He stepped closer and added:
"Come with me. Every matter has its time… and we will draw the path step by step."
He led them through a long passage into a vast hall carved within the mountain.
Books.
Maps.
Mirrors reflecting light in every direction.
They sat before a great map.
And Ronen said, his voice steady:
"From here…
we begin everything you came for, Aram."