In the heart of Zalthira, where souls silence their whispers if the shadow of the King passes, and where the high ceilings bow when the one seated on the throne speaks—
There, on a chair of brass and blood, sat Azrai _Zalfar. No one challenged his dominion, and no sound addressed him in his silence.
The commander before him prostrated himself, his forehead clinging to the cold marble floor in shame and despair, awaiting Azrai's word. But no word came; Azrai was silent.
His eyes, like two unquenched embers, no longer saw the present, the place, or the face of the man before him. Instead, they plunged involuntarily into a deep abyss of memory...
Toward a name that could not be erased from his chest, even if the tongue abandoned it: Zahreen...
The son and the calamity
The hope that turned into a blade embedded in the flank of crowns.
He wanted him to be the best of his lineage, yet he became the exception to the rule.
He wanted him a sword, yet he became a fire that refused the sheath.
He wanted him a wall, yet he became a breach that would tear down the kingdom.
The boy who once carried a wooden sword and stumbled over it rebelled.
The child who was told: "You will become a knight" rebelled.
And he became an untamed monster, and a boundless sorcerer.
Azrai had established his rule on the principle that clemency for the forbidden was an unforgivable weakness. This is what he proclaimed before the people and what he secretly trained the pillars of his palace to circulate. Yet, his heart did not hold a solid conviction as much as it held fear for his son.
Could his strongest son... be his youngest?
Could the laughter of yesterday in the hall be the prelude to silence and heaviness in his heart?
Azrai breathed.
Then he leaned his forehead into his palm and closed his eyes... Years ago...
The throne was the same, but the air was softer.
The small one ran through the hall, dragging a cloak longer than his body and a wooden sword shaking like a reed in his hands.
He shouted defiantly: "I am the strongest fighter in the kingdom!"
He raised his wooden sword, intending to imitate his father when he watched him train with his minister, but as soon as he raised the wooden sword, he tumbled to the ground, looking up at his father, on the verge of tears. The King stifled his smile, then burst out laughing tenderly, his laughter filling the throne room along with his minister and the attending knights, filling the atmosphere with warmth and love between father and son.
Azrai approached, lifting him as one lifts a treasure from the ground, and said:
"The strength of a knight, Zahreen, is not measured by the strength of his sword, but by his steadfastness when the ground slips from under his feet. And you... my little one, you will become one of the fiercest knights in the kingdom."
Little did the King know that the laughter in the hall that day would be replaced by bitter silence in the days to come.
He opened his eyes, and the air in the place was gone.
That child died...
He suffocated in the cloak of childhood, and emerged from it a monster, made of flame and ember.
Nothing remained of him but the name...
A name written on the banners of the chase, whose stories are told in the gatherings of soldiers, feared and dreaded.
He motioned with his hand for the commander to leave.
And he said to himself, in a voice heard only by his soul: "No time for tears... War is standing behind the door."
And Azrai remained on his throne,
And in his chest... an unquenchable ember, fueled by memory and inflamed by solitude.
If given the choice, he would throw the crown into the bottom of the river, break his scepter, and walk barefoot to his son, saying to him:
"My son... I did not fear the people, nor their curses. I did not look at you with the eye of judgment or the pride of a Sultan. Rather, with the eye of a man who feared the world for you. And I did not wish sovereignty for you, but peace."
His eyes welled up with tears, and he stretched out his palms; they were rough from carrying swords and fighting wars...
He said: "How trivial is the word that was unsaid, and how immense is a small action that overturned a destiny. I wish I had been a shadow for you, not a whip. I wish I had raised you up, not knocked you down. But regret after the sword's strike... does not fix what is severed."
Then he looked at the horizon and said: "We have reached the crossroad of blood. If your salvation is in my downfall... then kill me. For a King dies standing, but a Father... dies when he loses his son."