Shadows of the Temple

The Messenger Without a Crown

Tahmineh hadn’t planned to return to Persepolis. Once a warrior in the king’s elite Qizilbash regiment, she'd abandoned her post the day he signed her brother's death warrant. Guilty of harboring scholars deemed dangerous by the court, her only brother had been dragged to the public square, where justice was carried out at the swing of an executioner's axe.

But the moment Tahmineh intercepted the king’s final edict—a rolled parchment, hidden inside a hollowed-out reed, carried by a dying messenger—she found herself bound again to the city's fate. The edict revealed treachery not just within their palace but across the borders: a vast conspiracy involving trade routes, rogue generals, and an empire to the west stirring violently against the empire’s collapse. Her people’s survival now lay in the delicate balance she might tip, with but one blade and her fragile body placed squarely against the flood.

Clasping the scroll tightly to her chest, she made her way to the burnt shell of the central palace where she hoped to uncover the identity of their enemies in full. Somewhere within that ruinous labyrinth lay records of foreign messengers, trade agreements, and movements of strange weapons arriving from the north. Each step toward it tested her mettle. The city she had known for its music, gardens, and bazaars now snarled with jackals—both men and beasts.

The Watcher Beneath the Zoroastrian Flame

Above an altar space once reserved for sacred fires stood her adversary: one of the palace’s usurpers. Jehrom the Vulture, known for his pale, leonine robes encrusted with rubies the color of split veins, stood surveying prisoners held on the cold ground. His coal-black eyes glittered under the half-light of desecrated flames, and his voice echoed with a sinister confidence.

"Show them no mercy. For from their broken cries, we build our future," Jehrom sneered, dragging the tip of his scimitar across the temple stone.

This was the man holding her people by their throats, stronger than chains. If she failed to silence him, Persepolis would become an eternal graveyard, its every breath snuffed out by foreign invaders. Jehrom had to die, and she would be his executioner.

A Dance of Shadows

From her place behind the broken arches, Tahmineh drew the bow, balancing herself on the rubble beneath her soles. Her hand trembled for half a heartbeat—no longer for fear but with the weight of certainty. She loosed her arrow, and it flew like destiny itself, striking Jehrom square in the shoulder.

The room froze in shock. Jehrom crashed to his knees, shrieking, "Find her!" as guards scrambled into the shadows. But Tahmineh was swift. Slipping through the stone corridors with practiced grace, she made her way toward him. Her breath came in shallow bursts, her pulse thrumming faster with each step.

She abandoned stealth at the final stretch. Leaping from a jagged balcony, she landed in a whirl of silk and dust behind Jehrom. Whipping her dagger across her palm, she disarmed a charging guard as if completing a dance she had rehearsed in sleepless dreams. Her movements were fluid yet brutal, each limb moving with precision. The moment she saw Jehrom reach for his weapon, she dove straight toward him, blade aimed low.

Her dagger pierced his chest, sliding through the fabric and muscle as easily as if it were air. Jehrom looked into her eyes with fleeting disbelief before collapsing over the smoldering altar, its sacred flames flickering back to life with unnatural violence as his ruby-studded robes dripped blood.

The New Flame

Tahmineh stood solemnly over his body. Those around her now neither attacked nor fled. Among them, she saw the eyes of the prisoners—men and women beaten for their defiance—lighting up with cautious hope.

“This kingdom belongs to its people,” she shouted, raising the bloodied dagger high above Jehrom's corpse. “No longer will it bleed for the greed of monsters!”

The hush broke into murmurs, then cheers. But Tahmineh felt no pride, only the weight of survival resting atop her aching shoulders. As the cries rose, and torches began lighting the path of rebellion, she slipped away again—into the night, into the shadows, onto the next fight she would call her own.

Tomorrow’s dawn would bring another quest, another betrayal, perhaps even her own end. But for this single moment, Tahmineh was certain of one truth: she had lit a flame no oppressor could extinguish.

Genre: Historical Fiction (Set in Ancient Persia)

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