When a city slips from its own grasp, neither earth nor sky remains loyal to a single cause.
Saba had never known a day like this.
From the first light of morning, the city appeared as a body torn apart in a single instant not by a blade, but by the collapse of the pact that once held its limbs together. Banners that had crowned the walls for years fell without farewell, while others were raised in their place by force alone, bearing neither legitimacy nor history, only the scent of fresh fire.
Palace gates were broken open, not by decree nor permission.
Temple courtyards once shaped by silence and reverence filled with screams and blood.
In the narrow alleys, people ran without asking who rules? but rather who kills first?
Ronen proclaimed himself ruler,
not by herald's cry,
nor by royal seal,
but by flame.
His soldiers stormed the quarters still loyal to the imprisoned king, as though tearing the city's memory from its houses one by one. Killing was not the sole purpose; what mattered was that power be seen slaughtered before watching eyes.
As for the jinn whose chains had been broken, they split as the wind splits at the mouth of a valley:
Some followed Ronen, drawn by a freedom long denied and a power they had not tasted in generations.
Others refused and attacked any banner raised before them, not in defense of a king nor loyalty to a throne, but because a broken chain does not always bind its breaker.
Clashes erupted between humans and jinn,
then among the jinn themselves,
then among humans who no longer distinguished enemy from ally.
Markets the arteries of the city were looted.
Homes were burned whose owners' only crime was standing in the wrong place.
Ancient names were cursed aloud for the first time names once whispered in reverence, now spat upon.
And at the heart of this madness,
amid smoke, screams, and steel,
one name echoed through every corner, as though the city itself were crying it out:
Aram's son.
They said the execution would take place at the Altar of Saba.
They said blood would be spilled to seal the door of heirs forever.
They said this day would not end until the final thread binding past to future was severed.
Below…
far from the sun,
far from the screams,
in the cold stone chasm,
the scene was different yet no less cruel.
Silence reigned after the shock of truth.
A silence heavier than screams.
Water stood motionless around their legs, cold and dense, like a creature waiting for a signal to rise again. Drops fell from above at measured intervals not to drown them, but to remind them that time did not work in their favor.
The men sat close together, backs against the walls, eyes moving between shadows and dark veins in the stone, as though searching for a crack in the rock or an idea in the dark.
Then suddenly…
Solan broke the silence.
He rose slowly no wasted movement, no words. He approached one side of the chasm, lifted his head slightly, and released a strange sound.
It was not a shout.
Nor a human call.
It was sharp, broken tones,
then another longer,
then a low note like the whisper of stone that knows a secret.
Heads turned toward him.
Najjar spoke roughly, tension naked in his voice:
"What are you doing?"
Solan did not answer.
He crossed to the opposite side of the chasm
and repeated the sound
but with a different tone,
a different rhythm,
as though a message could not be spoken twice the same way.
Unease crept into the faces.
Even Aram, never known for distraction, watched him in silence, eyes narrowing with fierce concentration like a man struggling to recall a language once heard in a dream.
Then…
Something no one expected happened.
From above,
from the unseen depths of the sky,
a sound came.
The sound of wings tearing through air
strong, unmistakable.
Then a sharp, familiar cry.
The chasm trembled.
Solan raised his arm suddenly, palm open, steady with a strange certainty as though he knew the hand would not remain empty.
From the filtered light,
Bariq descended.
The falcon.
Eyes gleaming,
feathers dust-streaked,
yet his stance unshaken
as if the distance between sky and chasm were nothing more than a step.
He settled on Solan's arm,
as though they had never been apart.
A solemn silence fell.
Not the silence of the chasm
but one filled with possibility.
Solan began to speak…
not in the language of men,
nor in the tongue of jinn.
Clicks of sound,
short whispers,
a rhythm only the two of them understood.
Bariq tilted his head,
released a single cry,
then spread his wings.
He launched upward,
rose beyond the chasm,
and vanished into the sky.
They stood staring above them,
as though their chests had suddenly widened,
as though the air had grown lighter.
One of them whispered, barely audible:
"What was that?"
Solan drew a deep breath
and sat down.
Then he said, with a calm they had never heard from him before:
"Do not worry…
we will find a way."
Aram looked at him.
And in his eyes
there was no fear.
There was a faint, rare smile,
the smile of a leader who understood the game was not yet over.
He thought to himself:
Solan does not send Bariq without reason…
and the sky is still with us.
Above them,
Saba burned.
Below,
hope began to take wing.