"Knowledge, my prince, is no different from a dagger. It's all in the hands that wield it."

The entrance to the Howling Maw gaped before them like a wound in the earth, its jagged rocks adorned with crystalline formations that caught the moonlight like ancient jewelry. The wind that keened through the cavern spoke in voices that reminded Sima of her grandmother's stories—tales of demons who lured travelers with whispered promises of gold and glory.

"Of course it resembles a beast's maw," she muttered.

Farid turned to her, "Stay close," he commanded. "If the darkness claims you, I won't waste time searching. I must reach the Mines of Darvish by the new moon."

"How gracious, my prince," Sima replied. She swept into an elaborate courtly bow. "Your concern for your humble guide warms my heart."

His jaw tightened, but he said nothing, drawing his shamshir instead. The curved blade caught the last rays of moonlight before they stepped into the cavern's throat. Ancient Persian script adorned the steel, promises of protection that Sima hoped weren't mere ornament.

The darkness wrapped around them like a burial shroud, thick with the scent of wet stone and decay. Water trickled down walls smooth as polished marble, each drop echoing like a distant bell. The cave breathed around them—expanding, contracting—as though they'd wandered into the belly of some great sleeping beast.

"With all this wind's wailing," Sima whispered, her words almost lost in the cavern's noise, "one would think the wolves would find different hunting grounds." But she knew better. In these mountains, the most dangerous predators were drawn to places of power like moths to flame.

Farid didn't respond, his focus on the narrow path ahead. The ground was uneven, littered with loose rocks that made every step treacherous. 

His gaze fell upon a branch, half-concealed beneath a blanket of snow, its surface brittle with frost. He knelt, brushing away the icy cover with gloved hands, and lifted it, testing its weight. Drawing his swords, he struck them together with deliberate precision, each spark a fleeting star against the vast, cold void. The fire was reluctant at first, but with his persistence, the wood surrendered to the flame. A timid glow grew into a flickering blaze, casting shifting shadows on the snow and carving a fragile line of warmth in the endless dark.

They descended deeper into the earth's embrace, time losing meaning in the unchanging darkness. The narrow passage suddenly opened like a blooming desert rose, revealing what had once been sacred ground.

Before them stood a forgotten temple, its ancient grandeur now a haunting skeleton of past glory. Massive columns rose into darkness, their surfaces carved with serpentine patterns that seemed to writhe in the dim light of their torch. Tattered silk hangings, preserved in the cave's constant climate, stirred without wind, their faded crimson the color of old blood.

Farid's breath caught as his eyes traced the walls. They were covered in script that spiraled in mesmerizing patterns—text he recognized from the forbidden scrolls his tutors had shown him in secret chambers of the palace. The language of the Pari, the ancient race said to have danced between the realms of flesh and spirit before vanishing like morning mist.

"These shouldn't be here," he murmured, fingers hovering over the glyphs that seemed to pulse with their own inner light. "These writings... they were supposed to have been destroyed during the Great Purge."

Their path forward narrowed to a single bridge spanning a chasm so deep their torchlight disappeared into its depths. The structure was elegant despite its age—a masterwork of stone lacework that defied human craftsmanship. Each step across felt like a negotiation with fate.

Farid's torch illuminated strange shadows that danced across the cavern walls as they picked their way forward. The silence between them felt heavier than the mountain above their heads.

"This place..." he began, his voice trailing off like a thread caught on a thorn. 

Sima studied him quietly, noting the way he hesitated, how his words faltered as if he feared revealing too much. There was a guardedness in his eyes, a wariness that spoke of years spent navigating treachery. Smart, she thought. But if she was to learn anything, she would need to unravel him, to ease the tension coiled within him and coax his secrets out like a wary bird from its nest.

"You know," she said at last, her voice barely above a whisper, "When your father brought me to the palace, the first thing they did was burn my village clothes and dress me in seven layers of silk. Seven, like the layers of heaven." She traced the geometric patterns embroidered on her sleeve. "I kept a small piece of my mother's dress hidden beneath my mattress for three years. A piece of Golemut."

Farid's steps faltered almost imperceptibly. The torchlight caught the gold thread in his riding cloak, yet still marking him as less than his elder brothers. "The servants say you learned to read Persian texts in two months."

"And Aramaic in four." Sima stepped carefully over a fallen column, her movements fluid as water despite their treacherous surroundings. "Your father's library became my sanctuary. While other concubines spent their days painting their eyes with kohl and gossiping in the hammam, I lost myself in poetry and philosophy." She paused, her voice softening. "Did you know I once found your writings there? Hidden between pages of Ferdowsi?"

The cave air grew thick with unspoken words. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, keeping time like a daf drum at a distant feast.

"How do you know they were mine?" 

Her lips parted slightly, hesitation flickering in her eyes. "I was made to study the princes' writings after Navid was—" She stopped, as though the weight of her words had grown too heavy to carry. But she didn't need to finish; the silence that followed said more than speech ever could. Farid felt it settle between them, thick and unyielding, so he shifted the thread of conversation with a lightness that wasn't entirely his. 

"Those weren't meant to be found," he said, his tone almost playful, though his gaze lingered on her face. 

"They were beautiful," she replied, her voice soft but steady. "Like reading Rumi before he became Rumi." She pulled her cloak tighter, the fur brushing against the limestone, weathered and ancient, like the palace that caged them both. "Your brothers, they may master the shamshir, but none of them could ever capture the nightingale's song with twelve words, chosen like pearls strung perfectly on silk." 

She looked at him then, her expression unreadable, and for a moment, the air between them felt as fragile as the poetry she described.

They reached a chamber where mineral deposits had formed terraces like the gardens of Babylon. Their footsteps echoed against stone worn smooth by time and water, each sound multiplying until it seemed an entire caravan moved through the darkness with them.

"Is that how you did it?" Farid asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "How you became Sogoli? With words?"

Sima's laugh was soft and bitter as black tea without sugar. "Words were my sword, yes. But intelligence alone doesn't secure a place in your father's heart." She touched the golden bands at her wrists, each one a story of favor earned. "I learned to be whatever was needed – scholar when he craved wisdom, poet when he needed beauty, warrior when he faced enemies at court." Her eyes, lined with subtle surma, met his. "Just as you learn new ways to prove your worth, always searching for the path that will finally make them see you."

They approached the three passages, each one a mouth of absolute darkness. The sound that echoed from the rightmost tunnel might have been water over stones, or perhaps the whispered prayers of long-dead Pari priests still guarding their sacred caves.

"In the harem," Sima continued, her voice carrying the weight of memories, "they call me 'the clever one,' 'the shah's jewel,' but never my name. Just as they call you 'the fifth prince,' as if you were born without one." She paused, studying the cave openings. "We're more than the roles they've assigned us, Farid. More than the identities they've forced upon us."

The way she said his name—not his title, but his name—lingered in the air between them, soft and fragrant, like the trail of incense curling toward the heavens in a temple. In that suspended moment, the shadows around them seemed to cradle all the unspoken truths of court life, the delicate lies and dazzling performances woven into their golden cage. 

From the rightmost tunnel came a darkness so thick it drank their torchlight, velvet-like and impenetrable. Yet the air there stirred with an inexplicable familiarity, as if it carried the memory of summer winds that danced through the palace gardens before the call to dawn prayers. 

Farid stopped and tilted his head, his voice now edged with an authority rarely seen within the confines of the court. "This way. The air feels... different here." He hesitated, then added, "My tutors used to take me exploring in the caves beneath Persepolis—before my father decided I was wasting my time on frivolities and confined me to military training." 

Sima bent to gather her silk robes, the delicate fabric whispering like secrets against the stone. "Ah, yes," she said, her tone measured, "when he discovered your love of the stars. 'The night sky is no place for a warrior,' or so your brother Rostam declared." 

Farid turned, surprise flickering in his eyes. "You were there?" 

"I'm always there," she said, her words tinged with quiet bitterness. "Behind the screens. Watching." Her gaze lingered on his face for a moment before she added, almost as if the memory had clawed its way out, "The day they took your charts, you didn't cry. But your hands..." She paused, curling her fingers into tight fists as if to summon the pain of that long-gone moment. "They bled from how hard you held them shut." 

The passage narrowed until their shoulders brushed the walls. The torch flames guttered in a sudden draft, making shadows dance like demon-spawn from her grandmother's tales.

"Tell me," she said, her voice carefully casual, "do you still chart the stars in secret?"

His silence stretched so long she thought he wouldn't answer. Then: "There's a hidden room in the eastern tower. The old astronomer, Babak, he lets me use his instruments sometimes. In exchange for protecting him from my brother's mockery."

They emerged into a vast chamber where underground springs had carved pools into the limestone. The water was dark as night but perfectly still, reflecting their torch flames like fallen stars.

"Your brother Rostam," Sima said, testing the ground before each step, "he fears you, you know."

Farid's laugh was sharp as broken pottery. "Rostam fears nothing. He's father's favorite, the golden prince—"

"Who spends his nights with a goblet of wine in one hand and reports about his younger brother's rising favor among the palace guards in the other." Her voice lingered, soft but sharp, as she paused at the edge of a still pool. She glanced down, her gaze tracing the wavering reflections that shimmered like fragile ghosts. "Tell me, Farid—why do you think he's so eager to see you sent to the borderlands?" 

The cavern seemed to exhale around them, its air dense with things neither dared to say aloud. Somewhere in the shadows, water dripped steadily, each delicate splash cutting through the silence, marking time in a world that felt suspended. 

Of course, he understood that Rostam's actions had been driven by a desire to shield him from the treacheries of the court, not because he was a scheming opportunist like Hormoz or Navid.

"The men respect skill," Farid said carefully, "not birth order."

"And they whisper that the fifth son trains with them before dawn, learns their names, their stories..." Sima's voice dropped lower. "While the heir sleeps off his excesses behind gilded doors."

A sound rippled through the chamber—stone scraping against stone, or perhaps the faint echo of footsteps. They both stilled, their breaths quiet, their ears attuned to the unseen. The darkness around them seemed to shift, alive with possibilities, heavy with things unsaid. 

"We should move," Farid murmured, though he made no move to step away. His gaze lingered on her, searching. "You're dangerous, aren't you? With all you see, all you know." 

Sima's smile emerged slowly, luminous even in the dim light, like a blade catching the first glint of dawn. "Knowledge, my prince," she said, her voice soft but cutting, "is no different from a dagger. It's all in the hands that wield it." She adjusted her headscarf with a deliberate grace, the gesture carrying both quiet humility and the unshakable poise of a queen. 

"Now," she continued, tilting her head toward the shadows ahead, "shall we go on? The mines of Darvish won't wait forever. And listen—do you hear it? Water." Her eyes glimmered as she stepped forward. "Where there's water, there's often a way."

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