"Even the most radiant gardens hide a thorn, sharp enough to draw blood from those who dare to claim them."

Before Farid's message could reach Babylon, Hormoz had already arrived and woven his fate into the tapestry of the empire. He entered the royal court like twilight claiming the sky—inevitable and consuming. The air grew thick with the scent of amber and fear, while silver censers traced smoke-paths through shafts of morning light.

The lords and ministers fell silent as Hormoz ascended the dais. Above him, the Lion Throne glinted in the winter sun. Each step echoed like the heartbeat of a dying age.

"Our beloved Shah's flame flickers," Hormoz proclaimed, his voice smooth as honey poured over broken glass. "While my father battles the shadows that seek to claim him, Navid gathers his army. They say he rides with evil spirits at his heels and vengeance in his heart, that the very dunes rise up to march with him." He paused, letting silence sharpen his words. "Tell me, noble lords—what shield will you raise against a sandstorm?"

Whispers sprouted like night-blooming flowers, fear and ambition tangling in their depths. Hormoz stood unmoved, a cypress tree in a garden of trembling reeds. His shadow stretched across the floor like spilled ink, marking those it touched as his own.

"I am the sword forged in empire's fire," he declared, each word falling like a coin into destiny's bowl. "My brothers are but dulled blades, tarnished by mercy. Under my hand, Persia will not merely survive—we will write our names across the sky from the Oxus to the Nile."

The court fractured like a mirror beneath a hammer's blow. Those who clung to old loyalties huddled together, praying to a sun already set. But the others—oh, how they turned toward Hormoz like flowers toward poisoned light.

Rage bloomed in Parisa's chest like desert roses, thorned and fierce. At fifteen, her body felt too small to contain the storm of her fury as she watched Hormoz weave their father's legacy into chains of gold and fear. The court's perfumed air suddenly seemed to strangle her, heavy with incense and betrayal.

Farid. His name whispered through her mind like a prayer sung at dawn. Her fifth brother had always been quicksilver to Hormoz's steel, impossible to grasp or predict. If anyone could shatter the crystal cage Hormoz was building around their empire, it would be him. She slipped from the chamber like a shadow at noon, her silk slippers silent against the mosaic floors that had witnessed a thousand years of royal intrigue.

In her chambers, where nightingales sang in golden cages, Parisa ignored the heavy perfume of jasmine as she wrote. She wrapped the message in a silk handkerchief stained with her blood—her silent vow that Hormoz's reign would not go unchallenged. "Take this to Farid," she commanded the rider, pressing a ring of lapis into his palm. "May Ahura Mazda speed your journey."

But Hormoz had learned to catch shadows before they could stretch into threats. The rider's body was found when the sun first kissed the eastern hills, his blood painting the earth crimson. The message lay crushed in his lifeless fingers like a butterfly with broken wings.

Undaunted, Parisa turned to the sky itself. She released her fastest pigeon, its wings dipped in henna for luck, watching it soar toward the frost covered mountains that guarded their empire's heart. But even the heavens had betrayed her to Hormoz's ambition. His falcon—trained on blood and victory—struck with terrible precision. That night, as stars pierced the velvet dark like silver daggers, Hormoz's men presented him with the fallen bird, its message still bound to its leg with threads of silk.

Her brother's smile unfurled, cold and deliberate. He had turned the palace into a grand shatranj game, with every piece moving to his will. Loyal servants disappeared like morning mist, replaced by Hormoz's chosen few. Each face that passed through the torch-lit corridors now wore his mark, invisible but burning bright as brands.

The royal court had become his stage, and Hormoz its master puppeteer, pulling strings woven from ambition and terror. Each word spoken within these jeweled walls was a note in his carefully composed symphony of power.

Hormoz came to her chambers as twilight painted the sky in shades of pomegranate and gold. His footsteps whispered against marble like secrets spoken in dark corners, each one drawing closer with the inevitability of fate. When he entered, Parisa sat crowned by dying light, her reflection fragmented in the latticed shadows that danced across the floor. Below, the city of Babylon sprawled like a tapestry woven in stone and starlight, unaware that its destiny hung balanced on the edge of a blade.

"Clever Parisa," Hormoz murmured, his voice sweet as poisoned honey. "My sister who plays with birds and messages, thinking herself a queen in this great game." He moved like smoke through the chamber, each step measured and deliberate. "But cleverness without power is like a lamp without oil—it brings only darkness and cold."

She turned to face him, her young face fierce as a lioness guarding her last cub. Defiance blazed in her eyes like sacred fire. "The gods see what you do, brother. They watch as you weave your web of treachery. Farid carries their favor—he will cut through your schemes like sunlight through fog. And Navid? His vengeance will fall like thunder from a clear sky."

Hormoz's laughter rippled through the air, soft as silk hiding steel. "Sweet sister, you speak of gods, but have you not seen? The age of divine right is ending. We make our own destiny now." He leaned closer, close enough that she could smell the cardamom on his breath. "Remember this: even the loveliest rose garden can be salted and burned to ash."

When he departed, his threat lingered like incense in a tomb. Parisa pressed her palms against the cool windowsill, glaring down at the torches blooming below. If Hormoz thought he could snuff out her will as easily as the pigeons, he underestimated her. Her heart beat to an unspoken challenge: the hunted could still draw blood.

Through the maze of palace corridors, power shifted like sand in the desert wind. Alliances formed and shattered like pottery in an earthquake, while whispers of conspiracy wound through the gardens like poisonous vines. Parisa stood in this storm of serpents and scorpions, her youth both shield and weakness. But beneath her silk robes and golden chains, her heart beat with the rhythm of ancient drums, calling for justice, for vengeance, for salvation.

She thought of Farid, somewhere beyond the horizon where the mountains kissed the sky. Could he pierce through Hormoz's veil of deception before the Lion Throne became a funeral pyre? Or would their family's blood join the countless stories written in the palace's stones, tales of ambition and betrayal as old as empire itself?

The night deepened around her like ink spilled across parchment, and Parisa began to plan. If she must fight with a woman's weapons—patience, cunning, and the poison-sweet smile that men so often mistook for submission—then so be it. She would be the thorn that drew blood, the snake in the garden, the quiet death that came on silent feet.

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