A damned diary.
The most recent one.
He realized that at once.
His eyes quickly skimd its contents.
Line after line... he read everything.
Unfortunately, it was all useless.
Pages and pages of garbage.
His eyes skipped over most of it.
And he confird one thing.
Cyrus was a bad, bad man.
{Had dinner with that fat slug from the Western rchant’s Faction. Disgusting. I hate pretending to like him. But he has Gold... For now.
t with Ayyub’s wife again. God, what a woman. Even better than last ti. Ayyub still doesn’t know. He won’t, pathetic fool.
Told Rania to stop crying about her allowance. Spoiled brat. She’ll get what she’s given when I damn well feel like it.
I caught Hamid stealing from the treasury again. Idiot. How does soone get that stupid? If I point at the Twelve Moons this one will look at my finger. Had him flogged. Useless bastard. I’d send him to the North if I didn’t know he’d die in two days.
Hanan is pregnant again. Great. Another mouth. Another useless political pawn.
A few southern tribes rebelled. Again. Why can’t they just roll over and die if they think my rule is so dangerous to Fam Iblis? I’ll send Shimr to handle it. If he does, it saves the headache. If he dies... even better.
That rchant from the Sapphire Road thinks he can swindle ? ? Tried to offer glass painted like gems. Fool. Had him dragged ho by the ears. His daughter though... hmm.
That daughter was a bad call. I’ll sleep with that tall dancer from the festival, get rid of this bad taste.
She was even worse. Awful, half-dead, and no rhythm. Just a waste of coin. That monster I had all those years ago was better... Actually, now that I reminisce a little, the taste of that humanoid wasn’t all that bad. Might’ve even tried a demon back then if they weren’t so ugly.
Shimr’s still breathing. Pity. I keep hoping one of his gambling escapades gets him stabbed in so alley. I’d have paid soone to do it if not for his Jinn.
Rashid ca crying about his son again. ’He’s sick! He’s dying!’ Good. One less heir to fight over scraps when I’m gone. All these children, but almost none of them are useful.
The Vizier wants to reconsider the taxes. I won’t.
Found a new concubine, only sixteen. She’s beautiful and dumb as stone. Perfect...
She was an assassin.
Sent a few Hashashins after that rchant who introduced her. Bastard refused to sell his vineyard, too. Hopefully they make it slow. His wine wasn’t even that good.
My sons are fighting again. Over what? A damn steed. Sotis I wonder if the True Sultan cursed with fools just to amuse ’Himself.’ And, heh, don’t even get started on my daughters. Spoiled, whiny, useless. Good for nothing but bedding old n for alliances... Nothing they do has purpose. I might’ve called it a lost cause if not for Huda...
It’s funny she still wants to be called that, even after all that happened with him.
My bastard brother died... it was a close call; I almost had to help him at the end.
His death caused a lot more instability than expected. It was annoying, so I left. Many of my blood followed , but thankfully, Naeem stayed behind. Unlike Shimr, he’s got a good brain in him, so I trust he’ll take care of the North... Funny how his daughter abandoned him, though.
I lost my snake, unfortunate. He freed them, but a few days in, and they’re already fucking up.
Sotis I think... maybe it would’ve been easier if I’d just burned this whole world down a hundred years ago and started fresh.}
On and on, a swamp of filth, pettiness, lust, greed, and spite.
Rot.
There were a few interesting words here and there, but those were rare.
The man’s soul bled through every line, and his soul was far from pretty.
Malik wasn’t wrong in calling him a plague... at least in a private sense.
It didn’t need to be said that if Cyrus was such a bastard to everyone, he’d never be this loved... he knew how to move the people, how to control them to do as he liked without them even knowing.
He was a bad bastard but a good Sultan.
Malik, even when looking at all this drivel, couldn’t deny it.
Still, the diary was starting to get to him.
Nearly everything in it was sinful.
Perhaps he used it as a confession booth, a crutch of his.
And yes, ’nearly,’ because Malik’s eyes eventually caught a shift in tone.
The handwriting straightened, becoming neat and focused.
Many words here held bigger truths.
Important ones.
But one was more important than all.
It began with his na.
{Malik.}
Finally, it was ntioned.
{The boy’s way more than I ever expected...}
No longer was he just a {He.}
{Way, way, way more. Smart? The bastard’s a genius.
I really underestimated him back at the cave.
I had doubts after his battle in the North. But...
He won the Kingdom of Light. He won too easily.
He’s ready. After that? There’s no doubt in my mind.
He’s ready for the Trial. Ready to beco a Mithqal.
...I don’t have many years left. Not anymore.
I’m going to fetch him soon.
Bring him back.
Prepare him.
Mold him one last ti.
I don’t care that he doesn’t want this.
Only he is up to par... I need him.
The world needs him.}
Malik’s lips barely moved.
A twitch, nothing more.
But then...
He noticed the writing shift again.
It beca shaky and uneven.
Different.
{I saw a nightmare.
...Or was it a dream?
A tide. An unending wave.
Black. Swallowing the world.
They blanketed the skies...
And the Shams...
Its dusk... rose from the west.
Heads rolled. Gates collapsed. Cities burned.
None of us escaped.
Not one.
IT conquered.
The Fall is here.
Our lives are lost.
I was too late.
...I need to die.}
"..."
"..."
"..."
Silence.
Malik stared.
...And stared.
For a long ti.
Minutes?
Hours?
It felt like an eternity.
His fingers pressed tightly into the book.
For the briefest mont, a thought passed through him.
He could keep it.
Use it.
Cyrus’s words could shake kingdoms.
One page alone would allow him to maneuver their noble world as he liked.
Besides, Fam Iblis might deserve to know the truth.
This could serve as proof.
Proof of their demise.
Their Fall.
But...
No.
It’d work only for a world that could survive it.
Malik slowly exhaled, and...
That was enough.
Fwoosh.
A spark lit up.
The book caught fire. It burned.
Black ash drifted down, crumbling away.
In monts, there was not a trace left of Cyrus’s thoughts.
Nothing. Nothing that would throw the entire world into mayhem.
Once the last ember faded, with a voice so quiet it felt like it belonged to soone else...
"Your Fall..."
Malik whispered.
"It has ended."
Then slowly turned.
His feet moved toward the window, heavy like stone.
Velvet curtains whispered aside, and light cut through the marble fra.
But... this light didn’t feel like light, not anymore.
The entire world felt a tad darker and murkier.
This was no hallucination, because, well...
It didn’t take him long to find an anomaly.
The cause of this change.
His golden eyes narrowed.
He saw it.
Outside.
Below.
Just before the eastern gate of the Holy Palace.
A massive tree, taller than any building around it.
And it wasn’t any random tree, no.
It was that tree.
The one he’d never forget.
Black and twisted, with gnarled branches clawing at the sky.
Fingers of sothing long dead but still screaming.
A tree he had seen before...
Beyond the Edge.
Beyond the world.
Beyond death.
Beyond life.
Zaqqum.
The Tree of Hell.
Of Jahannam.
A cursed thing that wasn’t supposed to exist anywhere near the realm of n.
It stood there, towering over walls, even the damned towers.
Its bark was charcoal, cracked, leaking the sa black sludge.
Its leaves were razor-thin, rattling in the wind.
And... it wasn’t alone.
No.
As Malik’s eyes dragged further—left... right...
More.
Another tree in the eastern garden.
Another at the eastern barracks.
And another. And another.
One at every gate, each facing the east.
At every border and every road out of the Holy City.
There were too many.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
No. The worst part... was the lotuses.
On the roots.
On the trunk.
On the branches.
A hundred, a thousand lotuses, all filled with eyes.
They were wide and open... alive.
Each one was different.
So slithered like serpents.
So were round like a child’s.
So burned red, while others drowned in a foggy white.
And as Malik’s gaze lowered—
His breath caught.
The people.
The people gathered beneath the Eastern tree... chatting, walking, trading... not seeing it.
They weren’t seeing anything out of the ordinary, not anything.
But on their skin...
On their backs.
Their necks.
Their hands.
Lotuses.
The sa lotuses.
So had them hidden beneath their clothes.
So had them across their faces like tattoos of damnation.
A child skipped rope while a twelve-petalled lotus was on her bare feet.
A rchant laughed with his five-petalled lotus on the side of his damned throat.
An old woman haggled over dates while the eyes on her seven-petalled lotus stared straight at Malik through the glass.
...It all clicked.
He knew.
The petals were a countdown.
And if at the end, the eyes on the tree matched the eyes on their skin...
Then Depravity must have chosen them.
’His’ knowledge would be killing them.
Sultans... only Sultans could see this.
Only those who didn’t need to check their own skin.
Only they...
Only they had this noose around their necks.
A noose made of curses.
Forced to watch an...
An hourglass.
An hourglass that wasn’t only for themselves.
It was for the entire world.
One that paused for no one.
Right, they were left with just the inevitable.
The weight.
The rot.
"Cyrus..."
...The Fall.
"Don’t sleep."
{End Of Volu Seven: The Fall Is Here}
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