Standing atop the ice-brushed peaks of the Yorodil Mountains, Queen Bahar's eyes sank into darkness, her heart filled with a venomous poison.
Before her lay the three great forces — Ayremira, Dalas, and Rukan — creations born from Barzak Bhagar and his hand, but today she was going to break them, caught within a vow of betrayal, trapped in the snare of a lie.
A storm raged within Queen Bahar's mind. It felt as though some celestial point had collapsed, the last border of her trust broken. "I believed,"
she cried out to herself,
"you were ours, our salvation… but this letter demands that I betray you?"
The Queen's voice trembled, all the emotions she held inside now impossible to contain. She once dreamt that the broken nations would one day sing the song of unity, but now before her stood the image of a traitor.
From anger, humiliation, and deep sorrow she shattered all Ayremira…
The great guardian of Ayremira, set upon the summit of the cave—those thousands of magical staffs—now began to fall one by one, as though with the breaking of each staff the Queen's heart was breaking as well. With each strike of her hand, the wind roared; each fracture sounded like the melody of her own heart splintering.
The soldiers standing behind her—handsome, broad-shouldered, eyes gleaming bright, each holding an extraordinary magical staff—felt a shadow of darkness in their gaze. They could understand the pain behind the Queen's decision, but even that understanding carried its own kind of sorrow. The staffs born to safeguard the realm were now slipping from their grasp.
She destroyed Dalas…
The three colossal stones beneath the mountain's ice—those indomitable sentinels that watched over the peaks—now stood before destruction. The thunder of breaking stone and the tearing of ice sounded like nature itself was crying. Each stone of Dalas, which once protected the mountain from enemy assault, leapt towards the sky in a cloud of ruin before shattering.
The Queen's deep sorrow and despair mingled with the sound of destruction, filling the air like a poisonous hymn. It felt to her as though this ruin was the reflection of her inner wounds. With the hand that broke them lay the remnants of all the trust and dreams she once held.
And she bound Rukan beneath the earth…
And that last one, Rukan.
The flowing magical waves of lava, which never allowed an enemy's foot to touch the ground, were now sealed beneath the earth.
From the depths of a great volcano, Rukan was locked away by sorcery, as though the fire hidden in the empire's heart had now been exiled.
Tears streamed from Queen Bahar's eyes, yet her hand carried a harsh decision—one taken for the sake of the realm. She knew that through this destruction, temporary peace would come, but the burning of her heart would grow even deeper.
Across the horizon around Bahar, ice and fire mixed, the air trembled, the echoes on the cave walls rippled—together shaping the final act of a fearsome drama.
The future of the empire seemed to hang by a fragile thread, where trust and betrayal fought their silent war.
*******
Deep night.
Queen Bahar stood atop the mountain, looking down toward the cave below. Where the shattered remains of Ayremira were scattered, where the fragments of Dalas lay like frozen ruins. And from beneath the earth came the muffled cry of Rukan buried under heavy silence.
There, alone in that dark hour, she understood—broken trust is never easy. What is lost can never be regained. In the stillness of night, the mountain wind hummed the name of Barzak Bhagar, and her deep, wounded sorrow.
"You abandoned me,"
she cried out toward the horizon,
"you broke our oath, yet I believed."
The grief of Queen Bahar mingled with the scent of the lies crafted by her enemies, carried by the drifting winds in the depths of the mountains.
And that evening, the sky of Yorodil wrapped the entire empire in darkness, where everything was breaking—power, trust, and heart.
Queen Bahar's decision, however harsh, still held within her eyes the wound of trust and the bitter ache of a broken vow.
And from that night on, the horn of freedom never again sounded for the winged Samardun people flying across the sky of the Balan Empire.
******
The cold wind trembles softly across the ice-kissed peaks of the Yordil mountain range.
The sun is slowly sinking into the western horizon, and in the last crimson glow, the peaks seem to burn in a strange fiery bath.
That fiery bath feels like a symbol of the world's suffering, like a silent call sent from the sky — a call no one could hear.
On the slick icy surface of the peak, where the ancient caves of the Samardun people lie hidden, there rests a vast silence today. No roar echoes around them — only the sharp gusts of wind and the subtle shiver between stones. This peak was their refuge, where they were imprisoned for ages — the very peak that was once their homeland, once their pride.
They had waited for the day when the songs of their warrior-maidens would rise like waterfalls, and with those songs would resound the ancient conch — the one that carried the message of freedom. The sound of that conch was the symbol of liberation, the symbol of unity, and it would only be blown when their chains broke, when they regained complete freedom.
They listened with all their hearts for the sound of that conch...
They believed the conch would be blown. That its call would end their long pain and endless waiting.
But as they kept waiting for that sound, shadows of despair slowly fell across their eyes.
Days came, nights came, centuries passed, yet the conch never sounded.
Their hope slowly faded, yet each new generation seemed forced to wait for that distant sound, forced to hope for freedom, forced to believe that one day they would spread their wings again and return to the earth they once loved.
Even today their hearts beat for that conch. The fact that it never sounded only deepens their suffering. Every heart bears an invisible scar — this endless waiting has become the pulse of their very lives.
They look at one another and say,
"The conch never sounded."
Even the finest warriors, whose shoulders carried shadow-forged weapons and whose faces glowed like embers, finally understood that the symbol of their freedom would never come. That sweet dream was torn apart, falling drop by drop like the stinging spray of a broken waterfall.
They keep their ears open for the conch's call… but the conch remains silent.
Their wings seem to break, the fire in their eyes dims, and their hearts melt under the long years of chains and betrayal.
Their cave walls echo with the song of emptiness, swirling around them — a lonely melody that breaks the spirit.
Still they wait, listening for the sound of the conch. Even if they knew it would never be blown, they might still try to hear it, enduring every pain within their hearts.
Because within the silence of that unblown conch lies their history, their sorrow, and the uniqueness of their existence.
They wait for the day — the day when the winds will carry the music of freedom, the day they will spread their wings and fly once more.
The Samardun people who live upon the peaks of the Yordil mountains hear only silence, hear only the whisper of the cold wind.
They listen for the conch's call… but the conch never sounds.