The royal hall was silent.
Hundreds of guards, ministers, and historians stood inside the great chamber.
It was as if even sound itself had forgotten its existence in the burning gaze of King Oril.
His throne was tall, made of dark gold, with banners hanging behind like shadows turned to dust—as if the roar of some ancient beast had fallen silent, now hanging still. On the ring finger of his left hand burned the Ursan Bloodroot—a ring he wore only during royal judgments.
He did not rise. He remained seated—but that stillness was like the silence of a mountain, the calm before a storm. His eyes slowly lifted and locked with Bahar's.
Bahar—the once radiant light of the royal court, once the voice of truth—now stood like a fallen leaf, spine straight, yet hollow within.
The king's voice was unbroken, soft, yet piercing. His words were like blades of ice—falling gently like petals, yet cutting deep through the heart.
"Bahar. You seek truth? Then go, and now live with your truth alone, upon the peaks where no soul treads. There, be a queen, be a ruler, write your history—but in this court, your voice is forbidden."
That was the decree of Oril Balan.
In that moment, even the blink of an eye seemed to freeze. No cries were heard.
No mountain-shattering anger.
But in Oril's eyes—there burned the fire of a volcano buried under ice, a flame that never rose outward, yet kept burning everything within.
The hundreds of guards, ministers, and historians—all lowered their heads. For they knew—a punishment harsher than death had just been declared.
Solitude.
Namelessness.
An exile of truth.
******
The wide royal road.
Gardens on both sides.
The palace visible in the far distance.
Bahar walked on. Her head was held high, but on her face lingered something else—a trace of breaking, a shadow of fierce resolve.
There were no guards around her. Not even a chain or rope.
For Oril knew—Bahar no longer needed to be bound by shackles. She was imprisoned within her own pride.
That royal court where Bahar once stood among a hundred princes, throwing arguments like sparks of fire—today, that same voice was exiled, for she had spoken the truth.
And by that royal command, Bahar was sent—to the western mountains of Leodbur, a harsh and lonely province, where mist covers the sky all year, where in winter nights even the wind snows, and where the heartbeat of a horse can be heard from two miles away.
******
The Leodbur Mountains.
Leodbur was a realm of blue snow, where cold was not just a feeling—but a mockery. Even the air froze into shards of sound.
Not even birds flew that high.
Bahar arrived at a valley—where a hollow cave lay coiled among the rocks.
Inside that cave, she looked up once—bathed in the last rays of sunlight resting on the mountain's spine.
They had told her she would find power there. But there was no crown on her head. Only in her eyes burned—a deep flame, the kind that one day consumes civilisation and shapes history.
On the stone walls of that cave, she began to carve with her own hands… not a kingdom, but echoes. Each of her words was now history—but for whom?
Far away, in Leodbur, the sun was setting. Snow was falling—silently.
And Bahar, leaning against a rock, sat writing on stone with a piece of raw coal—
"I am not powerful.
I am only an exiled voice—
one who had heard,
but could tell no one."
The name of that small province remains hazy in history. Some call it Kaylira, some Kaylir, but the people know it only by one name—The Kingdom of Bahar.