Solar calendar year 775
I am the daughter of King al‑Haddad, the lawful heir to the throne of Sheba, and I find myself poised upon a fateful brink in my own story and in that of my realm. On that day the palace breathed the scent of frankincense—as it ever did—and the oil‑lamps flung darting tongues of flame that kindled the walls and cast lithe shadows like restless spirits in search of rest. Time appeared to freeze, as though the instant itself had been torn from the river of hours to bear me toward an unsuspected destiny. Though I knew well the daunting trials confronting the kingdom of Sheba, it had never crossed my mind that the decisive moment that would alter all things had already arrived.
I stood before the golden mirror in my chamber, contemplating the pallor of my features in the candle‑light, my hand drifting absently through the length of my black hair. A muted, half‑formed unease stirred within me, as though the wind had carried whispers too faint to grasp. Suddenly a sharp knock resounded at the door—unlike the servants' customary taps, laden with a gravity that foretold calamity. Instinct told me no good lay behind that summons. Mustering my resolve, I bade the visitor enter. The hinges groaned in melancholy, and Grand Counsellor Khazabala stepped across the threshold.
Khazabala—whose speech had ever brimmed with wisdom, whose eyes shone with keen discernment—seemed changed. Those eyes, once bright with intelligence, now drooped beneath the weight of sorrow; the familiar allure of his face had faded, and silence clung to him like an unpierced veil. In a voice no louder than a sigh he whispered, "My princess, I bear grievous tidings: your father, King al‑Haddad, lies upon his death‑bed, and the physicians say he will not see the dawn."
The earth seemed to give way beneath me, and I plunged into a whirlpool of utter stillness. Though omens had hinted at my father's decline, I was unprepared for such a blow. Words betrayed me; the air itself pressed upon my chest like iron. Yet I knew this was no hour for collapse or hesitation. I ordered Khazabala to take me to my father at once, though I felt the coming moments would weigh heavier than my heart could bear.
I followed him along the broad corridors of the palace, each footstep tolling like a funeral drum. The passages I had known since childhood felt estranged, transformed into hollow labyrinths where past and present mingled in uneasy confusion. Carved walls and statues that once proclaimed might and sovereignty were now mere phantoms of a world whose balance had slipped away. We came at last to the ornate doors of my father's chamber, where the hushed voices of court physicians and courtiers murmured, and awe wrapped every syllable in dread.
Crossing the threshold, I seemed to enter another realm—a realm steeped in sickness and the closeness of death. My father lay upon silken pillows, yet the majesty that had clad him was spent, leaving a frail trunk gnawed by time. His eyes—once ablaze with strength—struggled to hold mine, filled with longing and a final hope. I drew near and clasped his trembling hand. In a throat scraped raw he said, "Belqīs, my daughter, my time is nearly done. Sheba needs a sovereign of resolve; only you can shield this legacy."
His words bore a depth that left me voiceless; fear and reverence for the burden he placed upon me surged together. He granted no reply, continuing in a breath that was scarcely sound: "Leave no room for doubt, my child—you are ready. There are secrets that must be guarded, and Sheba leans upon you." In that moment I felt his life ebb through my fingers; his eyes closed for the last time. My father departed the world, leaving a ponderous inheritance and a duty beyond what words can hold.
I stood alone before the void, laden with the weight of past and present, while around me voices engaged in the rites of death. It was a hushed sorrow that allowed no weakness. I had not the luxury of mourning.
The day my father, King al‑Haddad—Son of the Sun and Keeper of its Mysteries—died, the heavens above Sheba split with a strange radiance, as though ancient suns had converged to cast their farewell blaze upon that destined hour. At the palace gate time itself halted, broken only by the solemn tread of the cortege. The multitude wore garments of pure white, emblem of innocence and of the sun‑beam that threads our lives. Slowly the ritual began, pacing behind a golden bier that flashed with legendary brilliance.
The procession flowed like a river through sacred streets: soldiers in white cloaks, venerable elders with brows bound in light, all paying homage to the greatest monarch of our age. The scent of myrrh and incense mingled with the damp breath of the earth, for we had ordered the very road to be perfumed, weaving the old legend of a bridge from this world to the next. Around the bier intricate carvings portrayed the sun in her four stations—birth, youth, zenith, and decline—reciting the tale of us, children of the sun, as the cycles of life and death entwine.
In the great square of the Temple of the Sun I drew breath amid a vast throng wrapped in funeral awe. When my father's bier passed beneath the colossal solar pillar, a towering dais rose before us; there the body was laid, and behind it stood an immense mirror that gathered the sun's rays and sent them pouring over al‑Haddad. The priests wore garments of blazing gold, like a beam sprung from the heart of that austere stone edifice, and they began to chant ancient hymns whose echoes trembled through the sky‑wide court like whispers born at the dawn of time.
While our eyes were lifted to the sun at its zenith, beating in perfect accord with the deep reverberation of drums, a hush—shot through with a single strand of rapture—settled over the multitude. The high priest raised his arms toward the heavens and cried, in a voice dredged from the marrow of antiquity:
"O son of the sun, bearer of her light, who ruled with justice and with might—today we return you to that very light. May your departure be a flame that never dims, and may your spirit stand sentinel over our kingdom."
It seemed as though the very deep of the earth answered his words, that the departed king was escorted with sovereign splendor and a solar summons that bound our world to an eternal sky.
When at last the sun sank into a copper‑burning west, the temple rang with hymns of farewell. Priests unfurled golden shields around the dais, and loosed calm tongues of fire—a sign that al‑Haddad had been restored to his first source. Incense and myrrh mingled with the soft throb of drums in every heart, and I felt then that I stood not only before the end of my majestic father's era, but at the threshold of a heaven flung open—charged to bear alone the blaze of royal blood, to shine…or to be consumed.
In the days that followed his funeral, grief and elation wove their rites together. For every ache at losing the "Son of the Sun," a strange quickening proclaimed my political birth. I watched solar processions flicker out and flare anew; soldiers marched in garments of purity, their swords encrusted with solar sigils; ranks of women chanted of al‑Haddad's valor and the steadfast Guard of the Sun. Every detail drifted like a dream, striking me with the truth that I was no longer merely the child of that indomitable king—I was Belqīs, burdened with a vast inheritance and destined to steer Sheba toward an age I could scarcely envision.
The moment of seating myself upon the throne was stern. A gilt seat enwreathed with ancestral garlands, the radiant crown of al‑Haddad placed upon it. Sages, elders, and captains bowed, yet their gazes diverged: some doubted a woman astride a power long held by a mighty king, others looked on me as the living mirror of my departed father's courage. I did not stifle my own doubts; an awe shuddered within me, for a weight no soul before me had borne now pressed upon shoulders some deemed unfit for rule merely because they were a woman's.
Contradictions pursued me through every rite of coronation. While my handmaids robed me in vestments sewn with solar emblems, I heard the drums resound in the palace court. Men and elders thronged a courtyard bright with banners of sun‑blossom and palm; they intoned prayers evoking my father's body, now legend among the stars. Yet beneath the pageant beat my secret fear of politics' alchemy—would they truly accept me, or only bow to custom without conviction?