The following night, under darkness cloaking the palace, I sought her balcony. She stood gazing over the city's muted lights; when she turned to me, her eyes held questions for which she wished no answers. Deep uncertainty lay in what must be done next, how to confront the opposition that tightened with each passing day.
I entered her chamber, finding the air heavy, as if all conflicting meanings had gathered there. The incense burned through generations at the palace thresholds, and wings of death still fluttered in memory since al Haddad's passing. This path tonight was not carpeted in ceremony; since the king's death, time itself seemed withdrawn from its native channels and now circled an anxious void a void now filled by his heir Balqis, waiting behind gilded doors for threads of counsel and rays of advice.
Each step I took toward her I measured not the physical space between me and the throne, but the span between power and revelation, between ancient custom and renewal, between tribal doubt and the palace walls. Her eyes, when she raised them to me, spoke of bewilderment wrapped around a core of resolve. I saw in their glimmer a sun sinking toward the horizon of a wandering kingdom yet refusing to set. I smiled inwardly the light of al Haddad still coursed in her blood, though palace men and provincial elders believed it not.
My bow was calculated neither fawning submission nor hidden arrogance: a gesture the discerning eye would read as a blend of old respect and present caution. I knew the age had shifted; titles alone no longer commanded awe, and the mere tilt of a head no longer deceived those who had learned to read past gestures. I, Khazabla, understood this moment was a test, and every word must take its square upon the political chessboard.
"Majesty," I said, my voice laced with dawn's cool mist, "in the corridors the whispers grow many, and in distant courtyards gather the shadows of men inhabited solely by doubt." I was probing, sliding a needle beneath the skin to study her reaction would she falter, bristle, flaunt inherited power without prudence? Yet her eyes withstood my prodding; she accepted my words, though still pulsing with questions.
Softly, masking unease, she replied, "So you have heard what they spread… a ruling council, perhaps even a man to share the throne. They know nothing of me, nor of al Haddad's blood in my veins."
I arched my left brow my subtle cue when casting a stone into still water. "Daughter of the Sun, were their protest a simple quibble with a woman's reign, your decree and the royal guard could silence it. The true riddle is why now? Why disturb ancient customs long asleep beneath the ashes of ages? Is there not an unseen hand drawing these strings?"
She met my gaze, puzzled, and asked, "What do you mean, Khazabla? Do you think this matter more than tired tradition? Is someone striving to unsettle me so soon after my enthronement?"
I stepped closer the movement more than bodily advance, but a descent into the plot's marrow and whispered: "Because al Haddad's absence carved a void. Void, my queen, is a living thing in the minds of the ambitious a space to be filled with a substitute, a new emblem. They do not oppose your womanhood alone, but your nascent strength before its roots sink deep. Who profits from shaking your foundations?"
Her eyes narrowed, trying to pierce the darkness for the puppeteer's hand. She was grasping that the attack was no routine relapse of tradition, but a design to seize power before her legitimacy could set. "They seek a breach," she said. "I will not yield." Within I applauded her inner firmness the very steel I need in a hidden ally working behind the veil.
I would not have her believe that strength, by itself, could vanquish suspicion. In a measured, tutor's tone I said, "Majesty, force alone never routs doubt. Display too much steel and they will deem you a shield that hides fragility; show too much softness and they will brand you weak." In that moment I framed the dilemma: any excess, in either direction, becomes a stone your rivals add to their fortifications. Such is the game of shadows, my queen we must illuminate the gloom, not charge blindly into it.
When she asked my counsel, I did not hand her a final answer; instead I opened before her the labyrinth of strategic thought. "They lurk behind ghostly customs, seeking to seize initiative. How do we compel them to stand in daylight, uncloaked in their true intent?" I placed the thread in her grasp; a wise counsellor imposes no solution but provokes a sovereign's own insight. She caught the thread at once. "If I summon the tribal elders to the temple square," she said, "they will be forced to voice their demands. Should they withdraw, I appear the open ruler while they cower; should they attack, they unmask themselves."
I applauded softly, the light in my eyes growing brighter she had passed the test. Yet the game held deeper gears. I posed a second quandary: "Suppose they exploit the public gathering, couching their claims in honeyed concern for the realm. What then? You will be pinned between pleasing them and angering them between seeming stubborn and seeming to yield." Here I placed the largest nail in her path: Balqis stands caught between appeasement and defiance, between strength and concession.
She did not waver long. She spoke of a vision larger than mere rebuttal, an initiative rising beyond the conspirators' dusk. She would invoke al Haddad's legacy, proclaim that the sun of Sheba discriminates neither man nor woman, establish an advisory council granting the elders voice yet denying them command. Her acumen astonished me she was turning the noose at her neck into a garland of triumph. Thus are leaders' legitimacies forged: by transmuting every weakness into a wellspring of power.
I smiled at her this time with warmer sincerity. "Such is true craft, Daughter of al Haddad. Let them feel safe as counsellors, not sovereigns. Fear no listening; wisdom lies not in speaking most but in steering speech. You are his heir they forget. But I shall not."
For a moment I fell silent while my mind spun future paths. I knew the road would be harsh and this but the first step of many, yet Khazabla flame lent her added courage. I teach her not ready answers but the art of forging them. Glancing at the moonlight streaming through the lattice, she seemed to murmur to herself, Let conspiracies come; night, however long, must yield to dawn.
Khazabla myself bowed lightly and withdrew, leaving in the air the echo of bright questions and bequeathing her an unbending resolve. Today I understood that guarding al Haddad's legacy is no longer enough: I must help fashion a new era one where Balqis braves mazes of shadow by thought, not sword. Her foes ply whisper and deceit; she masters listening and transmutation, and such a queen is not easily overthrown.