(2025 – The Zagros Mountains, Iran)
The sun baked the high ridges of the Zagros like a kiln, casting long jagged shadows over Liam's rented jeep as it rattled up the gravel road. He had hired a local guide, Davoud, who spoke perfect English and carried a Kalashnikov with the casual confidence of a man used to bad surprises.
"You're not the first westerner to come looking for ghost cities," Davoud said, chewing sunflower seeds. "Most find only sand. Some find worse."
"I'm not looking for ghosts," Liam muttered, eyes fixed on the digital map he had reconstructed from the book. "I'm looking for memory."
Davoud snorted. "Memory gets you killed faster than bullets."
The last village, a half-abandoned place called Marzban-e Kohan, had warned them not to continue. Elders spoke of a "cursed valley," where voices cried in the wind and ancient stones bled when touched. Liam, naturally, insisted on going.
On the fourth day of hiking, the terrain shifted. Thorny shrubs gave way to jagged limestone walls, then to terraces shaped like steps—unnaturally symmetrical.
Davoud stopped. "No animal comes here. No birds. You smell that?"
Liam did. Not rot. Not sulfur.
Lilac.
The scent of Kael's valley. The scent of Avarin.
They descended into a narrow pass choked with mist. The temperature dropped, and Liam felt the air press inward. Then—ruins.
Carved into the cliffs, worn by time but unmistakable, were archways, murals, and stone roads, just as the book had described. Symbols glowed faintly in the low light: the sun and the three arrows.
Liam stepped forward—and the ground gave way.
He fell.
(4,164 Years Ago – Avarin)
Kael stood before the sealed chamber.
The door—an obsidian slab etched with gold veins—had opened just a sliver after the battle. It whispered to him at night. It showed him things: cities crumbling in fire, women with stars in their eyes, children naming him not as hero, but as curse.
"Don't do it," Ilya warned, gripping his arm. "Nothing good ever hides behind something sealed for a thousand years."
"I was born cursed, Ilya. Maybe it's time I met the one who did the cursing."
He entered.
The room was circular, filled with dust and echo. In its center stood a mirror—not glass, but polished black stone. And in it, Kael saw... himself.
Older. Worn. Wearing a crown made of twisted arrows and bone.
"You are not the first Kael," the reflection said. "Only the latest. The last."
"What am I?"
"A fire that forgets it was once forest."
The mirror shattered.
Kael woke on the ground outside the chamber, bleeding from the eyes. Ilya was shouting. Tavo wept. Seriyah stood in silence, clutching her stomach.
She was pregnant.
(2025)
Liam awoke in a dark chamber, the air stale and thick with dust.
He reached for his flashlight—gone. Phone—cracked but working. Its faint glow lit up a room filled with murals. He staggered up and stared.
Kael, again and again, crowned, wounded, laughing, dying.
But in the final mural—Kael handing a book to a man in modern clothes.
Liam.
The depiction was unmistakable. Same hair, same scar on his chin. And above it, the same words repeated:
"He who reads shall remember. He who remembers shall return."
A low rumble echoed through the walls. The dust on the floor rose, lifting into shapes, into words. They spiraled around Liam like a whirlwind.
He saw Avarin burning. He saw a woman in a silver veil holding a child above the fire. He saw the sun pierced by arrows fall from the sky.
And he heard Kael's voice:
"Finish what I began."
Liam fell to his knees.
In the chamber's center, something rose from the floor. Not a weapon. Not gold.
A map. Etched in light.
And next to it, a heartbeat.