The temple stood half in ruins, with broken columns and collapsed roofs, yet the goddess’s statue still rose imposingly at the center. Immense, naked, and perfect, with firm breasts, long sculpted legs, and those eyes of polished obsidian that seemed to follow us no matter which way we turned our heads.

  I was leaning against a shattered column, my side bandaged with filthy rags, the metallic taste of blood still clinging to my tongue and teeth. Then the voice came. It didn’t issue from the statue; it resonated inside our heads, soft as silk gliding over skin and at the same time cold as the edge of a freshly forged sword.

  “I, the Great Goddess, will make your deepest desires come true. Ask. Speak. Do not fear.”

  Suddenly, the stone figure came to life. The rock reshaped itself into warm, glorious, sensual, perfect flesh. It was Narian, goddess of desires, one of the thousand daughters of the Sun and the Moon. Ardeshir, my friend, dropped to his knees at once, his forehead nearly touching the dusty ground.

  I didn’t move. Everything had gone to hell long ago, and the gods—if they even existed—would need far more than granting some stupid wish to fix it. They’d have to bring our entire empire to its knees begging for forgiveness.

  I laughed. It was a long, hoarse, exhausted laugh, the kind that rises when there’s no strength left even to cry. Everything hurt: my fractured ribs, my pride in tatters, the certainty that by dawn the Parthians would once again be hammering at the gates of Ctesiphon.

  “A goddess?” I murmured, spitting on the ground with contempt. “Sure. And I’m Darius the Great, risen from the dead.”

  Ardeshir glanced at me sidelong, serious as ever.

  “Don’t be blasphemous, my prince. If it’s a trick, we lose nothing. If it’s real… we lose the only chance we have left to save what little remains.”

  I laughed again, shorter this time, and lifted my gaze to those black, deep, sensual eyes that never blinked.

  “Fine, goddess. Since you insist so much…” I paused theatrically, leaning harder against the column to keep from collapsing. “I want a beautiful bride. Innocent in her face, but with a body made of pure lust. Bold only with me. Her character provocative in every movement, every glance, every time she breathes near me. And on top of that, let her be my personal bodyguard. Let her wield a sword better than I do, cover my back in battle… and wake me every morning with a good cock-sucking. That’s what I want. Nothing more.”

  Silence. Only the wind whistling through the broken columns.

  I looked at Ardeshir.

  “Your turn, friend. What do you ask of the goddess who supposedly listens?”

  He lowered his eyes to the crumpled papyrus he held in his hands, as if the answer had been written there all along.

  “I would wish…” his voice trembled just slightly “…that our minds could travel to the past. If you are so powerful, goddess, give us back our memory in reverse. Let us change, with all we now know, what is yet to come. Let the long night falling over our nation be destroyed before it swallows us whole.”

  Another silence. Longer. Heavier.

  The goddess didn’t move. The obsidian eyes remained fixed on us, without pity or compassion.

  I laughed again, this time with less force, almost in resignation.

  “What a pair of idiots we are. One asks for an impossible woman, the other for a historical miracle.”

  Ardeshir carefully rolled up the papyrus, his fingers trembling.

  “Perhaps the goddess only wanted to hear us say it out loud.”

  I shrugged, feeling the wound in my side open a little more, hot and wet beneath the bandages.

  “Or perhaps she just wanted to laugh at us before they kill us in a little while.”

  Then, from the goddess’s open hands burst a blinding white light. Her perfect lips curved into a slow, almost cruel smile.

  “So be it.”

  .

  .

  Ariadna. Ariadna. Ariadna.

  The name bounced inside her skull like a coin trapped in an empty container: insistent, metallic, impossible to silence. Each repetition reminded her that she was no longer Ardeshir, the royal scribe with the steady voice and precise quill, but this… diluted, feminine version that destiny—or that capricious goddess—had decided to impose upon her.

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  She chewed a piece of dry bread that tasted of ash and defeat. She did it slowly, almost deliberately, as if by dwelling on each bite she could delay the moment when she would have to accept that this was her new ritual.

  Before, as Ardeshir, she ate at high tables, ink still on her fingers and the smell of old papyrus clinging to her skin. The men devoured their food first, without waiting, without asking permission. Now, sitting on the floor of the family dining room upon a soft silk cushion embroidered with golden threads, she waited. She waited for the males to finish with the most generous portions of stewed lamb, the ripest fruits, the freshly baked bread. Only then could the women—and she among them—approach the rest.

  It was a small change, almost invisible to the others, but for Ariadna, it was obscene in its thoroughness.

  She sank a little deeper into the cushion. The fabric was soft, absurdly luxurious against her hips. For a fleeting instant, she let the sensation envelop her: warm, cozy, almost comforting.

  At least this doesn't hurt my back like the wooden benches of the scriptorium, she thought, and immediately hated herself for finding comfort in something so trivial. It was a pathetic, small thought, but in the midst of the whirlwind she carried inside, any small relief felt like a betrayal of who she had been.

  Around her floated the conversation of her sisters: a continuous murmur about silks brought from Samarkand, the price of saffron in the bazaar, the new hairstyle the Shah’s favorite was wearing this season, the rumor that a concubine had been sent to the Pavilion of the Forgotten for looking too long at a guard.

  Ariadna listened without participating. The words reached her like distant, irrelevant echoes. Before, she would have despised this chatter as frivolous; now she simply observed it, detached, like someone studying a manuscript in a language she barely understands. She felt no active contempt, just a kind of resigned strangeness.

  How do they occupy so much time with this? She wondered in silence. How do they manage to care so much?

  There was no anger in the question, only a cold, almost academic curiosity. Before, she would have let out a snort, a biting comment. Now the words remained inside, spinning, being examined from all angles before being discarded.

  She ate quickly, but without clumsiness. She bit, swallowed, bit again. She wanted to finish before anyone tried to include her in the conversation. Not because she hated them—not yet—but because she didn't know what to say. Her voice was still the same as in her childhood... but she could feel a slight feminine lilt she had never had before.

  She stood up carefully, adjusting the simple linen tunic she used to wear in her childhood: loose trousers, a plain white shirt. Men's garments, or almost. In them, she felt a little less feminine.

  For now, she reminded herself.

  She knew it was temporary. Sooner or later would come the flowing tunics, the filigree panties, the bras of exotic colors and designs, the pelvic-cut loincloths, the translucent veils, the bracelets that chimed like little chains. Makeup that turned an innocent girl into a seductress. And the sweet perfumes that clung to the skin like a second identity.

  The thought provoked a slow shiver that rose from the nape of her neck to the crown of her head. It wasn't panic, not yet. It was rather the serene and icy certainty of someone who sees a storm approaching and knows there is no shelter nearby.

  She was walking through the polished marble halls when Roxana intercepted her.

  Her older sister was a contained flare: hair red as embers at sunset, wavy down to her waist, green eyes that seemed to hold all the palace secrets. She had always been beautiful in a way that made others stop to look at her. Wearing a bra and panties with golden filigree and green accents, hers was a beauty everyone desired. Ariadna, on the contrary, was the younger brother who could never be a warrior, who had secluded himself in the world of knowledge.

  "Are you going to your friend the Prince, little sister?" Roxana asked. Her voice was soft, with that protective nuance that now seemed reserved only for her.

  Ariadna hesitated a second before answering.

  "Yes, yes…" she said finally, and the stutter tasted of surrender.

  Little sister. The word seemed ridiculous to her, infantile, as if they had not only changed her sex, but also her age, her rank, her dignity.

  The image of the Prince appeared in her mind: a cynical and quiet smile, crocodile tears when he spoke of his father, the Shah; an excellent swordsman and a terrible lover, according to what rumors said. An incorrigible womanizer who collected grievances the way others collected coins.

  Ariadna felt a slight rise of heat in her cheeks. It wasn't attraction—she knew that with certainty—but secondhand embarrassment. What a pity that that was now her "friend." It is a shame to have to call him that.

  "Don't forget the pass," Roxana added, arching a perfect eyebrow.

  "Pass?" Ariadna repeated quietly, frowning.

  Roxana laughed, a light laughter like silver bells, and pulled a fine gold bracelet set with a small ruby from a discreet pouch. Upon the metal shone the royal seal: a sun and moon intertwined.

  "You always lose it, silly girl," she said, placing it on her wrist with delicacy.

  Ariadna stared at it.

  She knew that bracelet. She had seen it thousands of times on the wrists of guests, concubines, and high-ranking servants. It was the key to the royal harem. Only women and eunuchs could cross those carved doors.

  In her previous life, as Ardeshir, she had waited outside. Always outside. While the Prince went in and out, laughing, smelling of jasmine and other perfumes that were not his own.

  Acum...

  The bracelet weighed more than it should.

  I can enter, she thought.

  The idea left her motionless for an instant. It wasn't joy nor morbid desire. It was a slow and bitter revelation: the place that had once been a forbidden mystery was now accessible... because she was no longer considered a man.

  Before, I fantasized about spying, even for an instant. Now I can enter. And yet... I would prefer a thousand times to keep waiting outside.

  "Thank you, sister," she murmured in a low, almost inaudible voice.

  Roxana messed up her hair with affection—a gesture she would have detested before—and walked away, leaving behind a trail of rose and amber perfume.

  Ariadna stood still for a moment, looking at the bracelet. Then she raised her gaze toward the ornate palace doors that led to the forbidden wing.

  This is just the beginning, she thought.

  Not with rage. Not with military urgency.

  With the cold and patient calm of someone who has read too many history books and knows that curses, like empires, are rarely resolved with swords.

  I will find a way, she told herself.

  I will save the Persian Empire and recover my scimitar.