The solar calendar, year 775, twenty third day after the passing of King al Haddad.
No herald proclaimed Queen Balqis's absence; none dared speak aloud of her whereabouts. Yet hushed murmurs drifted through the long, dark corridors of Sun Shield Palace: she had vanished days ago, leaving behind a dam of mystery and a delta of questions. Some whispered that she secluded herself in mourning, others that she had slipped away on a clandestine errand. I alone knew the truth from the moment her last footstep faded beyond the colonnades.
Few at court know my name, and fewer still utter it. Among Sheba's soldiers and nobles, I am called the Queen's Shadow, moving through governance's gloaming to gather threads and shield the throne before our adversary's scent weakness. This talent would never have sharpened had not Counsellor Khazabla seen promise in me long ago. "In open war," he said, "the sword saves you; in wars of shadow, wit and subtlety save you first." From that day I became his hidden arm in the palace's labyrinth.
When the Queen disappeared, stories first suggested religious retreat or exhaustion beneath grief's weight; yet tribal sheikhs and city elders sniffed deception. I saw the watchful question in their eyes: Has she truly gone? And why? The fire spread when Khazabla maintained an iron silence.
In the days that followed I traced many signs that factions within the court meant to profit from her absence. Certain chieftain's chief among them Hamdan ibn Riyan moved quietly to revive talk of a "tribal council" sharing the sovereign's power. Each night I slipped through hospitality halls and service corridors in my dark cloak, harvesting the whispers. Whenever I wove together the strands of a plot I arranged a swift council with Khazabla in a secluded corner of his library. By a pale candle he read my notes, his eyes gleaming with devious calm.
One report told how the high priest had begun preaching that a female ruler must accept a spiritual "guardian" beside her then, more boldly, that rule could not rest in a woman's hands unshielded by male sanctity. Khazabla murmured while he read: "Do not contradict him openly. Let him drown in his illusion until Balqis returns with a weapon no creed can withstand. In politics, my silent shadow, never break your foe at the outset; allow him to think himself mighty, so he reveals all his devices at once."
I obeyed. I dispatched our agents of darkness to eavesdrop on seditious gatherings. They returned with tales of shameless boasts: "When the Queen returns, she shall bow to our masculine traditions or be unseated." I watched alliances sprout between these sheikhs and certain guardsmen whose loyalty could be bought. All passed into my ledger, then into Khazabla cautious hands.
Yet worry gnawed my ribs. What if the Queen met some bleak fate beyond our walls? Khazabla trusted her return, but I was not privy to her mission's map. On sleepless nights I stared at the vacant throne and feared Sheba might crumble if her journey stretched on how long before the dissenters kindled open fire?
Amid my unease the counsellor's face remained serenely dangerous, projecting a measured calm through the court. By his order we lured our adversaries into the open. The high priest declaimed his right to spiritual regency; Hamdan ibn Riyan rallied tribes "to rescue Sheba from vacancy." They basked in the belief they commanded the scene while I, unseen, recorded each move and fed them subtle misdirection's to swell their pride.
Ten arduous days passed a tapestry of schemes and counter schemes. Rumors surged; some dared to say, "Should we not learn her fate? Has she abandoned us unbidden?" Tension neared eruption. Then, on the tenth evening, a breathless runner reached me: a small party from the wasteland approached the city, bearing an exhausted woman and three or four men scarcely able to walk. My heart lurched could it be she?
Under the cloak of night, I slipped from a side gate unseen. Following signals from my watchers I spied a band staggering step by step. In the dim reach of torches, I saw her plainly: Queen Balqis, eyes alight with equal parts weariness and adamant steel, her fist clamped about an ancient scroll. Drawing close, I dipped my head in reverence; her gaze flashed acknowledgment.
"I have looked full in the face of death, my silent shadow," she said, breath ragged yet firm, "but I have returned."
Relief beat through my chest. "If you carry what we need to hush the dissenters, their reckoning is near. The palace throbs with one question where are you? What will you do now, my Queen?"
She drew back the edge of her cloak. In her eyes blazed a spark beyond error, and she spoke
"I shall lay before them what they have long refused to see. I hold a proof that will dissolve their arguments and I shall unveil it when their masks begin to crumble."
She wasted no breath. Exhaustion mantled her limbs, and the condition of the men beside her testified to the inhuman ordeal they had endured. I turned to them and read in their faces a mingled relief and dread at the palace trial still ahead. I motioned them after me through a rear passage unpatrolled by the main gate guards; we could not allow the city to glimpse its sovereign until the counsellor had staged her return precisely as he intended. As we slipped among crumbled outworks toward the inner wall, I heard one of the weary guards' murmurs, "We are alive… we never believed we would be."
She followed two paces behind, her pride intact beneath the journey's scars. Near a side entrance that led to the palace's secret corridors I lifted my gaze to the night stars, as though whispering to a man unseen: She is here, Counsellor prepares to reap the harvest sown in our season of feigned calm.
I paused and met her eyes; they still held a fierce ember ready to blaze anew. A sideways smile veiled my inner satisfaction: every soul who had wagered on a woman's frailty would now strike the stone of a different reality. We, bearers of darkness, see in shadow only the chance for her sun to flash at its appointed hour. On the threshold within, stern confrontations were waiting the high priest, Hamdan ibn Riyan, and the swagger bred by ten days of her silence.
Let them await her. In a single night mere days Balqis would show she returned not empty handed but armed with powers drawn from hidden realms, backed by the counsellor's guile and my schemes within the shade. Thus ends the vigil; Sheba will gather once more about a name born upon the sun's throne. As for me, I remain the shadow, eyes lifted to follow the coming struggle ordained for the woman who bears al Haddad's blood and perhaps another blood unknown to them yet.
I pulled aside an old dark drape screening a narrow stair. "No gatekeeper knows this passage," I whispered, scarcely loud enough for the queen at my elbow. "We reach the palace's north run through it. Khazabla instructed that your reappearance be timed." She nodded, drawing her cloak tight. Behind her two loyal guards clenched their hilts as though peril might burst from the stones. Silence clung to us; only a scattered breath brushed the marble walls.